USB Modems regression in MX64

[rkclimber]

I’m seeing we are getting unreliable results with failovers to USB 4g Modem when the primary link on MX64 goes down. This happen in 16.14 and also in 16.16 and I read in new firmware versions, this isn’t been addressed. Are we been forced to use a certain Solution?

Anyone else experiencing slouch failures? Thanks.

[DarrenOC]

Not seen this happening with any of our customers using 4g dongles for failover.

[cshaun]

We have not seen this behavior.  Do you have an external antenna connect?  Have you been able to test signal quality at those locations in that fail-over scenario?  We have some customers that use Huawei E8372s with external antennas, and I believe a few E3372s, and the only issues we have during fail-over events are related to poor signal quality and increased cellular usage when its an outage affecting multiple sites in the area.

For customers that are unable or unwilling to buy an MG, or an MX C version, we ask them to at least move to a Netgear LB2120 (again with external antenna), so we can still have it outside the comms room and in the most optimal location within ~100M. They're fairly cheap, easy to stick in bridge mode and tend to just work. 

[rkclimber]

Thanks for the replies. I will be looking at moving the site off USB do to the coverage problems and also the known bugs... this is the MX 17.x notes (not that i'm running the beta)

Known issues

• After making some configuration changes on MX84 appliances, a brief period of packet loss may occur. This will affect all MX84 appliances on all MX firmware versions
• Due to an MX 15 regression, the management port on MX84 appliances does not provide access to the local status page
• Client traffic will be dropped by MX65(W), MX67(C,W), and MX68(W,CW) appliances if 1) The client is connected to a LAN port with 802.1X authentication enabled and 2) The VLAN ID of the port is configured to 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 176, 192, 208, 224, or 240.
• BGP-learned routes may not be properly reflected in the Route Table page on the Meraki Dashboard, despite BGP and packet routing operating correctly.
• Due to an MX 17 regression, USB cellular modems cannot currently be utilized for primary or backup connectivity.
• Due to an MX 17 regression, MX67C, MX68CW, and Z3C appliances using integrated cellular modems may need to be rebooted to establish connectivity after upgrading to MX 17.
• MX84 and MX100 appliances have significantly reduced VPN throughput.
• There is an increased risk of encountering device stability and performance issues on all platforms and across all configurations.

And then you look at 16.16 notes

Known issues

• After making some configuration changes on MX84 appliances, a brief period of packet loss may occur. This will affect all MX84 appliances on all MX firmware versions
• Due to MX 15 regressions, USB cellular connectivity may be less reliable on some modems
• Due to an MX 15 regression, the management port on MX84 appliances does not provide access to the local status page
• Client traffic will be dropped by MX65(W), MX67(C,W), and MX68(W,CW) appliances if 1) The client is connected to a LAN port with 802.1X authentication enabled and 2) The VLAN ID of the port is configured to 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 176, 192, 208, 224, or 240.

I believe USB failover is been phased out for the Cellular models or MG  backups.

@cshaun how are you finding the Netgear LB2120 as a failover option?

Thanks,

[will2]

We have a ton of customers on MX64 with poor USB Cellular failover, and their LTE signal is fine. It is a known issue with Meraki that they have only addressed in 17.x for MX84 and above. If you haven't had issues with this, it might be because your version is 16.x or below. 

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Security-SD-WAN/New-MX-17-7-Stable-Release-Candidate-Firmware-huge-n...