Cisco Meraki MR Access Points Poor Performance and Disconnects

[FKastro]

Hello,

Long Time Meraki user and I have been running into issues since i first purchased the full stack (MX 250, MS 225, MR 46 mostly with a few MR 33 for smaller rooms).

Few Issues and maybe someone can help answer.

1) I have not been able to get my APs to go past 80M up/down.  I have tweaked the settings and disabled any interference and still shows less and we are 500M up down fiber

2) I get AP's that disconnect the user and we are seeing alot of this especially if user is on VPN they will drop and think its VPN when it seems its my network.  

*From ISP side there hasn't been any issues all seems good and also the meraki doesn't see it drop so i am assuming that the issue is Internal LAN.

I can provide more information if needed.  The issue doesn't always happen its intermetten and most users have

either given up on telling me or they assume its VPN. 

Running on the latest stable Firmware as of today.

[alemabrahao]

@FKastro, have you facing the same issue using 5Ghz band?

[FKastro]

Yes the issue is occurring on both 2.4GHz and 5.0Ghz.  We tweaked the RF profiles and that helped for a bit but the issue keeps coming back.  Users will randomly get disconnected, we are 90% Apple Macbook running the latest OS.

[alemabrahao]

I got It, can you share your RF Profile configuration? What type of authentication are you using?

[FKastro]

For Authentication we are using: PSK

WPA3 Transition Mode and we have 802.11W Enabled.

[alemabrahao]

@FKastro, 

Is it possible to change it to WPA2 only and disable 802.11w? Just to test. You can also create a new SSID to test It.

[FKastro]

So I have tried that in the past with WPA2 and also the WPA2-3 option and the 802.11w disabled and the issue was still occuring.  

Wifi should work no matter what, my at home wifi stays connected and its not enterprise grade.  The fact that we are having drops and we don't get any specific reason why or when we look at logs it says that it was disassociation.

For the sake of your test i will try this out and test out.

[PhilipDAth]

My biggest issues with WiFi performance usually centre around machines with Intel WiFi NICS.

If you have an Intel WiFi NIC and are running Windows, start by disabling WiFi power saving.

powercfg /SETDCVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 0
powercfg /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 0

Next, Intel released a driver update on the 30th of August 2022 which really helped one of my clients.  Check to make sure you are running the very latest WiFi NIC driver.  Note that you may have to get the driver from Intel rather than the OEM of your machine to get the latest driver.

[FKastro]

@PhilipDAth 

Thank you for the reply.  We are mostly Apple Macbook Last year of the Intel and More of the New M1 machines.  Also i am not seeing it as much on our minimal windows machine we have, but then again we don't have enough that come to the office to test.

[BlakeRichardson]

@FKastro 

What version firmware are you running on your access points?

What models of MacBook and what version of MacOS? 

Are the devices being used in a saturated environment or a cleanish one?

How are you getting the result of 80M i.e. speedtest.net?  

One of the Macbooks if you hold down the option key and  click on the wifi icon what TX rate do you get?

[FKastro]

@BlakeRichardson 

What version firmware are you running on your access points?

Latest Stable (Not Beta Stable) Version - 

What models of MacBook and what version of MacOS? 

So we have Mainly M1 Macbook Pro 2022 and we have some remaining the 2020 models after the butterfly keyboard fix (Version prior to M1).  We also have alot more M1 Macbook Airs as well.  

MacOS - Most users should be moved to Monterey, there are some on Catalina and Big Sur, But the issue has been occurring since Catalina.  I installed when most users where on Catalina.

Are the devices being used in a saturated environment or a cleanish one?

So here is the floor Plan of one of the floors,  We have spread out across the whole floor and there shouldn't be any interference.  The AP's are mainly in the Hallways, we do have Glass Offices but most of the time the doors are open.  To answer your question i would say we are open clean environment.

How are you getting the result of 80M i.e. speedtest.net?  

Yes i am running a speetest via the website you mentioned, i also tried physically plugged in and getting high speeds that i should be getting using speedtest.  I am not sure why i can't get the full output even when i am the first one in the office and no one is around.  Our office has no on premises devices just our network and maybe some Video Conference equipment thats all.

[FKastro]

@BlakeRichardson also just to add to the above this has been happening for almost a few years since i installed, the different firmware versions haven't helped.

[BlakeRichardson]

@FKastro  Is the building you are in having other companies i.e it is likely that there is lots of wifi access points in the area that channel interference is high? 

[EJN]

Also consider distance from MR to MS switch, and what cable you have.

Can you do a speed test with a wired laptop at the switch and see if you get 500/500 on the laptop?

Can you then put an MR on that same location and run it to the switch and see what you get via the laptop WiFi to that WAP next to you?

[FKastro]

Thank you @EJN .  This is one of the test i will try today and update the post.  I am also testing to have VPN traffic flow through my secondary WAN to try to eliminate ISP related issues.

[FKastro]

@EJN I tested out the ports from the switch that some the AP;s are connected too and i am getting the speeds close to the 500M.  

[Ryan_Miles]

What addressing mode is used on the SSID? Are you tunneling the SSID to a MX?

[FKastro]

Using a PSK for security

No Splash Page

i have 802.11r disabled

802.11w disabled

Client IP VLAN is External DHCP server assigned (Bridged)

enabled group policy to the VLAN we use

is that what you are looking for?

[Cjowi]

Hi, just checking if you ever got a solution for this issue. I am curious to understand how it was resolved. Thanks.