topic Re: IPADs switching between ssids in Wireless

IPADs switching between ssids

Jeremy Phillips — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 04:01:35 GMT

Has anyone had this situation with IPADs. Ours keep bouncing between ssids. They also won't pick up both ssid eventhough they are being broadcasted. At least that is what we changed the setting to do. It use to not broadcast untill issues with these IPADs and MacBook Pro. These are Cisco 1231G Access Points. They do fine at most campuses but two of them they don't. I created a new vlan to try and match what Apple wants them to be. Here is the configuration:

dot11 ssid b0bc8t

vlan 24

authentication open

mbssid guest-mode

dot11 ssid ipad

vlan 5

authentication open

authentication key-management wpa

mbssid guest-mode

wpa-psk ascii (key)

interface Dot11Radio0

encryption vlan 24 key 1 size 128bit (key) transmit-key

encryption vlan 24 mode wep mandatory

encryption vlan 5 mode ciphers tkip

ssid b0bc8t

ssid ipad

With this configuration I restarted the APs and the devices now keep the key instead of just dropping it and stay on the network when finally connected. The devices should be seeing the ssid but none of the names come up when you do a search for any ssid. They only connect when you manually put it in. Can someone give me some advice as to which way to go from here.

IPADs switching between ssids

pcroak — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:33:00 GMT

Hi Jeremy,

When broadcasting multiple SSIDs using "mbssid guest-mode", you also need to make sure mbssid support is enabled globally on the AP, please make sure you have the following enabled:

AP(config)#dot11 mbssid

You should then be able to view these networks when scanning.

-Pat

IPADs switching between ssids

Jeremy Phillips — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:09:57 GMT

Hi Pat,

Thanks for the tip. When I tried that it gave me this:

SMS-AP-07(config)#dot11 mbssid

Error: Couldn't enable MBSSID on interface Dot11Radio0.

So I thought I needed to remove it from the two ssid and then apply it globally. I got the same message.

Then I restarted it. I will have to check tomorrow if this is successful. That campus is locked down for the night.

IPADs switching between ssids

pcroak — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:40:27 GMT

Hi Jeremy,

Hmm, thats interesting -- could you capture the following outputs from your AP:

"show version"

"show controller d0"

"show controller d1" (if you have a 5 GHz radio installed)

Thanks,

-Pat

Re: IPADs switching between ssids

Jeremy Phillips — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:47:47 GMT

HI Pat,

Thanks for all this help. The output seemed a little long so I attached the file.

Re: IPADs switching between ssids

pcroak — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:38:04 GMT

Hi Jeremy,

Alright, based on that output you should be able to enable mbssid on the radio -- I'm not really sure why you're receiving that error.

While I'm not aware of a specific bug ID, the code on the AP is a bit dated -- we could try upgrading the AP code to latest (12.3(8)JEE) to see if there is any change in behavior.

If that doesn't help, then I would suggest you open up a TAC case and we'll take a closer hands-on look.

-Pat

Re: IPADs switching between ssids

Jeremy Phillips — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:29:41 GMT

Hi Pat,

Sorry about getting back to you so late. Been running around all over the district putting out other fires.

We did open up a TAC case about this. But it is such a strange issue that the few things they could do solved it for a short time but as of yesterday they were back to having these problems. Been trying so many different ideas, even from Apple. But they're not much help.

These APs have been around for few years now and have lost their contracts.

I think some of these are just failing. Other campuses the PC laptops and small companion laptops for little kids are just being dropped from their connection and unable to re-connect. I get errors of wireless key being bad, or no longer valid, or just saying that the device disassociated itself when I know it didn't. These are things just all of a sudden popping up.

When I can get back to that campus tomorrow I will check to see if correcting the mbssid helped.

Thanks.

Re: IPADs switching between ssids

Jeremy Phillips — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:11:04 GMT

Hi Pat,

OK. After applying that command globally they are not dropping or switching between ssid. Some of them I needed to restart but others were fine in just accepting it.

Thanks for the help. It looks as though everything may work over there.