Amazon echo - MR 42 Firmware MR26.4 - Connection Problem

[MarcP]

Hi all,

has anyone else having problems with its Amazon Echo´s (gen 2 and 3) on Beta-Firmware 26.4?

I have updated my MR42 to FW MR26.4 twice now. Both of the times, hours or days later my Echo´s just stopped working... 

Rebooting / Reconfiguring/Reinitialisation and so on didn´t help (Meraki/Echo). Only after doing a rollback to MR25.13 helped. Both devices came back online instantly...

as it is a Beta Version... where to place this problem? Open a case?

regards

Marc

[cmr]

We found Cisco 8821 wireless phones associate but don't get a DHCP IP address on 26.4, as you said 25.13 works and actually 26.2 also did.

[SoCalRacer]

I believe we have seen this issue with other devices than the echo, so I would say it is a firmware issue.

[NolanHerring]

I would open a case. The more data they have on issues, the better it will be for all once 26.5 hits etc.

[MarcP]

It happened again...

Today called support directly:

ACTIONS TAKEN:

- The client has a good signal strength of around 38 dB (SNR) on channel 1

- Not seeing a client being disassociated from AP constantly in the event log.

- No high channel utilization or RF noise based on RF spectrum page

- Changing SSID to 5 GHz Only did not make a difference as the Amazon Echo devices do not seem to support 5 GHz

- Pinging client is not useful because those devices do not seem to respond to ICMP pings while in working state as well.


- Downgraded AP to 26.2 to test if the issue is on major firmware 26.x or subversion 26.4

------------------------
NEXT STEPS:


- If the issue occurs again, we'll need wireless monitor mode pcap from customer at the same time we take packet capture from AP wired interface.
- This will allow us to confirm if

[Adam2104]

I ran MR26.4 for a while (I recently downgraded for other issues) with many echo devices, mostly newer ones, without too much trouble. They're all connected to 5ghz, no issue. MR42s here, bridge mode, wpa2 psk, single ssid broadcasting on 2.4 and 5. Echos are all up on 5ghz.

[MarcP]

this is so disappointing :S

Meraki:

Hi,

We'll need a wireless monitor mode packet capture to investigate the issue.

I have attached a link which has instructions on how to perform the monitor mode packet capture.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Capturing_Wireless_Traffic_from_a_Clien...

If you cannot get the wireless monitor mode packet capture then its best to downgrade to stable release 25.13 if you do not have any issues on that firmware.

I simply do not have a Mac/Linux device... And advising to downgrade is not solving the problem for the future when 25.13 is not supported anymore.

Feels like support does not know what to do.

Would have thought they will try to replicate the problem in their lab at least.

Others may will get / have the same problem.

@MerakiDave @Raj66 maybe one of you guys know what to do?

[Raj66]

Hey, @MarcP I am sorry to hear about the issues with Echo on 26.4. I have a Google home connecting to my MR45 on 26.4 with no issues. Unfortunately, I do not have an Echo with me to test this out. 

The fact that this is only happening on 26.x version is very interesting. That being said, the monitor mode packet capture is a good option. It will give us good visibility as to what is happening between the AP and the Echo and would be really helpful in identifying the issue.

A quick solution would be to install a VM like virtual box and get Linux installed (Fairly straight forward and hassle-free) to get the captures. Also, please feel free to ask support if it is possible to get an in-house repro done from their side. It would be easy to check if it is a bug if they can replicate the issue.

Cheers!

Raj

[cmr]

We had the same 26.x issue with iPad (2017) devices where about once a week they would simply stop talking and you needed to reboot the AP to fix it.  Rolling back to 25.13 fixed it.

[MarcP]

Yesterday, I gave up... it wasn´t working anymore... both echos stopped working every few seconds and then nothing happened anymore.

Even my private phones were not working correctly the last days, as the latency was so bad I couldn´t play any game (:D)

It was so frustrating so I rolled back to 25.13 again and immediately all was fine again. 

All devices were working very well.

[cmr]

@MarcP  we are on 25.14 for 7 of our 9 sites and haven't yet seen the issue in 3 days, so that might be a possibility

[Bossnine]

Off topic, is there something special about 26 that made you want to run beta firmware in place of the stable 25.13?

[cmr]

@Bossnine  well for us it is the Cisco 8821 fixes

[Bossnine]

---

@cmr wrote:

@Bossnine  well for us it is the Cisco 8821 fixes

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Oh, that's right.

[MarcP]

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@Bossnine wrote:

Off topic, is there something special about 26 that made you want to run beta firmware in place of the stable 25.13?

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Try it if it runs correctly. 

For private use it seems not 😞 well that's my thoughts about it now.

And without talking about this "fault" to the support they can't work on it.

They can't test everything, that's our part of helping. 😉

[RaphaelL]

Had similar issues , 26.X ( I tested 26.1 to 26.4 ) both my Samsung S8 and S10+ were pretty much unusable on Wifi ( felt like latency was rocking 600-700ms but speedtests were accurate  ) Notifications ( snapchat , IG , facebook and so on , could take hours to get on my phones ). 

My Samsung Smart TV and sound bar were both connected on 5Ghz and they had no issue...

Rolled back to MR25.13 and all issues are gone. 

[MarcP]

What kind of MR do you use?

After swapping from MR42 to MR33 all is fine.

Still in contact with support. Waiting for response now after I told them all is fine at the moment.

[DuskTilDawn]

@MarcP 

Try out the 26.5 beta and see if that is any better. We have MR42s and were having a ton of connection issues with 25.X and 26.1-4. Since updating to 26.5 we haven't had any connection issues. I don't have an Echo to test that particular issue though 😞

[RaphaelL]

I'm using a MR33 , I think I will go test MR26.5 and let you guys know if it is any better than previous MR26 builds.

[MarcP]

@RaphaelL did that now as well. with the MR33 it works fine. So seems like there is a Problem with my MR42 or with MR42 in general.