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

[mlooise01]

Hi Jeffrey,

Thanks for your response. In the meantime i've rebooted the router and it resumed to function correctly. So it apears that for now everything is fine. I'm affraid that the problem will return in a couple of days/weeks as i've read on other posts by users of the RV220.

Until now I will wait it out and will investigate the problem further if the problem remains.

My next step would have been (before calling support) is to reset the router back to factory settings and again apply my VLAN settings and port forewardings. I also think this will be one of the first things support was going to ask me to do ..

So for now i'm fone and my advice to others is; reboot the unit and see if it sticks. I still think however that this is an issue that would deserve some attention of Cisco since it's a major flaw in a well-used function.

@Jeffrey do you know if there is an open ticket for this? or where I can report one? maybe we can resolve it for once and for all?

Regards, Martin

[jeffrrod]

Dear Martin,

Thank you very much for your comments, we appreciate your feedback and concern a lot.  My job role in Cisco Small Business, among several, is to monitor this forum and identify possible bugs and product enhancement opportunities, so this case is going to be reported for further investigation in our end.  By contacting the Small Business Support Center I mentioned earlier you get a ticket open if desired.

Please do not hesitate to reach me back if anything comes up and/or if there is any further assistance I may help you with.

Thanks for your time,

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

*Please rate the Post so other will know when an answer has been found.

[mlooise01]

Hi Jeffrey,

I would like to follow up on our discussion on the wireless connection using the RV220W. Today I got a call from an end-user that the wireless function (on both VLAN's) stopped working. No IP address was assigned either using the internet DHCP on the guest VLAN or the company Windows DHCP on the default vlan.

After a reboot of the device everything starts to work again. I've asked to reserve a downtime slot in order for me to reset the router to factory defaults an reconfigure it. I hope this will fix the issue.

I will let you know one-way or another what happens. If it fails (which i don't hope) I will have to resort to support I thing.

Just to keep you updated .. no fix through some kind of upgrade as of now?

Kind regards, Martin

[chrismol00]

Jeffrey,

We bought this router back in late August and have been having ongoing connectivity problems with the Wi-fi similar to what is explained here. My Network Admin says that this router has known issues... The wireless radio goes in and out and the internal memory gets full from the logs due to the wireless radio going in and out. You then have to restart the router to get it back to functioning.

Is there an option to exchange the router for a model that works properly? I do not want to build my network on what appears to be a defective item.

Thanks,

Chris

[alfrancishernandez]

We also experienced the same problem recently.

1. Lan connection is fine.

2. Wireless connection is not working.

Our last resort was to reset the router back to its default stage. The wireless connection works after configuring it again.

[christian.chervet]

Hi Everyone,

I also experiencing the same problem. When the RV220W has worked for a couple of days or one week, it doesn't give IP address for the wireless clients... The only thing that can bring up the distribution of IP address is to reboot de RV220W

but unfortunately it's a little bit annoying.

Is there a real solution for this ? CISICO will make a firmware update or something like that ?

Kind regards

Chris

[Net_Connect473]

We have several RV220W's and RV180W's deployed at customer locations.  I have noticed that both of them seem to have a problem handing out DHCP requests over WiFi.  I notice this with both the on-board WiFi and when other WiFi devices are attached to the network where these devices are located (e.g. WAP121's and WAP321's). 

The clients all eventually get an IP address, but time varies between 60 seconds and 3 to 4 minutes before they receive one.  This is unacceptable.

We have tried a variety of wireless settings and have experimented with increasing the session counts under Firewall --> Advanced Settings --> Session Settings and this seems to help some and makes the device overall more responsive, but it still does not fix the problem with DHCP taking forever to hand out IP addresses to clients on the wireless.

This is a pretty frustrating issue and needs to be resolved by Cisco. 

[SamirD]

Are the WAPs also getting IPs from the same DHCP server?  Is this a separate server or the DHCP built-into the rv?

Very curious problem.  Not uncommon for a reboot to solve issues on the rv.   And annoying for networks that can't have downtime.

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[Net_Connect473]

The WAP's are getting their IP's on a management VLAN via DHCP.  All DHCP is coming from the RV.  We usually grab the MAC of the WAP's and give them static reservations on the management VLAN from the RV.  Outside of servers, we usually try to configure as few devices a possible with static IP's that don't show up in DHCP to help avoid IP conflicts and to have a single point that has most IP addresses on the network (outside of servers).

If we remove external WAP's and use the WAP on the RV, the DHCP slowness problem seems worse.

I agree that the problem is very annoying.  If we provide a "Small Business" grade product to a client that costs a few hundred dollars, then I expect the feature list and especially basic functions, like DHCP to work flawlessly.  This is especially true since competitor D-Link and Netgear appliances in the same price range do not have this issue with DHCP.

[Net_Connect473]

It is even more frustrating since there has not been a firmware update on the RV220W's for well over a year now and the device just seems buggy for lack of a better term (the DHCP issue, the fact that newer browsers seem to have trouble displaying the GUI, etc.)

[SamirD]

Interesting that the WAPs are also having issues even though they are wired.  Try disabling the wireless on the rv and see if the WAPs improve.  Something tells me they will.  If so, then the wireless on the rv is somehow the culprit.  Otherwise, leave the rv wireless off and try moving the WAPs to vlan1 (untagged) and see if that helps.  There could be a vlan/intervan routing issue that's at the heart of it.

I agree that these smb products should be much more robust.  I've dealt with this for years since I first got the rv016.  Unfortunately, to get 'rock solid' devices in this price point by any manufacturer is next to non-existent, and the manufacturers know that.  They could care less that a particular product doesn't work reliably in every scenario because they know the 'solid' option for a business will cost hundreds, if not thousands, more.  Plus, if these devices worked that well, their more expensive products would lose sales.  The good thing is that these devices work

for 90% of scenarios without any issues, but in the scenarios where bugs cause issues and failures, the customer doesn't have much of a choice except to live with the issue or try another manufacturer's product and hope that they don't run into a different issue.

I have all sorts of band-aids running on our network from router reboot scripts, to auto rebooters, to configuration workarounds for firmware limitations and bugs.  In the end, I have a network that would have cost me 3-5x more to build using 'solid' devices.  It works for the proof of concept I needed before bringing in the more expensive and robust devices, which I am still researching.  One thing to note though, is that I'm actually finding myself avoiding the manufacturers of the smb products, and I just realized that now.  The sting of the smb products seems to have warded me off even their more expensive offerings.

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