Encountering a DHCP error on your Mac can be a frustrating experience, as I know from personal experience. I spent several Saturday hours trying to debug issues with my network. In this article, we’ll go over some common reasons why you might not be getting an IP address from your DHCP server on macOS, and how you can troubleshoot and fix the issue.
The symptoms of the problem typically involve your Mac using a self-assigned IP address instead of obtaining one from the DHCP server. I initially thought that the issue might be with my network setup, which includes a gateway device (based on Turris Omnia), VLANs, firewalling, a switch, and a dedicated AP connected to the switch. There are many moving parts in such a setup, so there were plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong.
To diagnose the issue, I checked the logs on the gateway device and found repeating messages indicating that DHCP offers were being sent but no DHCP requests were being received.