Wireless Access

I am working on an issue we have seem to incurred after upgrading our customer from 3000 series controllers running 6.1 code to new 7210 controllers running 6.3 code. 

The issue we have run into is degraded performance with mesh links we have had in place for 2 years. The hardware in those mesh links has not changed but the performance sure has. 

Previously the links showed TX & RX rates of 120 - 300 up until the point of us migrating to the new controllers and code. Now the links are showing TX and RX rates of 6 to 54. This is for links with an RSSI value of 38-39. 

We have a case open with TAC but so far no luck in getting someone to explain to us the degraded rates or to assist us in resolving the issue. 

We are also having issues with the links being reliable. On one of them we have to connect the antenna directly to the AP, start the AP and the link is established. If we unhook the AP from the antenna and place it inside the enclosure and then connect the extension leads to the antenna it will stay connected with the same RSSI value. If we power off the AP at this point it will no longer re-establish the link. We have to go through the process of "jump starting" the mesh link and then moving it back into the enclosure and reconnecting everything. We have swapped out leads and other components thinking they may be at fault to no avail. We have also swapped out the APs thinking they may be to blame but again no dice. 

We have had 6 of these links up and working for the past two years on their campus and now have only begun to experience issues with the upgrade to 6.3. I believe we also incurred this issue briefly when we had them on 6.2 but we did not dig into it as deep as we are now. 

The one noticeable diffference is how 6.3 shows the mesh role from the command "show ap mesh topology". In the 6.1 code the mesh role was reported as Portal or Point followed by (n). Now in 6.3 it just lists the role as Portal or Point. I have confirmed HT is turned on and that the radios are using 40Mhz. I am not sure if this detail is telling of what is at cause but no one has been able to report back to me on it. 

Anyone exeperiencing similar issue? Any thoughts?

Here are examples of the links prior to 6.3 and after 6.3

Here is before. 

Here is after. 

No hardware change - configurations are identical as far as radio profiles and ARM settings. I have turned off 802.11ac options and client match which were enabled by default in 6.3 thinking they might make a difference but no changes to the rates were seen. 

Hello,

There shoudln't be any performance loss on mesh links after an upgrade.  You took the best first step to track down the problem, opening a TAC case.  If you email me the TAC case number, I will do some additional digging with TAC, engineering and QA and let you know what I find.

Hi all,

Can check whether there is anything we should take note on the result/outcome?

Cheers!