CW9176I - Roaming Client frequent disconnect

[BaskaranGanesan]

Observing that the roaming client disconnects frequently and roams from one AP to another AP very often, it creates internet issues. highly 

[alemabrahao]

Do you have 802.11r or 802.11w enabled?

Did you do any site surveys before and after installing the APs? Sometimes it could be a bad wireless design.

[BaskaranGanesan]

802.11.r is eabled and 802.11w is in disable state,  Recently we did site survey, deploy AP 60 Ft one to another device,  here 

AP1 ------------> Ap2 -------------> AP3 ------------->AP4

The client is near AP2 and keeps bouncing between AP1 and AP3. Good roaming is fine, but we are getting bad roaming. We have done multiple fine-tunings on the roaming issue, which didn't help, mostly on Intel AX211 6E, causing an  issues 

[alemabrahao]

Try disabling 802.11r, if I'm not mistaken this is a known issue with these Intel cards and disabling 802.11r should solve it.

[RaphaelL]

As mentionned by alemabrahao , try disabling 802.11r. What is the security on this SSID ? WPA2-PSK or WPA2-Enterprise ?

[BaskaranGanesan]

Tried disabling the 802.11r and tried client balancing disable,  Enable manually RXSOP to -79 dbm, it works for a while, and bouncing issue.   

Currently enabled with WPA3 i

[Paccers]

Recommend not to play with RxSOP settings unless you really know what you're tweaking for your environment, easy to cause unintended client disconnects with that (hence Meraki's big warning in that section)

[BaskaranGanesan]

Working with the Meraki TAC person on RXSOP, but we are still experiencing same issue 

[stgonzo]

Are the APs on firmware 31.1.6?  Version 31.1.7 has some fixes for this type of issue, it has now gone to stable release

If you look at the connection logs, do you see failed connections because of reason "reserved"

[PhilipDAth]

What does wireless health say?

What does the roaming log for the client say in the Meraki Dashboard?

[BaskaranGanesan]

Roaming Reasons (Intel)

"AP recommended the client roam to another AP, as part of AP Steering. 802.11v is the Wireless Network Management standard, allowing clients to be directed for load balancing and improving the performance of poorly connected clients." 

Getting above reason on the timeline logs the reason for roaming.

Meraki Health Broad Show good.  

[Brash]

Sounds like the client is being actively rebalanced by client balancing.

You can trial turning it off in the RF profile. I've had some success disabling it in some networks, particularly dense environments with a lot of AP overlap.

Otherwise, if it's only some specific clients impacted, ensure WiFi drivers/firmware is up to date on those clients.

[BaskaranGanesan]

Currently, its client balance is shut down. Still, we are experiencing roaming clients disconnecting. tried maximum of work around,  

[BaskaranGanesan]

Does anyone have the CW916I model installed in their environment?  

[stgonzo]

Do you mean 9176i, I have some and having similar issues

[BaskaranGanesan]

yes , i have both 9176i and CW9166I

[BaskaranGanesan]

any suggetion from meraki to fix the issue 

[stgonzo]

They checked configuration and suggested upgrading to firmware 31.1.7, but this hasn't resolved the issue unfortunately

[BaskaranGanesan]

It looks like we are having an issue with the CW product. It tough time 

[stgonzo]

It is tough, I think this is a firmware issue causing some problems with 6GHz, I have some Wi-Fi 6 Meraki APs on this network that work fine with no issues, it it the Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 APs that seem to disconnect client devices.  The Wi-Fi 6E devices were on firmware 30.7.1 previously and had the issue then, the low number of those APs didn't impact too many users.  I think I will try to disable the SSID on 6GHz to see how it runs, hopefully a future firmware will resolve the issue

[BaskaranGanesan]

Yes, I completely agree with the suggestion. When I disable the 6 GHz, it works fine. 

I have reduced the number of APs to half and can see better performance now, but still, 5% of clients are having bad roaming. Tweak a few settings at the network adaptor AX211: Roaming aggressiveness to medium-low, transmission power to medium-high, and preferred band preference to 5 and 6 GHz. After these changes, it's reduced to 5% of roaming clients.  

I got verbal confirmation that it's a bug with Meraki OS.  

[n01048]

Yep i do and having roaming issues for the past 5 months!

[Main10ence]

Hello @BaskaranGanesan,

Have you tried calling Cisco Meraki support and troubleshoot live with an engineer? They maybe able to catch something that we are overlooking.

If the timestamps of the roaming events matches up with the user experience during that time, I would record the following information:

MAC address of the device

APs involved (and the RF of the APs)

The SSID 

The radio (2.4 or 5GHz)

The time

These details help a lot during troubleshooting. 

[BaskaranGanesan]

Hi , 

Working with the Meraki TAC person for the last 30 days and escalating the issue to the engineering team, it's not working out so far; we are experiencing disconnections here and there.  

TAC - Number 12854457

[Main10ence]

Thanks!

I see now. Your case is a bit more complicated than "bad" configurations. Since the case has been escalated, the best path is to continue working closely with support.

[n01048]

@BaskaranGanesan we are having the same issue on CW9166I model. Disconnections on 5Ghz and 6Ghz when roaming. Meraki case open as well with no fix as of yet. Without 802.11r or client balancing. We revered back to 30.6 firmware but the issue still exsists even the in 31.1.6. I am going to try upgrading to 31.1.7 to see if this helps at all. Mac or Windows affected.

[BaskaranGanesan]

The latest update from our escalation engineer is that the bug fix has been pushed to their lab environment to see the differences. Hopefully, we can see the results by the first week of June.  

Try with RXSOP 

5 GHz to -79 dBm

6 GHz to -82 dBm

I can see the difference somehow but not fully fix

[n01048]

Same issue here.  Did Meraki confirm its an actual bug?  and did you find if you upgrade to latest firmware any fix? 

[BaskaranGanesan]

Yes, I got verbal confirmation. Next week I have planned to upgrade,  let you know once upgraded 

[n01048]

Yes i just spoke to support. I will try the RXSOP today and see if this helps. I am also doing the upgrade tonight

[BaskaranGanesan]

I have reduced half of the AP on one floor to see the difference; it looks good.  Kept AP at a distance of 55 Feet in a low-density area, looks better now, but still seeing bad roam between bands 

https://documentation.meraki.com/Architectures_and_Best_Practices/Meraki_Wireless_for_Enterprise_Bes...

[n01048]

@BaskaranGanesan how are you getting on? i even after RXSOP adjustments i do not see any difference.. I am on the latest firmware now but also that did not make any difference.

[BaskaranGanesan]

Did you adjust the AP distance to 55 Feet to another AP? 

5 GHz target power = 14 to 20, 

RXSOP = -78

6 GHz target power = 8 to 30

RXSOP = -78 

Disabling client balance.  

Updating the network driver to he Windows® 10 and Windows 11* Wi-Fi package drivers 23.130.1 for the Intel® Wi-Fi 7/Wi-Fi 6E/Wi-Fi 6

I can see some improvement, but not a complete FIX.  

[OVERKILL]

Yeah, I'm noticing this too (have not upgraded to 31.1.7 yet) as I just rolled out 3x CW9172I's to replaced some MR20's. Doesn't seem to be happening on my WPA3 PSK/6Ghz enabled SSID (could just be the reduced range of 6Ghz?), but on my 2.4/5Ghz WPA2 and 802.1X SSID's, it is. 

One of the SSID's has 802.11r disabled, another has it enabled, both are experiencing the issue with iPhones and laptops. 

[OVERKILL]

Disabling the 6Ghz radio seemed to have considerably improved things, but this is of course not a desirable scenario. 

[n01048]

Oh really that's interesting because we have 6Ghz enabled but only on a specific SSID which majority of users are NOT connected too however the roaming issue occurs on both 5Ghz and 6Ghz SSID's..What firmware version?

[OVERKILL]

Yeah, we only had it on a "new" (WPA3) SSID as well, but it changes the overall radio config with it enabled. Disabling it stopped my users complaining and I'm not seeing the same roaming errors. 

I was on 31.1.6, and this changed fixed it on that version, and I'm running 31.1.7 now, and this "fix" has persisted. 

[BaskaranGanesan]

Last conversation with the escalation engineer confirmed the debug version is running in their Lab.  We can probably expect the new release with FIX in a couple of weeks. 

[n01048]

got it, what issue did your users complain off specifically? Wondering whether i should turn off 6Ghz too since manual rxsop settings didnt work

[BaskaranGanesan]

It is happening due to bad roaming from one AP to another AP, more than 250 MS. At that particular time, we lost our internet connection. The worst observation is bouncing between the radio, 

If the user is close to 10 to 15 feet, everything is working fine; if the user is near the AP or away from the AP, bad roaming is happening.  

The issue is happening for both bands 5 and 6.  

[n01048]

Thank you @BaskaranGanesan @OVERKILL i am seeing thr same so our users will roam between floors and then get disconnected i.e slack or outlook show disconnected and once they disconnect/reconnect wifi it seems better but not ideal fix constantly having to do this

[OVERKILL]

Getting disconnected. This, as @BaskaranGanesan notes, is due to bad (high latency) roams that hang the client. Turning off 6Ghz seems to have stopped that issue for my clients, as the complaints stopped and I'm not seeing them in the logs like I was. 

[n01048]

Il try turning off 6Ghz. Did you adjust any rxsop settings @OVERKILL ? or just turning of 6ghz helped? 

[OVERKILL]

Nope, no other changes, just turned off the 6Ghz radio.