Hidden SSID - Can't Connect this network

[eeebbunee]

Hello Professionals,

I am managing two different offices, and one of offices are using Cisco AP 2802 Series, 1852 Series and the other use 1261 Series, 1602 Series. 

- WLC: Cisco WLC 2504
- Office A: 2802Series / 1852 Series AP
- Office B: 1261 Series / 1602 Series AP
- WLANs: 10 (Broadcast SSID: 8, Hidden SSID: 2)

When I am in the office A, I have no issue to connect AP and changing multiple SSIDs.

However, when I'm in the office B, I keep failing to connect Hidden SSID. 
Connecting & Chaning to Broadcasting SSID was perfectly fine, but can't connect to hidden SSID.

Sometimes I succeed to changing SSID broadcasted to hidden, but frequently I fail to connect.

Is this happened due to bad signal quality? or Can it be the reason to using old AP?

I appreciate your reply.

[balaji.bandi]

Is this happened due to bad signal quality? or Can it be the reason for using the old AP?  - I was guessing this.

run the debug in WLC based on the MAC address of the device and see what is causing this issue.

[Leo Laohoo]

If there is a problem connecting to the non-broadcasting SSID but, at the same time, there is NO PROBLEM connecting to the broadcasting SSID, then the problem is something else and not low RSSI.  Could be a bug with the firmware or the driver of the wireless NIC, etc.

[Rich R · Accepted solution]

@Leo Laohoo if I understood correctly he said the same device connected to the SSIDs fine in the office with newer APs.
I agree with your logic though - if RSSI was the problem it would also affect the broadcast SSIDs so not a signal quality issue.

But questions:
- What version of software are you running? (you have some very old APs there)
- What band were you connecting on?
1261 is a single band (2.4 GHz) AP (End-of-Support Date: 2018-10-31) so much higher chance of interference and with 10 SSID configured you probably have very high baseline channel utilisation even before looking at interference.  So I'd guess that's the first thing to look at for this problem.
Have you done any data rate optimisation - disable b rates for example?
Even the 1602 is end of support (End-of-Support Date: 2021-12-31).
So really you need to replace the APs with at least dual-band.