problems with session duration for 1 client

[lydia.walther]

Hello,

we have some problems with one of our wifi clients.

The wireless lan controller is a model 4402 with software version 6.0.196.0.

The access points are connected via mesh mode! The status seems to be stable (Uptime of two access points

in the third floor is about 10 days).

Normally we only provide one wireless network with WPA+WPA2 and WEB-Auth. But since two weeks there is a guest

who says he's beeing disconnected very often. Because we thought it would be a problem with the WEB-Authentication and his apple computer,

we set up a new wifi network with mac address filter. But the guest is still complaining about the connection.

In the wireless control system reports I can see, that there are often connections of this guest which has a session duration

of exactly "5 min 0 sec". But in the meantime there are also session durations of several hours.

(Session timeout is not enabled! User Idle Timeout is set to 3000 seconds and ARP timeout is 300 seconds)

In the old version of WCS there was given a "reason code" for the disassociation of clients, but in this version I can't

see something like that. (I upgraded the version this week.)

In the trap log of the controller there are only messages like "Client Association" and "Client Authenticated" for the concerned client, but no entrys

for disassociation or deauthentication.

Other guests do not have this problem. It's only one guest using two different computers (1 Apple, 1 Windows).

Affected is the guest who's living in the highest floor of the house. Other guests in the first floor do not have

problems. Could this really be a problem of the mesh mode? We never had a guest before with so big problems.

Where can I found the reason for the clients new authentication? What is happening after exactly 5 minutes?

Does anybody has an idea?

During we tested the wifi with our computers there were no problems although we were sitting in the highest floor. We will do an endurance test for some hours tomorrow.

Greetings Lydia

[Scott Fella]

Well are these devices going to sleep? If so, then the idle timer would count down and then remove the client. You currently have it set for 3000 seconds or 50 minutes. Also is the device maybe trying to connect to another SSID? Maybe test again and remove any other SSID's that might affect the testing. Can you post the show WLAN again?

Do you see this issue when the client is in the 2.4ghz or 5ghz?

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[lydia.walther]

Hello,

the clients are using the 2,4ghz.

Here is the output of show wlan id:

(Cisco Controller) >show wlan 2

WLAN Identifier.................................. 2

Profile Name..................................... mpids_gh

Network Name (SSID).............................. mpids_gh

Status........................................... Enabled

MAC Filtering.................................... Enabled

Broadcast SSID................................... Enabled

AAA Policy Override.............................. Disabled

Network Admission Control

  NAC-State...................................... Disabled

  Quarantine VLAN................................ 0

Number of Active Clients......................... 2

Exclusionlist Timeout............................ 60 seconds

Session Timeout.................................. Infinity

CHD per WLAN..................................... Enabled

Webauth DHCP exclusion........................... Disabled

Interface........................................ mpids_gh_if

WLAN ACL......................................... unconfigured

DHCP Server...................................... 192.168.243.1

DHCP Address Assignment Required................. Disabled

Quality of Service............................... Silver (best effort)

Scan Defer Priority.............................. 5,6

Scan Defer Time.................................. 100 milliseconds

WMM.............................................. Allowed

Media Stream Multicast-direct.................... Disabled

CCX - AironetIe Support.......................... Disabled

CCX - Gratuitous ProbeResponse (GPR)............. Disabled

CCX - Diagnostics Channel Capability............. Disabled

Dot11-Phone Mode (7920).......................... Disabled

Wired Protocol................................... None

IPv6 Support..................................... Disabled

Peer-to-Peer Blocking Action..................... Disabled

Radio Policy..................................... All

DTIM period for 802.11a radio.................... 1

DTIM period for 802.11b radio.................... 1

Radius Servers

   Authentication................................ Global Servers

   Accounting.................................... Global Servers

   Dynamic Interface............................. Disabled

Local EAP Authentication......................... Disabled

Security

   802.11 Authentication:........................ Open System

   Static WEP Keys............................... Disabled

   802.1X........................................ Disabled

   Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA2)............. Enabled

      WPA (SSN IE)............................... Disabled

      WPA2 (RSN IE).............................. Enabled

         TKIP Cipher............................. Disabled

         AES Cipher.............................. Enabled

                                                               Auth Key Management

         802.1x.................................. Disabled

         PSK..................................... Enabled

         CCKM.................................... Disabled

         FT(802.11r)............................. Disabled

         FT-PSK(802.11r)......................... Disabled

FT Reassociation Timeout......................... 20

FT Over-The-Air mode............................. Enabled

FT Over-The-Ds mode.............................. Enabled

   CKIP ......................................... Disabled

   IP Security................................... Disabled

   IP Security Passthru.......................... Disabled

   Web Based Authentication...................... Disabled

   Web-Passthrough............................... Disabled

   Conditional Web Redirect...................... Disabled

   Splash-Page Web Redirect...................... Disabled

   Auto Anchor................................... Disabled

   H-REAP Local Switching........................ Disabled

   H-REAP Learn IP Address....................... Enabled

   Infrastructure MFP protection................. Disabled

   Client MFP.................................... Optional

   Tkip MIC Countermeasure Hold-down Timer....... 60

Call Snooping.................................... Disabled

Band Select...................................... Disabled

Load Balancing................................... Disabled

Mobility Anchor List

WLAN ID     IP Address            Status

-------     ---------------       ------

(Cisco Controller) >

For the client e8:39:df:84:8b:0c of which is the log I can't say if it is going to sleep (We don't have access to the device.). I would say no, because the user is complaining about the interrupts permanently. And always if there is a disassociation directly there is a new association.

For the macbook which belongs to us I can say, that it is not going to sleep (sleep mode is deactivated). We run a ping all the time (since friday morning).

A little while ago I saw all the clients of this wifi disassociating. Debugging one of the clients at this moment shows:

(Cisco Controller) >*Mar 04 13:27:27.002: 00:1e:52:7d:e8:e7 Cleaning up state for STA 00:1e:52:7d:e8:e7 due to event for AP 00:1d:70:01:b7:f0(0)

*Mar 04 13:27:27.005: 00:1e:52:7d:e8:e7 apfSendDisAssocMsgDebug (apf_80211.c:1682) Changing state for mobile 00:1e:52:7d:e8:e7 on AP 00:1d:70:01:b7:f0 from Associated to Disassociated

And under the "Most recent traps" there was written:

27    Mon Mar 4 13:27:27 2013    AP Disassociated. Base Radio MAC:00:1d:70:01:b7:f0

28    Mon Mar 4 13:27:27 2013    AP's Interface:1(802.11a) Operation State Down: Base Radio MAC:00:1d:70:01:b7:f0 Cause=Heartbeat Timeout

29    Mon Mar 4 13:27:27 2013    AP's Interface:0(802.11b) Operation State Down: Base Radio MAC:00:1d:70:01:b7:f0 Cause=Heartbeat Timeout

But I don't know how often this is occuring.

Meanwhile I found the column for "reason" in the client session reports. Nearly always there is written "new association detected" as reason for disassociation.

There are some other SSIDs within reach (some of us and some foreign) but I can't remove them. Sometimes I can see that the user is changing the wireless (always hoping to find a better connection), but this seems to take place uncomplicated.

[Scott Fella]

Have you eliminated any issues maybe with cabling? Do you see any errors on the switchport that the AP is connected to?

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[lydia.walther]

It's a mesh network because there is only one network socket in the basement of the house.

That's why we installed an additional access point in the second floor on friday (user and test computer on third floor). We wanted to see if it stabilize the connection, but I'm not sure if this was helpful.

I suppose that if a computer placed in the third floor is connecting to the wireless network via the access point in the first floor, the session duration is very short - often exactly 5 minutes. I can see longer session durations if the connection is built up via the access point in the third floor. But sometimes the 5-minute-problem is occuring there too.

I don't know why a computer isn't using the access point next to it but rather this one two floors further down.

Root AP is in the basement, ground floor has 2 access points, first floor has 1 AP, second floor 2 AP and third floor 1 AP.

[Scott Fella]

So you have a RAP in the basement and all the others are MAP's?

Thanks,

Scott

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[lydia.walther]

Yes, that's right.

[Scott Fella]

So typically I don't like to go past two hops, so you need to see if your MAP is changing its parent or not which can cause issues for you.

Thanks,

Scott

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