AP100C randomly reboots

Interesting, Richard!

If you shut down the XG instance, does the AP100C still reboot?  Does the first appearance of "Reconfiguration required" in the logs correspond to the time you set up the XG?

Cheers - Bob

Hi Bob,

Cheers for getting back to me. I shutdown the XG but I'm still getting the random dropout's with "Reconfiguration required" still showing up in the log. It's very strange that yesterday, this only occurred once but the day before it happened several times. I'm starting to think that this AP is on it's way out...

Looking at the logfiles, from December last year to now, this has been entries for "Reconfiguration required" in the Wireless Protection log. I only installed the Sophos XG two weeks ago, so I guess it won't be this.

Cheers,
Richard

Yeah, Richard, Sophos Support might be able to revive it, but I bet they wind up RMAing it.  Then again, End-of-Support for the 100C was six days ago (https://support.sophos.com/support/s/article/KB-000035279?language=en_US).

Say, what happens if you use a different Ethernet cable and a different switch port to power it?

Cheers - Bob

PS As a mod, I can see the IP from which a post was entered, so I can I see that you're near Glasgow.  My son took the improv team from the University of Colorado that he and a friend founded to the 2010 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.  The closest I ever got was a road trip to the Lake District when we were living in Paris.  We agreed that it's beautiful country!

Hi Bob,

Haven't got around to contacting Sophos yet about this problem. I'm not even sure if this problem is related to the AP or not. There is one laptop which is constantly losing it's connection to this AP. I've re-imaged the laptop, replaced the WiFi adapter, tried a USB WiFi adapter... all the same problem. Noticed in the wireless protection log that every time the connection is lost, this is reported:

IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)

Also doesn't make any difference if I change the wireless network.

Cheers,
Richard

I don't think the inactivity message is unusual as I see that often in our log related to my iPhone, but I don't recall any problems.

Cheers - Bob

Starting to think that the AP is the problem. I have an old AP30 that I haven't used in years, re-configured it today and so far this laptop hasn't dropped its connection since changing over to the AP30. Honestly frustrating, settings on both AP's are the same. Only difference is that the AP30 doesn't support 5Ghz.

I can't seem to find any way of contacting Sophos to see what can be done, I really hope that I don't need to pay the full amount to replace this AP. If I do, then I'm just going to move away from the entire Sophos system.

Honestly so confused by this now. So from testing, I now know the following:

1. AP100C works for all devices apart from one laptop. The connection is intermittent on this one laptop, using two different WiFi adapters.
2. AP30 works perfectly fine for the problematic laptop and the connection does not drop.
3. This laptop has also been re-imaged with a fresh install of Windows 10, build 1909.
4. Both AP's have the same configuration in Sophos UTM, minus the 5Ghz support on the AP30.
5. Using a different laptop, performing the same tasks as I would on the problematic laptop, whilst connected to the AP100C, there are no drop-out's.

I genuinely at this point, can't determine what the problem is, if it's the AP100C or the laptop. Both devices are technically working in one way, which just makes this problem really difficult to actually troubleshoot.

EDIT: I may have spoke too soon, the WiFi connection has just dropped on the second laptop that is connected to the AP100C. The strange thing with this is that the connection itself remains active, but network connectivity stops for a period of time. Unable to ping local devices or external hosts.

Cheers,
Richard

You might see if Sophos Support will RMA the AP100C for you as the problem obviously began occurring prior to End-of-Support for those devices.  End-of-Life isn't until 2023-03-31.  The worst that can happen is they won't.

Cheers - Bob

Your content helped me a lot to take my doubts, thank you very much.

Think of the deauthentication as sleep mode for the devices that connected to the AP.  If there has been no activity on them (connected but not rx/tx data) you get this message and it's normal to see.