802.11r- Roaming Issues

[KaylaEik]

To enable or not to enable... 

We have Cisco 8821 wireless headsets that seem to be having intermittent roaming issues.  This occurred mostly when upgrading the firmware from 25.9 to 25.13.  One of our Cisco account reps had worked for Meraki TAC and suggested that if 802.11r was not already disabled, to disable it because there had been some known issues with roaming.  We recently had a wireless site survey conducted, to which the wireless engineer suggests we enable 802.11r.  At this point we had to roll back our firmware to 25.9 and 802.11r is still disabled.  Anyone run into similar situations?  

Edit: Correct Error

[NolanHerring]

Just to clarify, do you mean the 8821 ?

[NolanHerring]

Are you using PSK or 802.1X? (just checking)

[KaylaEik]

Yes, I fat fingered the model of phone, they are 8821's.  Also, we are using 802.1X for authentication. 

[NolanHerring]

What version firmware is the phone running?

[KaylaEik]

Currently they are running 11-0-3SR4-3, but we are testing a few phones on 11-0-4SR3-3. 

[NolanHerring]

How do you have your SSID configured? Screenshot or details 😃

[NolanHerring]

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@KaylaEik wrote:

Currently they are running 11-0-3SR4-3, but we are testing a few phones on 11-0-4SR3-3. 

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Have you gone through this guide?

Says to run 11.0(4) and nothing earlier

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/collaboration-endpoints/unified-wireless-ip-phone-7925g/2...

[NolanHerring]

What channels do you have the phone configured to use?
What channels are you using on the access points?
Is the SSID 5GHz only?

[KaylaEik]

Thank you for the link to the document you sent.  I will dive in and read it.  I am the network engineer, and we have a voice engineer, so we're both tackling the issue.  We are only allowing the phones to operate on 5GHz.  There was a recent change after we rolled our firmware back, since we have large site (98 APs, mix of MR32 and MR42s), to where we expanded the channel width from 40 MHz to 20 MHz.  Regarding the channels the phones are operating on, I will need to take a look.  The issue happens in certain parts of the building, which leads me to believe it's more of a noise/interference issue (hence the recent site survey, and modifications to the channel widths).  Knowing that 802.11r is not recommended to be enabled unless you're operating on the 11.0(4) firmware is good to know as well.  Thank you for your help thus far.