Hi All
i have a site locked down on 23.11 firmware
a few weeks ago we tried upgrading to latest stable (25.13)
3 weeks after the upgrade we had to revert due to outages each week - the issue looks like the strength of the APs now completely overlap and now out roaming is completely off
because this is a warehouse environment we have the signal tuned for the devices to influence the roaming over mez floors and racks
moving back to 23.11 seems to have resolved the issues but i really want to get to a stable version
at the bottom of every firmware there is the general bullet point: General performance, security and stability improvements.
i am really interested in what these changes are in the firmware as something is making a fundamental change to the signal strength as i can see it in neighbouring APs as all strength is changing
the warehouse and office are using MR42s, MR74s and it seems to change on all of them
i am going to visit next week to survey the site after the firmware but from what i can see with the issues and the way the roaming has changed we are talking Meters of difference on the overlap
i know 23.11 is really old but the issues were were having with disconnects every few minutes were killing us at the time - and every time we tried to upgrade to 24.x we went back to the same issue
we have other warehouse and office on 25.13 not but nothing with setup like this for transmit power
i know the best after is survey survey survey - which i will be doing next week but upgrading has a huge effect on our configuration
i always made sure the client balancing was disabled
sorry for going on and making little sense but i dont like the general fixes statement with no notes
Cheers
Hello
thank you for the reply - at the moment I have static power, static channels and dfs disabled
client roam balancing disabled
I have between 10-15% overlap for roaming and -67dbm as my target signal strength
all this seems fine at 23.11
devices are 5ghz using unii-1 I believe so I get 4 usable 5ghz channels
and device are set to only scan on these usable channels to keep interference/chat to a minimum
and really on 23.11 it is solid
problem is the amount of features I am
missing like wireless health, security requirements, firmware fixes - especially with security teams checking versions numbers this sort of thing is highlighted quickly
when I upgrade to 25.13 my roaming overlap seems to change to easily 30% and no change has been made to power of channels which is having an affect to the devices
so means I need to survey again multiple times to get this correct.
No firmware updates between this mention a increase of this magnitude but every release has that generic general performance upgrade remark
so it just if there is somewhere that shows
In more detail The release note for general performance increases
really I want to upgrade and keep on schedule which updates but the fear is everything will move to 26.x and it will all be thrown off again
this warehouse is more than a few hours flight and planning for 24/7 production to play with a required service is not easiest conversation
Cheers
>at the moment I have static power, static channels
@NolanHerring and I probably have opposite opinions of this, but I am a strong advocate of NOT doing this. I've never done it with a customer (warehouse, factory or office) and simply don't have problems. The big problem is that it can't handle changes in the environment. In this case - it can't even handle a simple firmware change.
Ekahau like to peddle the line that using their tool and statically calculating everything once is somehow better than letting the manufacturers own system dynamically calculate it. In Meraki's case, Ekahau doesn't even have the operating parameters of most of the Meraki APs and antennas available.
By all means use Ekahau to help plan out where to put APs, help select antennas, and perform post-installation surveys to verify coverage - but I wouldn't take it any further.
This is my personal opinion. Many many people will disagree.
Limiting the AutoRF parameters (as opposed to statically configuring each AP) is a different story.
I'd rather put in some extra APs than have the configuration rigidity of using a static configuration.
The solution should be able to identify and self resolve problems - without humans having to intervene.
I too would prefer to know specifically what the 'general improvements and stability' are in the release notes, so I feel your pain there.
You seem to be on the right track with how you have things configured as far as I can tell from here. Are you using directional antennas?
Just out of curiosity but how are you determining this 'percentage' of coverage going from 15% to 30% after upgrading the firmware? Are you surveying or using a client device or tool to measure RSSI etc.? You say you had weeks of issues, what specifically were users reporting was the problem?
If somehow the power level you have set (say 11dBm on 25.11), somehow ends up going to 14dBm (which is double FYI), when 25.13 is in use, then I would agree that would/could be an issue. I'm assuming the GUI/dashboard on the AP or on Radio Settings is showing you the actual transmit power still being the same.
Is support able to verify that you aren't somehow running into some strange bug where maybe your hardware batch (possibly only yours) is hitting that is causing power to increase unexpectedly?
Haha @PhilipDAth I don't disagree completely. =P
AutoRF/RRM/Whatever-vendor-flavor, like you said should be able to identify and self resolve problems etc. Honestly they all tend to do a not too bad job at it. Its going to be able to detect changes, and react, far better than I ever could. I use AutoRF myself for most of my deployments, with the exception being warehouses.
I will say though that they could always use improvement, no system is perfect and it requires the installer to understand how it works, and adjust/tune the settings so that they operate within the thresholds surveys for. Letting RRM run default out of the box, at least in my experience, has usually never worked out to well with how they end up finally settle (at least on power which is usually my main concern). Channels is meh...as long as they calm down after the first X hours/X days for it to adjust itself.
Warehouse though I use static power and static channels. Unless your's differ from mine, the warehouse is usually isolated in a field with nothing too close. So the only wireless in there is mine, and 5GHz only operation for production, I have yet to run into anything (other than itself) that it has to adjust to. And since it is production, I want it to be as stable as possible (meaning no changes like channels flapping around).
Not saying it isn't possible that someone or a vendor could come in and install a wireless camera without me knowing and its crushing say channel 149 for hundreds of feet. However I would classify that under the exception folder.
What I have seen though are deployments (specifically with Meraki back in my VAR days) where autoRF was changing channels like its life depended on it, which ended up causing more issues than not. This of course isn't autoRF fault, its just that warehouses in general suck for wireless. Giant metal box without any actual walls. You got lots of empty shelves because inventory is fluctuating and all of sudden 20 access points can see each other like they are 15 feet away, and not 60, because the inventory on 10 rows changes from bags of dirt to boxes of feathers or something.
Ekahau like to peddle the line that using their tool and statically calculating everything once is somehow better than letting the manufacturers own system dynamically calculate it. In Meraki's case, Ekahau doesn't even have the operating parameters of most of the Meraki APs and antennas available.
By all means use Ekahau to help plan out where to put APs, help select antennas, and perform post-installation surveys to verify coverage - but I wouldn't take it any further.
This is my personal opinion. Many many people will disagree.
Not sure about the Ekahau peddling part, but I agree with you if they are saying that. I use it to help me design, save me time onsite, but its not the end-all by any means.
Forgot to ask
Have you been using 26.X anywhere yet? I haven't. I heard AutoRF was 'vastly improved' by a source, so I'm curious if you've noticed anything. Nice to hear though they are always working to make it better 😃
Only in our office, which is small, and includes an MR45 (so no choice in the matter).
Had zero problems so far.
Hi Nolan
thank you for the reply
I am heading to the warehouse next week to survey again and again to validate how the power/performance have changed
I use Netscout survey Pro and we have Zebra devices which has some SSIDer type app giving RSSI details
I had spent weeks on the deployment previously getting the roaming to a reasonable level I I worked out my 10-15% with multiple surveys for single APs showing the SSID and in most cases tape/chalk on the floors mapping out dbm and roaming variables for the devices
the warehouse has moving stock and liquids/foil in most places including a 3 level warehouse floor so I had to get my bleed levels as accurate as possible
if I receive a call regarding wireless they can tell me the floor/isle and I know what AP they should be on/joining/leaving as I know the boundaries I have in place to keep signal and roaming conditions
what I was seeing after the upgrade were devices far passed the boundaries configured for roaming still attached to the same AP also at the time of roam they were now hopping between multiple APs within 30-50secs of joining
I had our remote technical guy take a walk to different areas with a Zebra device and the signal was -3 to -5 better than before which in most cases would be a good things but the size of this warehouse and floors separated by metal grate - this adds lots of interference
with the power increase this is bringing the possibility of overlapping channels closer today in places of high density so this is potentially now the issue
the constant roaming was effecting the performance of the devices to make them unusable - after the downgrade it has been perfect again
at first I though I had forgot to disable client balancing but it was already disabled
I think I am going to be spending a long time troubleshooting this again - I don't mind it as its fun work mapping It all out I just was not expecting the impact
when it comes to auto power and auto channel this went badly for us practicing back on install in this warehouse - it was like a wave of change every 20-30mins with the amount of reflection/scattering and the thin floors the APs really were not handling it well
we have other warehouses/offices running on auto no problems so I am have nothing against letting the software do its job - but everywhere always ends up with a problem site
Cheers