Mac OSx/5508/3702i dropping issue

[tdorsey123]

Hi all,

I have installed dozens of WLCs but with this one customer rollout I have hit an impasse.  The customer has a 98% MacOS device environment running a 5508 HA pair and 3702i APs.  The Mac OSx users randomly lose access even when their device sits in one place within 10 feet of a below ceiling tile hung AP. Disconnects can't be recreated as no particular behavior seems to trigger the drop.  Also for some clients there is severe latency(>1000ms) just pinging the WLAN gateway. Pings from Gateway SVI to AP are fine(<5ms) Debugs imply AP is too busy to handle an authentication request even thought the AP only has 10 users and an insignificant amount of traffic flowing through it. This issue is not dedicated to just one AP either as folks all over the 30 AP environment suffer similarly.  Air Magnet shows no coverage holes.  Windows devices appear ok.

I am more interested if this is has happened to anyone else and if anyone has had something that has fixed this issue for them instead of troubleshooting.

TAC case has been open over 4 months with escalation and Backbone TAC involvement with no luck.

Details:

- Mac OSx versions are random and those running Yosemite do have the latest patch.

- WLC versions 7.6.120, 7.6.130, 8.0.102MR, and 8.0.110 have not corrected the problem.  (although fewer errors are seen in the debugs)

- Although APs are actually local to the controller, the customer has them in Flexconnect for HA and Bandwidth reasons.

- problem happens with Band Steering and also with Dedicated 5Ghz SSID (2.4 unusable due to density of APs using 2.4 in surrounding buildings)

- Clear Air 5ghz report score above 97%

- tried Legacy Beam forming, no joy.

- EDRRM is on

- Fast Transition is on

- Fast SSID switching is on

- Problem occurs with 20 and 40 Mhz channel bonding.

- 802.11k sticky cache has been tried to no avail.

- FUS is at 1.8 (I hear FUS 1.9.0.0 not only fixes the subsystem bugs but may iron out problems with the Operation side too)

- SSID running dynamic vlan assignment from NPS Server

- 6 SSIDs total

- No DFS channels being used

- SSID timeout has been turned off

- Data rates below 9Mbit are disabled

- APs are roughly 25 feet apart.

[Leo Laohoo]

Most common Wifi issues

Fix Wi-Fi Problems in OS X Yosemite

Have you also tried disabling 802.11n?

[tdorsey123]

Thanks Leo,

          Problem happens to multiple versions of OSx, those running Yosemite do have the latest patch.  Unfortunately I don't think disabling N is going to be feasible.  Due to the High density rate there is no b/g to fallback on (2.4 Ghz is completely saturated).  So that would leave users with basically just 802.11a?  I do have a customer with similar set up running 5508 (v7.6.130) with 3702 in flexconnect.  The difference is the1.9.0.0 FUS has been applied and they run Pre-shared key authentication. Where as the problem customer runs older FUS and Dynamic Radius based vlan assignment.

[tdorsey123]

Hi Everyone,  For the record the 1.9 FUS had been applied.  The correct answer was load-balancing.  Load balancing was trying to push the Macs off of one 3702 to another and the Mac's refused to move so they got disconnected.Turned off load balancing and problem went away.

[Rasika Nayanajith]

- FUS is at 1.8 (I hear FUS 1.9.0.0 not only fixes the subsystem bugs but may iron out problems with the Operation side too)

Yes, I would upgrade to FUS 1.9.0.0 & test this.

- Fast Transition is on

Have you test without this ?

HTH

Rasika

**** Pls rate all useful responses ****

[Jeff Vrieling]

out of curiosity, is the issue still present or has it been solved yet? we have the same issue going on.

[Jeff Vrieling]

out of curiosity, is the issue still present or has it been solved yet? we have the same issue going on.