Wireless Roaming Problem vWLC, 1142n ap's.

[jbill24]

Hello, 

I have a strange problem that I still have not found a solution for. I have a vWLC with 3 Cisco 1142n ap's connected to it. Every once and a while when a client roams, the speed of the client drops to around .30 to  .50 mbps up and down. The simple solution to this is to turn the wireless off and back on again on the device and the problem is instantly fixed. I shouldnt have to do that though. I have tried to fix it by doing a number of different things like making sure QoS is turned off, and made sure that the speed in the wireless configuration is higher than 1 mbps. But after trying those things it did not seem to fix it. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[Leo Laohoo]

What speed the wireless client(s) negotiate to, which APs to associate ... only the wireless clients can make that decision.
If the wireless client, for instance, is running a very old wireless NIC driver then this could, potentially, be one of the issues.

[jbill24]

I think it has to be a certain setting on the wireless controller because its every single device. From iPhone's to Androids to laptops, they all have the same issue. It only happens every few hand-offs though. Its very strange. In other Cisco environments though I do not have this issue.  

[Scott Fella]

I don’t think it’s a certain setting but probably the code you have on the vWLC. A setting wouldn’t change the throughout after a few days. This seems more of a code.

[jbill24]

What do you mean by code? Sorry if I do not understand, I am new to this.

[Scott Fella]

Firmware you run on the vWLC.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/wireless/wireless-lan-controller-software/products-release-notes-list.html

Code download requires paid support:

https://software.cisco.com/download/home/284464214/type/280926587/release/8.3.143.0

[Rich R · Accepted solution]

Agreed it sounds like a bug in the code - although you didn't mention what version of code you're running (you always should).

But note that the 1142 APs are End of support End-of-Sale and End-of-Life Announcement for the Cisco Aironet 1140 Series which is why they are last supported in 8.3 code.  It's also why the 1142 AP code is not updated in 8.3 - as per the 8.3 release notes:

"The Cisco 1040 Series, 1140 Series, and 1260 Series access points have feature parity with Cisco Wireless Release 8.0. Features introduced in Cisco Wireless Release 8.1 and later are not supported on these access points."

So if the bug is in the AP code, any fixes introduced since 8.0 (sometimes done via feature changes) may not apply to this AP.  Still worth going to 8.3 in case the bug is in the WLC code.

So if the problem is not resolved by the latest code then your only option is hardware upgrade because the APs are end of support.  Even if you have a service contract TAC cannot help with end of support hardware.