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Warehouse wireless issues using WLC 5520 2.4ghz \ 11b on 2802e Access Points with MC92N0-G scanners with Anroid OS

deanwoolley
Level 1
Level 1

Since we migrated our entire infrastructure in our Warehouse environment we have had performance \ connectivity issues

 

Migrated from local 5508 WLC to offsite 5520

Migrated from 1242 APs to 2802e APs with Omni directional antennas (AIR-ANT2544V4M-R=)

Migrated from Psion Pro 3 scanner to MC92N0-G Android OS

 

We have had a wireless site survey completed and the layout is now correct but we still have issues.

We have had 3 cisco TAC cases raised and we still have issues.

 

We moved all to 5ghz range and this performed worse than on 2.4ghz.

We have lowered data rates \ disabled lower data rates etc as per Cisco recommendation and still have issues.

Power levels have also been ammended.

 

From testing with the Warehouse and monitoring connectivity it would appear to be issues when roaming between APs. Any assistance \ recommendations would be greatly appreciated. If you need any further information let me know. Below is the current data rates configuration as per the last TAC case opened.

 

 

41 Replies 41

Scott also would you recommend moving all the APs to their own flex connect group currently there is only one group for the whole site so this covers APs also in the office areas of the site. Is there any benefit to this other than management.

It depends on how many aps. 5520 can have up to 100 per FlexConnect group. This is mainly for roaming. As far as what else you have posted, the power levels, how high are the aps, because that can be a reason you might have issue. If the power level shows low, toward 8, this might mean you need to adjust the min tx power. If the aps are line of sight up high, they don’t know about coverage below, so you need to adjust the min tx to provide you with at least -68dbi throughout your roaming area. If you can’t achieve that or the tax power needs to be higher, closer to 1 or 1, then you don’t have enough aps or poor design using antennas.
-Scott
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Yes all the access points are line of sight up high going to say approximately 50-60ft high. I will adjust the min TX and see if that makes a difference. Thanks again Scott.

50’-60’ should be using external antennas. The internal antennas should only be used up to around 20’. You should focus on one AP and survey that aps coverage. What you will see is that coverage is worse underneath the AP and better when further out.
-Scott
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Yes all APs in the warehouse have external antennas (AIR-ANT2544V4M-R=) will focus on one AP and see how that goes.

Okay... focus on one each time. Look at where users complain the most as they would know. That’s the area(s) you should look into.
-Scott
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Hi Scott,

 

This post is indirectly significant to me as I am running a flexc pilot using different SD-WAN vendors (meraki, palo alto,fortinet and fatpipe vendors). I just notice in one site (small school with 15 AP's) that many of them are running 6 or higher TP but the same thing does not happen on my central auth/central switch deployment (both scenarios running in parallel). Is there anything other than adjusting the min TX where I should look at?. I am wondering if there is something wrong with RRM for FlexC.

 

thanks

How are those antennas exactly mounted?
Depending on how they point, they have a horrible or very good radiation pattern.
Check: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/antenna/installation/guide/ant2544v4m-r.html

Going to be onsite later this week so will take some photos they appear to installed the same across the environment.

Hello,

 

We have a 5520 WLC, and APs in Flexconnect mode (3802 ones), and MC92N0 scanners, with WCE7 OS onboard.

Like you we have encountered a lot of problem with MC92N0, we did not have with our old MC9090. What I've noticed is even in static position, just below an AP the scanner was keeping de-associate to associate to another AP and indefinitively. With the DHCP IP discover assignment each time, that was a nightmare.

 

After a couple of months of tearing hair off my head, I've finished to solve the problem, doing this on the WLC:

- Use 2.4 Ghz radio band, WPA2-PSK

- Use custom channels (1, 6, 11) and Power for each AP, to have static parameters and avoid disconnection due to reconfiguration by RRM, choose correct channels and Power manually as per the zone complexity/interferences

- Disable Cleanair on each AP -> This has definitively resolved our issues

 

For Scanners:

- Install last Firmware

- Disable 5Ghz radio band

- Set power in CAM mode
- Set static IP

 

 

Thank you for the info \ response will look to change power levels on a single AP in the most problematic area and will disable clean air on this AP at the same time. Testing will take place tomorrow. All other recommendations are already applied.

Out of interest was the disabling clean air a deciding factor in resolving the issue.

I have reached out to have the scanners settings checked.

Hi Clem,

 

I have a few questions:

 

What kind of deployment did you have with your old MC9090?. Did you replace your AP's or basically moved from Central AUTHC/Central Switching to FlexC and added the new MC92N0?.

 

I am wondering if the FlexC RRM has something to do as well with the whole issue instead of the new scanners because my central AUTHC/Central SW with NO changes provided me a good TP but as soon as I moved this site to FlexC now I am getting 6,7 and 8 signal power. I am using FlexC because this site is running now a pilot for SD-WAN.

We were running in local with a local Cisco WLC 2100 series with somes Cisco AP 1240 models, and only MC9090, 2 years ago.

Because of a global strategy rule, we needed to migrate all of our sites in a centralized remote WLC with new 3802 APs.

At first we kept our MC9090 and we did not face issues, but as soon we replaced all our MC9090 by MC92N0, the problems began.

 

It seems only this scanner model is impacted, we tested also with datalogic falcon and skorpio, and we had no problem in this site (it's a shopfloor one).

 

I think there is indeed an incompatibity somwhere with the WLC, flexconnect and these scanners, maybe located in QoS, TPC, or CCX (Aironet IE option in WLAN config). To be sure we should investigate the logs of CAPWAP, and sniff the switches ports with wireshark, but to be honest I had not a lot of time to investigate more. As now the scanners are working perflectly, I think it's a good workaround to disable RRM and cleanair, and use custom settings as per AP.

 

We had a Cisco Wireless expert on site and he told us it's recommended to set some static power and channels for a warehouse or shopfloor scanners environnement as there is a lot of roaming with scanners and the APs and WLC are not handling correctly the automatic assignement with RRM.

 

But the real setting that have solved our problem with MC92N0 is the disabling of cleanair, I don't know really why :/

By the way I forgot also the WMM feature that is causing some high pings with the MC92N0, I had to disable it on the WLAN/SSID dedicated to scanners in order to see the ping decreasing from 500-1000ms to 10-20ms max.

 

For your info, we had another issue with this WLC/APs Flexconnect configuration, in another site, that is a warehouse, but it was not the same issue, the scanners were Datalogic SkorpioX4 and were regurarly freezing, we discovered it was a problem with Power, and POE+ in particular, we had to configure static inline to each AP switch (Cisco 2960-X) port to stabilize the issue.

 

If you need more information, feel free to ask here.

 

 

 

 

Hi Clem,

 

As I mentioned, I currently have a Centralized Authentication/Central Switching deployment that is working with no major issues. 600 sites, 11 WLC's, over 11K AP's all different models (school network). But as part of a new strategy as well, we are moving into SD WAN with FlexC and I am running a pilot in a site that was previously central authc/central switch with RRM assigning power signal on each AP in the range from 1-3. Once I moved that site to FlexC recently, I noticed the PS on each AP is on the range from 6-8 (I am not even evaluating the roaming part yet).

 

Thanks a lot for your suggestions taking into account you had a Cisco WIFI guy onsite for the analysis of your issue. I will consider them into my pilot now. I have a major issue if manual configuration is required for 600 sites. I will contact Cisco for further analysis on my side.

 

 

That's interesting, it seems you environnement is a school network, then mostly some laptop or smarpthones I assume. Our cases are concerning Warehouses or Shopfloors with scanners. Generally the scanners are moving really fast with forklift and I think that's why the "automatic" channels or power assignment is not working well here. We also have office sites with the same configuration and they are stable and running well.

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