Issues with iOS devices discovering devices when using Mobility Express

[mumbles202]

Hoping someone might be able to shed some light on an issue I'm noticing.  Currently working through an issue where there is an SSID on a ME deployment using WPA2 that is allowing devices to connect w/o any issues.  I've been getting word from iOS users that when they are trying to discover an Alexa/Google Home type device on the network and going through the setup process they're unable to.  Android devices are able to discover the products w/o any issue.  Using an autonomous AP with a very basic configuration the iOS devices work w/o any issues (the autonomous AP is connected in another building on the same campus). Wondering if there is anything I should be looking at on the ME side that might point to why it works for Android devices and not iOS devices.  Are there any iOS specific tuning settings that should be applied to the SSID?  The end users will have roughly 95% iOS devices.

[pieterh]

???

>>> going through the setup process  <<<

do you mean you connect to the WiFi of the chromecast directly, so you can configure the Chromecast to connect to the ME-SSID?

then this means you are not using the SSID created on the ME at this time of the process.?

[mumbles202]

No, sorry if poorly worded.  iOS client is connected to the wireless.  Does a discovery, should find the client via Bluetooth and then push SSID/PSK to the client through bluetooth and the device then able to join the wireless network that the iOS device is connected to.  From an Android device it works and I can see the device associate to the ME w/o any issues.  When running the same steps on the iOS device It does the initial push via bluetooth but the device never associates w/ the SSID.  Works fine from the same iOS device when using an autonomous AP however. 

[mumbles202]

So for testing I deployed an Autonomous AP at the building w/ the issue using a copy of the configuration from the AP that I knew worked in building 1.  Still had the same issue.  I think brought the AP from building 1 to building 2 and once again I saw that it didn't work.  Back in buidling 1 it works almost seamlessly.

Building 1 has Avaya L2 switches and a SonicWall as the default gateway for the devices.  Building 2 has a 2960XR as the default gateway for all the devices and it has a default route to the SonicWall for egress.  I enabled multicast routing on the 2960XR but that didn't change anything. 

[JPavonM]

mDNS is the L2 protocol that iOS discovery process relays on (aka Bonjur in Apple flavour) when looking for nearby devices to connect to.

First thing to consider is if your Cisco AireOS version support mDNS and Bonjour as the first version to do that is 8.8.100 (https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/mobility-express/213263-mobility-express-feature-list-per-releas.html#anc12).

Then, in your deployment, your AP in Building 2 is directly connected to 2960XR but where is Alexa/Google Home device connected to? To be discoverable it has to be connected to the same AP or switch in order to find it with the Apple devices. But if the device to connect to is on Building 1 connected to a different AP or to the Avaya switch, then that's different. Switch on Building 1 doesn't know about receivers in Switch 2.

Maybe you need to add somekind of setup as explained in this excellent document (https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-6500-series-switches/68131-cat-multicast-prob.html).

HTH
-Jesus
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[mumbles202]

Thanks for the reply.  The ME deployment is on 8.10. 

At the time of testing everything is in a single building.  So AP, client and device all are in 1 building.  Client is 2' away from the device in question that he is trying to see and manage.  I tried this w/ a single autonomous AP to rule out any chance the ME was the underlying issue and still had the issue so now leaning towards infrastructure.  I took the AP that i knew worked fine in Building 1, brought it to Building 2 (along w/ the client and the device) and tested it and it failed.  Brought everything back to building 1 and confirmed it worked again as expected.

The 1 difference between the devices in Building 2 for my test was the 3 ME access points are directly connected to the 2960XR (this has ip pim enabled under the SVI that the APs and the WLAN clients are on) while the Autonomous AP was connected to a SG300 that is connected to the 2960XR.  I didn't enable igmp on the SG300 so that might account for why that test failed.  But i did try the WLAN on the ME after the changes were made and still had the same results.