WAP4410N stops responding very often

[xvillafuerte]

Hi, we have 9 WAP4410N with PoE in our network. They were purchased on August. We found that very often in a week, they stop responding to any clients so they cannot get IP addresses, but we can ping the devices and enter the administration page. The only solution is to reboot the AP. I found some references to the same problem in the Cisco Forums and even some bad recommendations in Amazon.com about these APs, but now is too late and we need to found a solution.

We upgraded to firmware 2.0.3.3 but problem remains. We are completly sure that IP and DNS configurations are fine and that our switches and DHCP servers work fine, too. We have in the same LAN, APs 3COm from the 9150 series with no problems. These 3Com APs use the same network services that the 4410.

Currently we are testing the Force LAN to 100 Mbps option and using mixed encryption algorithms (AES and TKIP) because at the begining, we were only using AES. But, I feel that it is not a smart procedure because it is not based on any real fact; it is, may be a desperate choice.

In order to administer those APs, we normally connect at the night so we don´t affect anyone on the network. However, when I check the administration page, I can see that the utilization rate in all the APs is always more that 40%, and I am sure, nobody is using the AP at the night. Wierd. In a normal day, no more than 20 clients are connected to each AP.

Logs have no valuable information to use in order to find a solution.

So, any ideas or help would be much appreciated.

Xavier Villafuerte

[bbbraunschweig]

I opened a case with Cisco and we've spent the last 2 weeks trying various things. Under 2.0.4.2 it only started working again with one SSID defined and no security. It failed again after enabling security (WPA-Personal, TKIP). Also, changing wireless settings, without a complete reboot, would 'fix' the problem for the next 24 hrs, just the same as a complete reboot. In the end, I downgraded back to 2.0.3.3, added back my 2 SSIDs, and it is still working. So, I now have the same configuration I had before the trouble started. (One possible reason may be changes in overlapping access points in the neighborhood since I'm in a residential area.)

A valuable tool that Cisco Support pointed me to is inSSIDer, a WiFi scanning tool. It allowed me to watch the WAP and compare its behavior before and after failure and see the overlapping access points in the area.

I'm not convinced that anything I did under 2.0.4.2 either made it work or caused it to fail. It felt more like every time I touched it I would get a random result. I fact, I can't be confident that changing to 2.0.3.3 'fixed' anything either. My original failure was under 2.0.3.3. I may have just lucked out in the last reboot, or a conflicting access point may have moved out of range, or something else.

I hope these additional clues may be helpful to someone.

BTW: Cisco Support was polite, attentive, and even offered to swap out the hardware.

[Eric Moyers]

Hello everyone, my name is Eric Moyers. Thank you for using the Cisco Community Post Forums.

For those that are just coming into this thread, please call the Small Business Support Center and work with one of our answering agent. We need to get a case opened for each of you so that we can begin working your issues.

If you have had a case for this issue in the past and the issue has not gotten better or has worsened, please call us back and let us reopen your case.

Thanks

Eric Moyers

Cisco Network Support Engineer

SBSC Wireless and Surveillance SME

CCNA, CCNA-Wireless

1-866-606-1866

[Michael Tremmel]

I do have an open case the number is 620900101 that is how I obtained the beta firmware 2.0.5.2 it has not corrected my issue at all. I should also point out that I have all of my AP's auto rebooting at 6:00am everyday Via SSH to try to eliminate all of my support calls. Today one of my AP's dropped all of the clients at 11:30 which is only 5 1/2 hours after it was rebooted a 6am. So it would appear that this dropping of clients is a random event. This unit was RMA'd last week and I received a brand new V02 sealed in a box and it does the same thing. This unit is plugged directly into port 2 of a cisco SA520. I am at my breaking point with these darn things.

[chancfj37]

Thanks Eric.

Well, I did call the local Small Business Support Center before I found this forum. The operator told me to contact the vendor instead of using the service!

Then after some procedures, the vendor helped us to return the unit and replaced another one for us. We tried both brand new units and had the same result. What a plainful experience.

One of the redicious points is that I detached my cheap WiFi router from my home and used that as a AP for the purpose during the replacement period.  My cheap router worked perfectly without a single disconnection within the 2 days, but not a more expensive one for Small Business...

[LELAND VANDERVORT]

well.. we've tried 3 different firmware images and still have our same problem.  It's not a case of wireless clients being dropped, but a case of after a period of time (seemingly random), certain traffic types stop being forwarded.

In our case, the clients can connect to the A/P, but when they attempt to obtain their IP address from DHCP, the DHCP discover and request packets are seen by the DHCP server, and responded to by the server.  The responses (OFFER, ACK, NACK, etc.) are dropped by the A/P.  Rebooting the A/P allows the DHCP traffic to pass correctly again.

It's to the point that I've had to write a script running from cron that reboots all of the access points via SSH every few hours.

[Michael Tremmel]

I changed some settings  the dhcp lease time on my routers to 7 days (168 hrs). This is the lease time for clients. The AP is set to a static IP address I also changed all of my SSID’s which were in all uppercase letters to all lowercase letters. So far they have not dropped out. But as soon as I hit reply  I’m sure something will happen

[Music Man]

Hello, Eric - The problems with these access points are well-documented.  They continue to drop connections and refuse connections periodically.  There are numerous threads in these forums and numerous people all complaining of the same symptoms going back years!  Many of us have already opened cases and no one has received a solution.  To continue to ask your customers to do Cisco's testing is outrageous.  Instead of telling us to do the same things we've been doing for years without a solution, why don't you tell us who we can write to at Cisco that can actually see that this problem is addressed?  Thanks.   -G.

[audiovideocorp]

I second this request.

As Glen mentioned it's been YEARS since these issues were brought to the attention of Cisco.  Each time you say "we have a firmware upgrade that will fix everything".  Well I'll tell you something, I have a folder full of every beta and official firmware update you've released, each and every one promising to fix this box.

If you can't resolve this issue, please, for the love of the industry, admit it's broken and pull it from the market.  Then we can cut our losses and move on with our lives.  /rant

[Music Man]

I called small business support once again.  New production firmware - 2.0.5.3 - is available since May 17, 2012.  Search the Cisco web site for the download.  I put it on my troublesome 4410N yesterday and so far (24 hours) it is behaving better.  The support ticket will stay open for 14 days.  It'll be interesting to see if the device lasts that long.   -G.

[snarfblatt]

Well I just updated my firmware.. and in the process of double checking my configurations, my connection to the WAP dropped out, AGAIN! So I do believe there is absolutely NO HOPE for this WAP to ever work properly.

[Music Man]

Fourteen days after applying firmware 2.0.5.3, my 4410N is still working properly.  Following the recommendation of Cisco support, I reset the configuration to factory defaults after loading the new firmware, then reconfigured the unit from scratch.  I do wonder if hardware revisions in these WAPs have an impact on their compatibility with different versions of the firmware.  Possibly there is no version of the firmware that will make every WAP work correctly.  If your 4410N is still in warranty, see if Cisco will replace it with a new one.   -G.

[kevcar1969]

Updated 4 of these and all stop working within hours. Reboot fixes the issue. Reseting them to factory default and putty ing the settings again to see if that fixes it. But I doubt it. These seem to be junk. If they fail again I will call and ask for support to replace them. The clients just stop working even through they are connected. Even giving them a static IP does not help. Reboot is the only thing that fixes the issue.

[valeriy.vainkop]

WAP4410n works good even on old firmwares, but ONLY when it's alone or every AP has it's own ssid.

If there're al least 2 APs with the same ssid (for roaming) then they start to freeze.

So for home usage this AP is ok, but NOT for business!

My organization switched to Unifi & happy

I have 12 APs under high load (like torrents & etc).

They're quite cheap comparing to similar solutions from Cisco (75$ each AP!).

APs are configured & managed using Unifi software which acts as a router (win or linux), not hardware like Cisco has, but it works surprisingly good & it's free.

Roaming is not as fast as Cisco's though, so it's not ok to use this solution for voice (IP phones) roaming, but it's enough for example for laptop roaming with rdp & it's ok for my organization.

[pablomarchiori]

Eric, I opened two cases # 619965917 attended by José Ruiz who tried unsuccessfully to reconfigure the AP and then the case # 620370915 attended by Carlos Chamorro, who told me that Cisco was aware of the issue and it would release a new firmware for February.

I asked via telephone and e-mail about the firmware, Carlos told me that was not available, they would call me.

Now I see the beta version is available, Michael Tremmel have it, as he tells us in this forum apparently the beta does not work.

I just called to support minutes ago (by the way, the quality of the telephone communication is terrible, as always) they told me that they will escalate the case and inform me.

Eric, when you will fix the problem? This should be soon, for months (or years) you know of the existence of the issue and continue to market the product!.

Please, stop saying call support! support does not solve it!

If you want to help in this thread, please, solve the issue!

[LELAND VANDERVORT]

Hi Brandt,

We too are seeing a similar issue.  We are in WPA2-Personal, multi SSID/VLAN mode with software version 2.0.2.1 on all of our WAP4410Ns.

I've managed to nail down the issue somewhat to a common factor, however.  It turns out that the A/Ps do still continue to operate, however, doing diagnostics on our DHCP server we see the DHCPDISCOVER request coming from the connected stations, the server then proposes the DHCPOFFER, to which the client never responds.  Instead the client does a REQUEST for the last known address on that interface (if any), but then never receives the DHCPACK or DHCPNAK as the case may be.  This is further confirmed with tcpdump on the client side, no DHCP response traffic is received at all by the client.

As a result, the client cannot setup its IP addressing.

If the client statically assigns an IP address, then traffic flow is normal across the A/P.  It seems that after a couple of days the A/P fails to forward the DHCP traffic from the server back to the client.  If I reboot the A/P, it then works properly.

Certainly not normal behaviour, but this is what we are experiencing.

Leland