Wireless Access

Hello,

I have recently upgraded our wireless controller from 6.3.1.9 to 6.4.2.2 and since have had multiple complaints of 10.9 clients dropping off of the network.  If the user toggles their wireless they are able to reconnect without issue.  I am currently debugging a few clients on the controller but it's hard to pinpoint when it happens since users typically reboot when they have the issue; ultimately resolving the problem.  Has anyone else had this issue with this code rev? I'd really perfer not to roll back to 6.3 if possible.

Thanks,

Matt

Some of our OSX clients have this issue.  Others seem to be happy.  Like you, we have yet to get to the bottom of it.  Several have noticed improvement with 10.9.5 but the issue still definitely exists to some extent, even at that revision.

Try shutting off bluetooth or doing the fix on the following link.  Mavericks currently has issues with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth being on at the same time causing interference.  Apple has yet to fix it...

http://www.imore.com/how-fix-mavericks-wi-fi-zapping-bluetooth

If we can manage to find an environment where we can reliably replicate the problem we'll give fiddling with bluetooth a try.  I don't know if that will address the problem described here (where the machines are not sleeping) but anything is worth a whack.

As Bjulin has mentioned, I believe there are two issues at hand.  There was a sleep/wake issue with 10.9 but these machines are not sleeping.  I am trying to make sure this in fact a client side issue.  It does seem more noticeable in the latest code, but that could be coincidence?  Unlike most corporate environment, we are a school system and primarily Mac based.

Unfortunatley, we don't have any reference point by which to judge whether the issue existed or how prevelant it was under 6.3, as we are a new customer that started on 6.4 and due to our AP models we can't go backwards.

We are in a very similar situation. We are running 6.4.2.2 and a bunch of 10.9.5 clients. We had wifi issues dating back to the 10.7 days. We found a post elsewhere that described disabling some sort of roaming on Macs (defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.airport.opproam disabled -bool true) and that helped significantly. We are now rolling out some brand new MacBook Airs (with AC wifi cards) and we are again hearing of constant disconnecting of wireless. The roaming fix has been applied, so I'm back to troubleshooting but I, too, cannot replicate it reliably.

Thanks rmcleod.  I will dig into what you are suggesting to see if there are any repercussions.  Its super frustrating when the issue looks its client side but everyone thinks the wireless is unstable.

I noticed that for a few of our 10.9 clients, turning off "Wake for network access" in the energy settings of the Mac (power adapter tab) resolved the intermittent connection issue. Sounds unrelated, but it was a night and day difference for a few of our users. That was the only setting that changed to remedy their issues. 

Interesting.  Did you check if you turned it back on that the problem came back?  I know, it's hard to debug and hard to get a test system in hand.

No, didn't have the heart to ask to have a teacher get back into the twighlight zone of being unable to connect randomly.