Setup : Hardware: SG135 Software: UTM v9.705-3 APs: 2x AP55s Non-Standard Config: AP Country set to US (not to my actual location), for hardware compatibility reasons Problem: For at least the last year, wireless devices on my network have been intermittently 'dropping off' the network. This happens to single devices at a time, but multiple devices of different types from different vendors and different OSs are affected (ie; phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, set top boxes etc...) What I mean by 'dropping off' is: The device shows as connected to WIFI The WIFI signal indicator on the device often shows with an '!' and says 'Connected, but Internet not available' It is not possible to ping another device on the LAN or elsewhere On the firewall, the status of the device shows as 'Online', with good signal strength & often good speed (but often this subsequently drops down to 24mbit) According to the firewall log, a device which has 'dropped off' still registers as sending packets to the net Physically moving the device to try to get a 'better' signal has no affect Wireless logs sometimes show the last entry for the device as 'disassociated due to inactivity', but not always; sometimes the device has not disconnected according to the logs The device can stay in this state for many hours and generally you must 'disconnect and reconnect' from the wireless to fix it, which almost always works. Troubleshooting Steps Taken: I am unable to pinpoint the exact time that this issue started, however there have been no hardware changes and was not a problem for many years prior I have been unable to find any evidence of consistent issues in the wireless logs which may explain this or point to a common problem There are no related issues shown in other places such as the Intrusion Protection or Advanced Threat Protection logs or anywhere else I can find I have observed no patterns to this issue and it appears to affect virtually all wireless devices intermittently and randomly; sometimes not affecting a device for weeks at a time and other times affecting it multiple times within an hour I have tried disabling 'Fast Transition' and 'U-APSD', both of which I have observed to cause problems in some environments, but no change was observed Yes, I've tried turning it off and on again :) So, I'm stumped. Any suggestions / ideas / input would be greatly appreciated!

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Wireless Devices 'Dropping Off' the Network

Setup:
Hardware: SG135
Software: UTM v9.705-3
APs: 2x AP55s
Non-Standard Config: AP Country set to US (not to my actual location), for hardware compatibility reasons

Problem:
For at least the last year, wireless devices on my network have been intermittently 'dropping off' the network. This happens to single devices at a time, but multiple devices of different types from different vendors and different OSs are affected (ie; phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, set top boxes etc...)

What I mean by 'dropping off' is:

The device shows as connected to WIFI
The WIFI signal indicator on the device often shows with an '!' and says 'Connected, but Internet not available'
It is not possible to ping another device on the LAN or elsewhere
On the firewall, the status of the device shows as 'Online', with good signal strength & often good speed (but often this subsequently drops down to 24mbit)
According to the firewall log, a device which has 'dropped off' still registers as sending packets to the net
Physically moving the device to try to get a 'better' signal has no affect
Wireless logs sometimes show the last entry for the device as 'disassociated due to inactivity', but not always; sometimes the device has not disconnected according to the logs
The device can stay in this state for many hours and generally you must 'disconnect and reconnect' from the wireless to fix it, which almost always works.

Troubleshooting Steps Taken:

I am unable to pinpoint the exact time that this issue started, however there have been no hardware changes and was not a problem for many years prior
I have been unable to find any evidence of consistent issues in the wireless logs which may explain this or point to a common problem
There are no related issues shown in other places such as the Intrusion Protection or Advanced Threat Protection logs or anywhere else I can find
I have observed no patterns to this issue and it appears to affect virtually all wireless devices intermittently and randomly; sometimes not affecting a device for weeks at a time and other times affecting it multiple times within an hour
I have tried disabling 'Fast Transition' and 'U-APSD', both of which I have observed to cause problems in some environments, but no change was observed
Yes, I've tried turning it off and on again :)

So, I'm stumped.

Any suggestions / ideas / input would be greatly appreciated!

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Top Replies

Amodin over 3 years ago in reply to SamFickling +1

Sam Did you try to assign the APs their own static channels? Make sure they are not using the same channel because that will actually cut down your speed and signal. I would analyze any traffic using…

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0 SamFickling over 3 years ago

By way of an 'update'; Sophos gave me a command to run on my firewall to improve the AP handover process:

1. Enable the "Fast roaming"
2. Set the bridge kick out to 1 using the command: cc set awe global bridge_update_kickout 1

The bridge_update_kickout is a feature of the Access point, when a client roams to target AP from source AP, the source AP assumes that the client is still on the source AP and thus it does not forward the ARP response packets.

Unfortunately this has not resolved the issue.

I will continue working with Sophos and add to this thread with any updates as they happen.

Reply

0 SamFickling over 3 years ago

By way of an 'update'; Sophos gave me a command to run on my firewall to improve the AP handover process:

1. Enable the "Fast roaming"
2. Set the bridge kick out to 1 using the command: cc set awe global bridge_update_kickout 1

The bridge_update_kickout is a feature of the Access point, when a client roams to target AP from source AP, the source AP assumes that the client is still on the source AP and thus it does not forward the ARP response packets.

Unfortunately this has not resolved the issue.

I will continue working with Sophos and add to this thread with any updates as they happen.

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