All Clients get disassociates due to changes in wlan

[jain.nitin]

Hi All,

We are facing an issue with our wireless Network. We have Cisco 5508 controllers in HA mode with 200 APs in Flexconnect mode.

Issue is when ever we perform any changes on any wlan, all our wireless clients get disassociates for few seconds and joins back…we can feel the disconnection if we are working on remote desktop connections…As far as my knowledge only those users will get disassociates which are connected to the ssid on which I am making changes. Not all SSID users.

Please let me know if any of you have seen this kind of issue ?

[Leo Laohoo]

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@jain.nitin wrote:

Issue is when ever we perform any changes on any wlan, all our wireless clients get disassociates for few seconds and joins back

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When you make changes to the SSID and hit "Apply", there is a warning stating that making said changes will disconnect all wireless clients connected to the SSID being modified.  

[aogston]

Hi.

Yes, this is expected behavior as far as I am aware.  Any change to a
WLAN will cause the WLAN to be reset.  In the GUI there is a warning
before applying any changes as follows:-
"Changing WLAN parameters while it is enabled will cause the WLAN to be
momentarily disabled and radio reset thus may result in loss of
connectivity for some clients. Press OK to continue."
If you do this from the CLI, you will need to disable the WLAN first
before making any changes.

Andy.

[aogston]

Hi.

Yes, this is expected behavior as far as I am aware.  Any change to a WLAN will cause the WLAN to be reset.  In the GUI there is a warning before applying any changes as follows:-
"Changing WLAN parameters while it is enabled will cause the WLAN to be momentarily disabled and radio reset thus may result in loss of connectivity for some clients. Press OK to continue."
If you do this from the CLI, you will need to disable the WLAN first before making any changes.

Andy.

[Leo Laohoo]

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@aogston wrote:

If you do this from the CLI, you will need to disable the WLAN first before making any changes.

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Yes, the same thing will happen with CLI as the radios need to go down and then up to allow the changes to get applied.

[Scott Fella]

There is a warning when you apply a change to a wlan. So yes, if you make a change to a wlan, the wlan will disable and re-enable causing some clients to notice a disconnect. Other devices may not. So if you know that there are some clients that need this persistence connection, then do it off hours and or send out notifications.

[schulcz]

Suppose I have 3 wlan networks and there are currently so many clients connected to them:

• WLAN1 - 360 clients
• WLAN2 - 150 clients
• WLAN3 - 10 clients

(All AP broadcast all WLAN networks)

Suppose WLAN3 is a test network and I need to modify something (like the radius server) in WLAN3, and after I make the settings and hit apply, I get the message below:
Changing WLAN parameters while it is enabled will cause the WLAN to be momentarily disabled and radio reset thus may result in loss of connectivity for some clients. Press OK to continue.

I would like to clarify exactly what this means:

1. Will the 10 clients only associated with the WLAN3 network be disconnected for a short time?
2. Will all clients (520) be disconnected for a short time?

(I’m a little worried about “radio reset” words because for me, it means every client is affected. )

This is important to clarify because I have to (or don’t have to) request a maintenance time window depending on this.

Thanks!