AP541N drops all clients

[Christopher Adlam]

As I posted about in the other AP541N thread about degraded performance, mine did a strange client disconnect last week. It dropped all authenticated clients, but they all thought they were still connected. A quick disable/enable of the wireless card on the laptop would get the computer back on the AP.

This same thing happened again today.

Device information and configuration:

Device: AP541N

H/W: V01

S/W: 1.9.1

Wireless: Channel 11, Key Refresh: 0, WPA Personal, TKIP

Log shows all the clients authenticating earlier in the day.

Hours later, I get a rash of:

Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:cc had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:bb had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:aa had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:zz had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:yy had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:cc had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:bb had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:aa had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:zz had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:yy had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:13     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx had an authentication failure.

Followed by:

Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:cc IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address 00:1b:77:94:dd:89 had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:bb IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address 00:18:de:4c:fd:26 had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:aa IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address 00:13:e8:f9:c9:f5 had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:zz IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address 00:21:5d:36:3e:c4 had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:yy IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address 00:16:6f:10:fb:9f had an authentication failure.
Jun 21 10:30:43     info     hostapd     wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity

Cycling the wireless switch on my laptop yields:

Jun 21 10:33:41       info       hostapd       wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx WPA: group key exchange completed
Jun 21 10:33:41     info     hostapd     The wireless client with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx has been successfully authenticated.
Jun 21 10:33:41     info     hostapd     wlan0: STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx WPA: pairwise key exchange completed (WPAv1)
Jun 21 10:33:41     info     hostapd     wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx associated with BSSID xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:dd
Jun 21 10:33:41     info     hostapd     wlan0: IEEE 802.11 Assoc request from xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx BSSID xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:dd SSID MYAPSSID
Jun 21 10:33:39     info     hostapd     wlan0: IEEE 802.11 STA xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx deauthed from BSSID xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:dd reason 4

I changed the channel from 11 to 9, and started having this occur like mad. I've got it at 3 now. It was odd, as last week, this only happened once early in the week, and was fine for the rest. Same thing this week as far as it happening early in the week.....

[anschackt]

I can confirm that switching from b/g/n to only b/g seems to have solved this issue for me too (I'm on the latest firmware).

brgds,

AS

[mika_cesim]

I can confirm similar behavior with firmware 2.0.1, so this one is not fixed. It logs the same events as for the parent when the clients lose their connection.

I disabled WMM (in QoS). Yes, I know this is not nice performance-vise (max. 54Mbps for some clients), but our main point is reliability.

Disconnection used to happen multiple times a day with about 10 clients, but now we've run about a week without a single interruption.

We have WPA, WPA2, TKIP, AES enabled for compatibility and radio in b/g/n mode, so the previous workaround in this thread are not in use. Regulatory domain is enabled.

I hope that Cisco will find a solution for this. I have always trusted their hardware and this is the first time I am having problem with them. Big problems: the AP does not work reliably with default settings, but requires tweaking.

[mika_cesim]

Forget this. I was too early. Got disconnections again today.

[nextstepsrl]

ap541n

i have the same problem with ap541n connect to uc500 with spa525g2

ap541n release 2.0.1

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Trondheim1]

We have two of these access points - and they both - but one a litlte less often than the other drops the connection with the log stating:

cisco IEEE 802.11 STA 88:53:2e:8e:01:84 deauthed from BSSID 64:ae:0c:ea:a9:30 reason 3

Where I understand from:http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/controller/3.2/configuration/guide/c32err.html

that error code 3 means: The access point went offline, deauthenticating the client.

This indicates that the cause may be in the network. We have had problems with all our routers and access points - which all behave similarly. What is so strange is that one should think this would also hit a client with a cabled connection - but it does appear to be so - or a cabled connection reestablishes itself so quickly that the client does not notice it.

The interval with which the writelss is dropping th econnection etc. varies. Sometimes - suddenly - it may last for a longer period of time. And then today Everything worked for at most 1 minute.

We have tried a lot of different variations, with or without authentication, channels, dhcp setting etc.  no help.

we have tried to connect it to many different switches - still the same trouble. Something really weird is going on - adn if you know it - please let us know.

[rnedved]

I have exactly the same issue.  I only use one AP541N, no clustering, two VAPs.  Firmware 2.0.2 - full reset and reconfigure after install.

Configured for 2.4Ghz, WPA2.  I had it as TKIP+AES, but then after a bulk disconnect, I switched to AES only - today experienced another full disconnect.  Switched to TKIP only.

Every time this occurs, the event log is full of client's being "deauthed" - once this occurs, no-one can connect to the AP541N until it gets rebooted.  The time between disconnects is not constant, but it is definite.

Cisco:

What is going on here?  This device has been out for more than 2 years now, and these issues persist.  This is a business class product, and is very expensive - the level of service I receive from it should be better than the level of service received from a $89.00 linksys home access point - but it just isn't so.

When can we expect resolution?  Is there team allocated to get this product working correctly?  I have all cisco hardware in my network and if my experience with any of the rest of it was anything like this AP541N, I would have just used crappy linksys or netgear consumer grade product.

Please Advise,

Bob