Wireless Access

One of my costumers upgraded a 3500 controller from OS 6.1.2.4 to 6.1.3.6. After that, the costumer had big problems with all remote offices. This is small remote offices with 2-3 AP's connected to a central controller as both LAN AP’s and as remote AP's. All AP's are AP92's with external antenna. After the upgrade the users was losing connection and had problems with very slow connection. The controller showed many retransmit packets; up to 90 to 100% retransmit. After two weeks with big problems, we rolled back the controller to OS 6.1.3.6 and everything was working normal again. The users are Win7 PC’s, barcode scanners and mobile phones.    

Tom C.

You probably will have to open a support case.  They will need your live data from the upgrade to determine what is going on.

OK Thanks ;-)

Well, when you say retransmitting packets....  Where did you see that?

Hi,

We see it on the Dashboard --> users A--> drops and retries from the client.

However, the problem was that the WLAN was extremely slow and unstable. On the costumer’s main office the WLAN was working well, but here, it is better WLAN coverage. The problem seems to occur when the signals from the AP’s/PC's  is low.  We are also running the same OS version in our company on a 650 controller, using AP105’s and AP124/125’s. That is working just fine, but we also have high density of AP’s.     

Tom C.

Did you find anything?

I recently upgraded many controllers from 5.0.3.3 to 6.1.3.6 and am starting to get the same complaints.

We use AP-93, with single 2.4ghz radio.

I'm fairly certain the issues are with actual coverage in our offices, but the complaints only appeared after the upgrade.  In one extreme case I rolled the controller back to 5.0.3.3.  I called the next day to check and was told the issue seemed to resolve itself.

I'm in the process of adding APs for coverage, but that doesn't help the daily calls about the suddenly reduced signal and frequent disconnects.

I actually need to be at some version of 6.x code because the new APs are not compatible with 5.0.3.3.  My SE recommended 6.1.3.6 with the caveat to check release notes for any known issues......I didn't see anything in the release notes that would affect our network.

Hi, I’ sorry but I have no more info for the moment. I’m working now with another project for the moment, but as soon as it is finished I have promised the costumer that I’m going to look into his problems. The ongoing project will be finished in a week or two. I will post the solution when I find a solution that works.       ;-)

This sounds quite a bit like the problem we're seeing in 6.2.0.2 (we upgraded from 6.1.3.1)

Our clients show a fairly good signal level and Access Points seem not to agree.

TAC helped reduce the users' screaming by turning off handoff-assist and increasing the min-EIRP.

We've done a mini-site-survey in one of the areas where we've had complaints and found that coverage at the (warehouse) floor is pretty good, yet the controller seems to be cutting them off.

TAC has been unresponsive since we got the yelling down.

--Matthew

Hi, we upgraded the costumer controller to 6.1.3.6 once more. After having trying to tweak some parameters we still got serious problems on some locations and on some single PC’s on the HQ. When we looked further into the PC’s and remote locations we found out that some PC’s with old network drivers got problems after the upgrade. The costumer upgraded the PC’s and they worked fine. On the remote locations that had problems, we found out that the costumer had set up AP92’s with only one antenna, or with two different antennas covering two different areas. For example one sector antenna outdoor and one unidirectional inside the building. Specially thus places with an AP92 with only one antenna had serious problems after the upgrade. The costumer tried to put the antenna on the other antenna outlet, and it worked better, but not as good as, it should. Setting up an extra antenna (same type as already connected) on the AP’s solved the problem    

Did you find anything on this? We are seeing the saem thing on a 650 controller with ap-105.