RV220W Not Passing DHCP to Wireless Clients

[Ed Melendez]

Hello All-

I have a Cisco RV220W running the latest firmware (currently 1.0.4.17), and I have noticed that after about a week of use, wireless clients can no longer acquire IP addresses via DHCP.

I have used Network Monitor on both the DHCP server, and the WiFi client, and can see that the server is receiving the requests and sending a reply, but the client never sees the response from the server.  So far the only way to resolve this is to reboot the router.

Please tell me that someone has experienced this same problem, and has found a solution.

Thanks In Advance,

-Ed

[mike]

We are having an identical issue. Latest firmware installed, DHCP pass through from the server to the wired clients works fine but DHCP pass through to wireless clients is not working. Sniffer indicates request is hitting the server but the acknowledgement and address release is not making it to the wireless client. Logs on the router are not indicating anything being blocked. Resolutions??

[Ed Melendez]

Hey Michael-

When I sniffed the network, I saw the same thing as well.  I wasn't able to find out how to fix the router's issue, but I was able to find a workaround that appears to be working... so far.

Instead of having the DHCP server use the broadcast address (255.255.255.255) for DHCP communications, I configured it to use unicast.  Unfortunately, Cisco has not provided a fix for the root cause of the problem... the router.

Check out the link below on how to reconfigure your DHCP server if you are using a Windows server.  I know that other DHCP servers can be configure the same way.  Hope this helps.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/161429

Good Luck,

-Ed

[mike]

Thanks a lot Ed. The environment has a virtualized server 2008 R2 DHCP server so I should be able to configure it for unicast as well. Thanks again for the info and I will report back if this work around resolves our issue as well.

Mike

[Ed Melendez]

Hey Mike-

I would definitely love to hear whether this does resolve your issue or not.

FYI: When I made the registry change, I did not have to reboot the server.  I just restarted the DHCP service and it started working.  I did have to wait a few days to make sure the issue did not come back though.  So far it's been about a month, and things have been fine.

Thanks,

-Ed

[mike]

Another good tip!! Thanks Ed. This one has been driving our users (and consequently us) crazy so I am hopeful to hear it fixed your issues for at least a month so far.

[Ed Melendez]

Hey Mike-

Just curious if you've had time to implement, and if this solution worked for you as well.

Thanks,

-Ed

[Kevin Morse]

I have also been experiencing this issue and just tried the Windows Unicast fix so I'll see if it works. Any acknowledgement from Cisco about this yet? It is quite a nasty problem, thankfully I don't have many users on wireless.

[Ed Melendez]

Please do let me know whether the fix resolves your issue.

Unfortunately Cisco has been completely unresponsive to this matter.  It truly is a shame how little they are paying attention to the problems with their Small Business products.

-Ed

[Nagaraja Thanthry]

Hello Ed,

If not done already, can you please contact Cisco Small Business Support Center and open a service request? We would like to investigate this issue further and see what the root cause is. While opening the case, please provide us a copy of the RV220 configuration file, syslog, and a packet capture from the wireless client and the dhcp server (when the failure occurs) so we can analyze the data to determine the root cause. You can find the SBSC contact information using the link below.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/support/tsd_cisco_small_business_support_center_contacts.html

Thanks,

Nagaraja

[Kevin Morse]

Hi Ed,

This did not resolve the issue as we found that several mobile devices were unable to obtain addresses with the DHCP server using Unicast.

My setup consists of a virtualized (Hyper V) Windows SBS 2011 domain controller attached to an RV220W and a 24 port gigabit switch. The RV220W is acting as a wireless access point for the office area of the building but we have several other access points throughout the building using the same SSID.

I have fully isolated the problem to be the RV220W as the "fix" for not getting an address is to walk into the lobby of the building and get a DHCP address through the lobby access point. Have you had any luck with the Service Request?

Thanks,

Kevin Morse

[mlooise01]

Hi All,

I have the same problem as above; Yesterday I configured another VLAN for guests on my RV220W and now I’m also experiencing the same problems as mentioned above.

My situation: I have one VLAN (1) configured without the use of DHCP because my Windows 2012 Essentials server is doing the DHCP for the network. The other VLAN(2) is a guest-network running DHCP on the router and is isolated from VLAN1 as I don't want traffic passing from this VLAN to the other.

The wireless devices connecting to the guest network (VLAN2) get an IP address from the DHCP of the router without a problem an connect to the internet. Wireless devices connecting to VLAN1 however don't get an IP address at all. They should have gotten one from the Windows server, but they just don't. Wired machines connecting to VLAN1 do get an IP without any problem.

I didn't want to try the unicast solution because of the issue mention by kevin with mobile devices. I also haven't rebooted the router because i have to plan this (downtime).

Is Cisco investigating this problem any further? This seems a very clear and consistent problem which should not exist in a business class router!

Cisco, please help us.

[Kevin Morse]

Small Business Support gave up trying to fix this for one of my clients after several weeks of back and forth. They concluded the unit was defective and RMAed it. That was back in June and since I haven't heard anything from the customer since it appears that replacing the unit fixed the problem.

[mlooise01]

Ok, I have to wait to do a reboot until someone at the company can do this. I hope this will fix my problem. Otherwise I will try to contact support. You just used the local support channel for this one?

I will report back when I know more!

[jeffrrod]

Dear M.J,

I am sorry to hear about this inconvenience you are going through.

You may contact the Small Business Support Center for further assistance;

https://www.cisco.com/en/US/support/tsd_cisco_small_business_support_center_contacts.html

Notice that chances are you are going to be suggested to restore the router back to factory conditions and reconfigure since that seems to have fixed similar problems before.  Please do not hesitate to reach me back if there is anything I can help you with in the meantime.

Kind regards,

Jeffrey Rodriguez S. .:|:.:|:.
Cisco Customer Support Engineer

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