topic Re: Wireless network stability in Wireless

Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 01:58:27 GMT

Running WISMs on 6.0.196 and 4404's on 6.0.196 and seeing many wireless disconnects.

TAC has released to me 6.0.197.10 but still experiencing drops and another unidentified bug that I'm waiting to hear back on.

Anyone running 6.0.196 and seeing the same? Might be downgrading from 6.0.196 to 5.2.193 this weekend.

Kind of at a loss and need to get this resolved.

Re: Wireless network stability

Rob Huffman — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:59:44 GMT

Hi there,

Sadly, many people have run into this issue (check the second listed bug)

Software_Advisory_6_0_196_0.html

Software Advisory

Wireless LAN Controller Software

___________________________________________

Base Code: 6.0.182.0, 6.0.188.0, 6.0.196.0

Special Build: Following options are available:

1. Move to 7.0.98.0 Release posted on CCO. Please note, 7.0 is a new feature release.

2. Contact TAC to get a 6.0 Special or Beta release with fixes for the bugs below.

3. Wait for the CCO release of 6.0 MR3 (Maintenance Release), which is planned for July/August 2010

The code is designed for 2100 / 4400 / 5500 / WiSM / WLC3750 / WLCM

This Software Advisory Notice is issued against all the above Wireless LAN Controller software versions due to the following bugs:

CSCtf34858 Client can't transmit traffic if it reassociates to an AP within 20 sec
CSCte89891 Radio may stop transmitting beacons periodically

http://www.cisco.com/web/software/Wireless/Deferral/Software_Advisory_6_0_196_0.html

Cheers!
Rob

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:11:18 GMT

Agreed, but our conditions don't match. Maybe it doesn't matter though.

Symptom:
AP may stop transmitting beacons intermittently (maximum for 10 seconds) in a heavy multicast environment. Clients may drop during this period.

Conditions:
This problem will happen only in the presence of the following 3 factors.
1) RRM should be enabled (especially off-channel scanning)
2) Lot of multicast traffic should be present on the network.
3) Presence of power save clients.

Fix:
This issue has been fixed in 7.0 release and H MR3 release. All previous 6.0 releases (and earlier) have the problem.

We are using statically assigned channels and power settings. Also very little multicast traffic.

Re: Wireless network stability

4DigitCCIE — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:52:02 GMT

We ran into this bug (or a very similar one) in 6.0.182.0. There was not a lot of multicast, and RRM was enabled (although the power and channels were statically configured). We went to 188 and have not had the problem since. I'm very hesitant to move to one of the newer releases until we get some better feedback, but as of today, we are stable at 188 and have been for 6 months or so.

-John

Re: Wireless network stability

michacollins — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:59:51 GMT

My customer is experiencing similar client drops. However, they are not using RRM or multicast, running WLC code 5.2.193.0. Please share any info that comes available from the yet to be identified bug. They've been experiencing this for the better part of 6 months now.

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:06:16 GMT

Thanks for the info. I have a WebEx today to look into it further.

My thought was to downgrade to 5.2.193 might have to rethink that now.

I will update the tread with whatever information I can gather.

Re: Wireless network stability

4DigitCCIE — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:23:50 GMT

Just found the email with the bug ID we ran into -

http://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCta29484

I don't know about versions after 6.0.188.0, but we've not run into it since. BTW, we are running older 1231 APs...

John

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:09:11 GMT

6.0.199 has just been released today (ok, its not on the download site yet) but the release notes are, and has the software advisory bugs as being resolved.

Looks like I may free up a controller this weekend and move just a single building to the new release and test it.

I will post my findings..

Re: Wireless network stability

Leo Laohoo — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 22:29:05 GMT

Why not upgrade to 7.0?

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:51:54 GMT

With this being a multi-hospital environment I would prefer stability over the new features. I have applied this two one 4404 controller and moved a single offsite practice to it for testing. Only 5 access points but these are the loudest complainers when the wireless network experiences issues.

If this proves to be stable, then I will upgrade our other 4404s and WiSMs in a few weeks.

Re: Wireless network stability

Chuck Dillon — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:51:17 GMT

Has anyone moved from 6.0.196 to 6.0.199?

Was it a successful change? Are you still seeing any of the 6.0.196 buggy symptoms?

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:56:03 GMT

Upgraded one of our controllers and the users haven't had any disconnects or performance issues, yet. So far it looks really good!

Re: Wireless network stability

Chuck Dillon — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:17:11 GMT

UPDATE:

If you have Vocera in your environment stay away from 6.0.199

Going from 196 to 199 fixed many issues that we were having but broke Vocera.

What seems to be happening is the keepalive messages that badge sends to the vocera server are getting dropped, the badge goes off net, and it goes into a 'searching for server' state. It may fix itself after 30 sec, 1min, 5min etc... it's very sporadic or a battery pull might work.

Has anybody else seen this?

Re: Wireless network stability

Chuck Dillon — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:17:18 GMT

We have this Vocera / 6.0.199 issue narrowed down to inter-controller roaming. The badge only goes into a searching for server state during an inter-controller roam event.

Working with TAC.

Re: Wireless network stability

michacollins — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:51:28 GMT

Have other folks that were experiencing wlan drops upgraded to 6.0.199 and noticed an improvement?

Short of end user complaints, is there any other way to detect these drops and capture data when the drops ocurr?

Campbech1,

Is the one building that you upgraded to 6.0.199 still running smoothly with no drops?

Thanks,

Mike.

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:19:44 GMT

I have had three complaints of drops / application freeze ups from them last week. The testing has been positive enough that I am going to upgrade our remaining 7 controllers on Monday morning.

I will continue to post my findings.

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:21:11 GMT

Ok this has me worried. We too have Vocerra in our emergency department. Any more news on this?

Re: Wireless network stability

Chuck Dillon — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:46:52 GMT

I should be getting a newly generated bug id later today. I'll post

it when I get it.

Basically what we think is happening is that when the badge performs a L2, inter-controller roam, the WLC the client roamed to is not updating the switch CAM tables like it should be. So far, this does not seem to be affecting laptops. However I heard of this happening with handheld scannersas well. So my earlier statement about vocera was because they were the first to complain this is not a vocera specific bug.

Re: Wireless network stability

campbech1 — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:30:03 GMT

I just got word from our Vocera analyst that Vocera has released a notice concerning upgrading to 6.0.199. Guess this kills my upgrade planned for this weekend. I was hoping this was an isolated issue.

The Vocera Advisory states:

Vocera is aware of an issue that customers are experiencing after moving to Cisco WLC version 6.0.199 that manifests itself in a substantial increase in difficulty with badge communications to the Vocera Application Server over the network. Badges will display "Searching For Server" or "Searching For AP."

Vocera is working closely with Cisco and its mutual customers on the problem.

Please consult with Vocera Technical Support and Cisco TAC before upgrading to 6.0.199.

Re: Wireless network stability

Chuck Dillon — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:43:29 GMT

Yes, stay away from the 6.0.199

Here is the bug that has been filed for this issue: CSCti21621

I'm currently on a special eng release 6.0.196.159 - which fixes both of the following bugs: CSCtf34858 Client can't transmit traffic if it reassociates to an AP within 20 sec & CSCte89891 Radio may stop transmitting beacons periodically among others.
It is prior to the 199 'fix' that introduced the above bug,CSCti21621.

We made this change last night and so far so good.