Run Wireshark in monitor mode and filter the traffic sent and received by a wireless station (device under troubleshooting), with applicable filters.

Consider a scenario where an Apple wireless device just got activated and joining is an SSID. As you see next, the wireless device sends a probe request and gets a probe response from the AP. Filter used: (wlan.fc == 0x4000) or (wlan.fc == 0x5008):

Please note that the probe request is a broadcast, which is destined to all Fs mac-addresses.

As you see here, a valid probe response will have radio/link-layer information such as frequency, channel, SNR, and so on in the 802.11 radio information header, and transmitter and BSS information in the 802.11 probe response header.

The next image shows SSID, supported rates in Mbps, and other capabilities in the 802.11 wireless LAN header. Make sure that all of the information looks valid and compatible to the wireless adapter.

After getting a response, the wireless client gets associated with a specific SSID serviced by the AP. As shown next, after the probe request and response, the client and AP exchange a few more messages to complete the association process.

If you look at the 802.11 Wireless LAN header in the final Association Response frame sent by the AP, you should see the Status Code field as Successful. This indicates successful association of the client with the specific AP and SSID.