WAP 321 randomly disconnecting clients, now allowing clients to connect/reconnect

bkrugle1701 · ‎01-17-2014

Good afternoon!

I recently replaced a 3com Access Point with the Cisco WAP321 in one of our offices. Things were working pretty well for a while and then everything hit the fan! Clients are randomly being disconnected from the AP (I notice this most with my Macbook Air and iPad, but have experienced issues with surface tablets and Android phones, too). Looking through the logs, I notice 'STA is leaving IBSS or ESS' for the disconnected clients, even though they are not leaving the environment at all.

To try to work-around this issue, I turned off the channel auto-select and set it to chanel 6, and set the radio to broadcast 802.11 b/g . I am running firmware version 1.0.4.4. I have included a snapshot of the log and the diagnostic file as well with this post.

I am utilizing MAC filtering for access to the network and have WAP2 encryption enabled.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Brian

Eric Moyers · ‎01-28-2014

Hi, My name is Eric Moyers. I am a Network Support Engineer in the Cisco Small Business Support Center. Thank you for using the Cisco Community Post Forums.

I am sorry that no one has answered your question yet. I have seen a slightly similar issue where performance of apple products was bad, but PC and Android systems were ok. Could you check that any network drivers for your apple products are updated?

Also in some instances I have seen where a very highly encrypted password causes issues with some apple products. If this mirros your instance. As a test try scaling the password back to 8 or 9 characters using just upper, lower case and numbers

Thanks

Eric Moyers .:|:.:|:.

Cisco Small Business US STAC Advanced Support Engineer

Wireless Subject Matter Expert

CCNA, CCNA-Wireless

866-606-1866

Mon - Fri 09:30 - 18:30 (UTC - 05:00)

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

nocmezcalito · ‎01-29-2014

Hi Eric,

I reproduce the same issue using a WAP321 with WPA2 encryption in a small office context (~15 clients).

For me, the AP ramdomly disconnects ALL clients at the same time. The downtime is 1 or 2 minutes average for all clients.

This affect MacOs, Windows and GNU/Linux Debian clients without any distinctions.

I just catch some logs in the AP interface:

[…]

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] The wireless client with MAC address a4:c3:61:4a:de:18 has been successfully authenticated.

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: WPA STA a4:c3:61:4a:de:18 pairwise key exchange completed (WPAv2)

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA a4:c3:61:4a:de:18 associated with BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 Assoc request from a4:c3:61:4a:de:18 BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 SSID Mezcalito

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA 04:0c:ce:e1:d9:88 deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA d0:df:9a:d8:35:ff deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] Station 04:0c:ce:e1:d9:88 had an authentication failure, reason 17

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA 34:c0:59:a5:19:c0 deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] Station d0:df:9a:d8:35:ff had an authentication failure, reason 17

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA b8:e8:56:1b:17:50 deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] Station 34:c0:59:a5:19:c0 had an authentication failure, reason 17

Jan 29 2014 10:36:24 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA a4:c3:61:4a:de:18 deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] Station b8:e8:56:1b:17:50 had an authentication failure, reason 17

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA 84:38:35:4d:e4:58 deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] Station a4:c3:61:4a:de:18 had an authentication failure, reason 17

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA b8:8d:12:40:bc:ae deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] Station 84:38:35:4d:e4:58 had an authentication failure, reason 17

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA 18:af:61:1b:1d:50 deauthed from BSSID 6c:41:6a:71:61:c0 reason 1: Unspecified Reason

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] Station b8:8d:12:40:bc:ae had an authentication failure, reason 17

Jan 29 2014 10:36:23 info hostapd[1099] Station 18:af:61:1b:1d:50 had an authentication failure, reason 17

[…]

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Eric Moyers · ‎02-06-2014

I have had some customers that have had success with the making the following setting:

Disabled Bonjour

Set multicast rate to 54 mbps

Clear logs,

Disabled green ethernet mode and bandwidth utilization

Thanks

Eric Moyers .:|:.:|:.

Cisco Small Business US STAC Advanced Support Engineer

Wireless Subject Matter Expert

CCNA, CCNA-Wireless

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

nocmezcalito · ‎02-20-2014

Hi Eric,

I applied this settings and after few days of use I still reproduce this issue regularly.

Logs seems to talk about the same errors, something like: "deauthed from BSSID ....

reason 1: Unspecified Reason....".

Do you need more logs or informations?

Regards,

nocmezcalito · ‎08-26-2014

Hello,

Finally we bought a W-IAP93 from DELL manufacturer and all issues disappeared.

So I strongly encourage all people to drop the CISCO WAP321 which is finally a very buggy device.

I can't believe that CISCO produce such low quality devices.

Regards,

servatron · ‎08-26-2014

Hi there,

I too have the same issue. We have made the suggested changes to the settings but are still having lots of connection drops with the:

"deauthed from BSSID 24 <mac address> reason 1: Unspecified reason"

I recommended Cisco kit and am now struggling to save face. Lots of reports of this error and no clear resolution available.

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Christoph Franke · ‎08-26-2014

Dear Mr. Moyers,

according to the latest forum postings the problem persists and is also common to the WAP561 devices. It would be really helpful to know if Cisco's R&D branch is aware of it and if there is something in the pipeline to fix it, e.g. an upcoming firmware update. I don't think that Cisco customers suggesting other Cisco customers to abandon their products is a very comforting situation for anyone.

Regards

bkrugle1701 · ‎03-17-2014

Just so you have record of this, we ended up scrapping these access points for another manufacturer and could not be happier. I have gone through many many dicsussion board posts and have tried many different configurations on this AP but they never ended up fixing the problem. Additionally, waiting over 11 days to hear anything back form support did not make life any easier. I hope that you are all able to get a fix to this problem soon!

Christoph Franke · ‎03-20-2014

May I ask what hardware (and manufacturer) you traded your APs in for?

bkrugle1701 · ‎03-21-2014

We went with EnGenius AP's in our offices.

kgreenway · ‎06-04-2015

Hi,

I'm also in this same position with these errors and random disconnects for several seconds before reconnection is established. I have thus far spent 2 days looking at similar posts (Stops here) for likely settings and still no further forwards.

Summary of my situation:

2x CISCO WAP 321 AP's in Single Point Setup (Firmware 1.0.5.3)

Fixed channels (Confirmed using InSSIDer that these channels are good) of 6 on WAP1, 11 on WAP2.

Disabled Green Ethernet Mode

Multicast Mode = 54Mbps

Untagged VLAN = enabled

Beacon = 100

DTIM = 2

Bonjour = disabled

Bandwidth utilization = disabled

Channel Bandwidth=20 (Also tried 20/40)

Mode: 802.11b/g/n

WPA2/CCMP (Also tried exclusively WPA)

The disconnections always seem to stem from the following common error message in the WAP logs.

reason 3: STA is leaving IBSS or ESS

So considering that all posts I've found so far seem to lead to a dead end, unless the poster switches products, I'm fearing my chances of resolving this issue!

Any help anybody please?

Thanks,

Kevin

pashurk@gmail.com · ‎08-26-2021

Now there are many device of Cisco WAP-121 which are lying idle. because of this issue. and this Product is end of life.

Now no one will release its upgraded firmware.