iPhone/iPad Connectivity Issues with 5508 WLC's

[pennwestenergy]

Hello,

We are implementing a new corporate wireless network with Cisco 5508 WLC's and C3602I LWAP's. We are not running any RADIUS or EAP at the moment and are starting with WPA2 w/ AES with a pre-shared key to begin piloting.

The issue we are having is iOS based devices (iPhone/iPad) do not seem to want to connect. We just get a could not join wireless network messages. We have had success with several Windows based laptops, my MacBook connects, as well as several different Android devices.

Looking at the logs on the WLC I see these entries which correspond to the MAC address of my iPhone.

*apfMsConnTask_6: Jul 17 17:25:20.620: %APF-3-CHECK_SUPP_RATES_FAILED: apf_utils.c:376 Could not check supported rates. Missing Supported Rate. Length :0. Mobile MAC: 24:ab:81:92:4d:97.

Does anyone have any ideas or have run into this problem before?

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks!

Andrew

[Dave Anthony David]

We have several deployments involving 5508 WLC but never encountered this problem.

May I ask, what model of APs you've got?

Can you check your data rates settings in 802.11a/n and 802.11b/g/n in your WLC and post it here?

Regards,

Dave

[Scott Fella]

I too have many installs with no issues whith the iDevices.  First off, can they join an open ssid you create?  Then maybe try to create a new ssid with only WPA2/AES enabled with a simple pre-shared key and see if the devices connect.

[pennwestenergy]

Hi Scott,

Two of our SSID's are just WPA2/AES with PSK. We also have a guest network which is open and uses NCS for web based authentication. I will try and just create a fourth SSID that is open and see if I get connected. I will post the results back.

Thanks,

Andrew

[pennwestenergy]

Interesting... created an open SSID and still could not connect with the iPhone. Laptop connected and was good to go right away.

[Scott Fella]

Enable Fast SSID Change if not enabled and try again.

[pennwestenergy]

Hi Scott,

That appears to be already enabled.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

This is happening with multiple iDevices?  Can you try to reboot one of those iDevices, because it seems to be an issue with the device and not the wireless.

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

Client load balancing is not enabled, correct?

[pennwestenergy]

Tried that with no luck. I am trying to track down a coworker who has an iPhone the same as mine.

We have client load balancing disabled but client band selection is enabled.

Andrew

[Scott Fella]

I would disable that for now and see.  Again.... I have done many installs and always test with my iphone 4 or my iPad with no issues.  Might have to take a look at your configuration.

[pennwestenergy]

Hi Scott,

It looks like it might be my phone

A co-worker was able to connect with an identical iPhone. Thanks for all your help.

Andrew

[Scott Fella]

I kind of figured that and thats why I usually test with various devices.  Maybe power down your iphone and power it back up might fix it.  One thing is to forget the network and manually add it back.

[Daniel McDavid]

We have 'Fast SSID change' enabled on all of our controllers, but it has no effect (a message just pops up that says "Unable to Join"). Try turning the iOS into 'Airplane Mode' and forget all of the SSIDs that you broadcast. Turn your radios back on a try to connect again. I run in to this issue a lot with users joining our webauth SSID first, then attempting to join our WPA2 SSID.

[Scott Fella]

Yeah... Fast SSID change is required if your switching between SSIDs, but doesn't help if the device is having issues connecting. So try different encryption methods and see if it works with another method or not.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App