Random dropouts with MX65W

[AlexPettitt]

Hi all,

I'm writing this post somewhat in a last resort as the below issue has been ongoing for a year now. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated:

We have a live streaming studio facility in London UK in which we have a 100mb/s dedicated BTNet line into the properly. As part of that service, BT provided a Cisco Meraki MX65W. The issue that we've been having is that we will get random dropouts, especially when we are live streaming. There seems to be no pattern or regularity to these dropouts at all, sometimes we don't have a dropout in 1 or 2 weeks, other times we'll have two in one day.. the only thing we've noticed is that they seem to occur more frequently when we are actually pushing out live stream (so could high bandwidth be causing this)?

To describe what I mean by 'dropout': It's almost as if the Maraki is going through a power cycle.  We'll be streaming and have a perfect connection, then suddenly the connection will go, the Meraki's status light will go through the similar phase of rainbow colours for about 1 minute, before returning to white and the connection coming back as normal. I'm confident it isn't anything to do with our LAN devices, as I've even tried removing all connected devices, and tested one or two individually at a time, and have see the issue occur no matter what device is plugged into the LAN. 

It's worth noting that BT did send out a replacement MX65W around 6 months ago, but the issue has been exactly the same.  BT are being absolutely 0 help what so ever with trying to solve this... So I'm hoping someone on this forum might be able to shed some light or offer some things to try?

Thanks for you help,
Alex

[GreenMan]

It seems to me that Meraki Support should be involved here, if they aren't already.   If it's an entirely managed service, whereby BT own the kit and the license, that would be for them to handle that - all you can probably do is challenge them to provide you with information and a fix.   If you own the kit and license, then I'd suggesy you raise a case with Meraki Support.

[DarrenOC]

Hi @AlexPettitt , sounds very much like you’re overloading the MX which is causing it to possibly reboot/reload.

[AlexPettitt]

That's what I wondered, but it seems strange that an enterprise router such as the MX would be 'overloaded' with just one device connected to it, that simply pushes a 7mbps RTMP stream to YouTube Live. I'm stumped! Feels more like a bug or setting causing it to sporadically fail.

[DarrenOC]

Usual questions, latest firmware applied?  You’ve already confirmed single user so that does seem very strange!  Anything in Event log before the device drops the connection?  What are BT and Meraki support saying?

[PhilipDAth]

It sounds to me like you are experiencing a software bug.  Have they tried upgrading the firmware?

[Matt7]

Hi

Did you get any resolution with this issue? We’re experiencing similar symptoms/ same period between dropouts, although I have an entirely different setup (60 users). I have BTNet 100mpbs supplied to the Meraki as wires only, then into a Draytek 3910 for our GW/DHCP.

Connection drops once a week, maybe 2 weeks, but on the Draytek the WAN shows as still live. It will recovery by itself after a few minutes. But we’re using BT cloud voice, so users lose their calls for a few minutes.

I’m still suspicious of the Meraki. We had an issue with it a few months back, where randomly one morning we could not get any internet access out from the Draytek at all, but BT could see the Draytek inbound, so stated the connection was fine. At a loss I changed to another port on the Meraki and it resolved it! BT refused to replace Meraki as it was now functioning.

I’m pretty certain it’s nothing inside the network, everything on the LAN side still works fine (Database/CRM, file servers etc). BT state no errors on the Meraki/line, but state that we are regularly using all of the bandwidth. I do see 95Mpbs usage reported on the Draytek at various times throughout the day. Is that a likely cause for connection instability/dropping temporarily. I can upgrade the bandwidth, but reluctant too spend if that's not the problem.

What doesn’t sit with me is the period of time between the drops, why only once a week or two.