New Apple iPads not joining wireless. 16.1.1 code.

[Dustin Anderson]

I wanted to make a post to anyone having this issue. We ran into this last week with the new iPads they have started getting in.

It seems to be an issue with Fast transition if you have it set to adaptive. Setting it to disable or enable and they connect, adaptive and they try connecting over and over.

16.1.2 is hopefully coming out soon, but not sure if it will correct the issue. Workaround is the set fast transition to disable for now.

[balaji.bandi]

is the old ipad works ? then you need to run debug taking one client see what is wrong, why the client not joined ?

how about other devices works fine (like PC, android ?)

also worth posting your environment ( WLC model, code running)

[Dustin Anderson]

prod controller 5520 code 8.10.171

test controller 3504 code is 8.10.171 8.10.182 does not correct the issue.

We are only seeing it on the iPad Pro, new models. All old models are working fine. I can confirm it is with the fast transition adaptive set as if I enable, or disable the new iPad connects, but on adaptive it keeps retrying to connect. WLC and ISE show successful authentication though.

[Dustin Anderson]

on a side note, it may be affecting some new macbooks, but haven't been able to verify. Seems like it may be an issue with M2 chips. Also verified the beta 16.2 code does not fix it.

[Arshad Safrulla]

I would strongly advise you to have the FT enabled or disabled only. Why have it adaptive? 

If you need the SSID to support FT capable and non-FT capable clients, then you must have the Fast Transition mode Enabled. Refer to the well written post by Jeremy on the below link, this should give you an overview on FT modes

Solved: 802.11r- Can same WLAN be used for 802.11r capable and non capable clients? - Cisco Community

[Dustin Anderson]

Adaptive is Cisco's recommendation as it is supposed to detect if the device is 11r compliant or not and send the setting if compliant. setting to enable could cause devices to not connect if not compliant. UPS has some ancient wireless scanners on site, so not sure if they are compliant or not.

Adaptive has never been an issue except for these new Macs. and some odd Motorola phones.

[Arshad Safrulla]

Hi Dustin,

I agree that there is a dependency on connecting clients as well. I assume that you are not having these issues in a public network. I would approach this issue by enabling FT and then testing with the clients where you had issues. This should give results which would help to decide whether to have FT enabled or adaptive.

I am also curios to know what advantage you are getting by having FT enabled. How is it helping the business or relevant to the business use case? Have you tried disabling it and measuring the roaming performance? 

[Dustin Anderson]

So, with BYOD with the Motorola phones, we disabled FT to fix them.

With the iPads, disable or enable work. so since I'm not sure on the UPS canners, I disabled it for now. I don't have one to test so don't know if it supports it or not.

As for bonuses of FT, other than faster roaming, so long as the client doesn't drop a call etc, guess it really doesn't matter. But it probably never hurt anything either.