Constant authentication issues

[Alex_Green]

Good Morning and Happy New Year to all,

I've got an issue and I'm not sure if this is something I need to worry about or if I can ignore it safely. I created a new bespoke network which has iPod touch Gen 6 and 7's connecting to it. Now they have no connectivity issues from what I can see, however i'm getting the following errors constantly

"Client failed during the authentication step.type='WPA-PSK auth fail' associated='true' radio='1' vap='3'"

These are happening every few seconds and I'm concerned they could be causing issues for the devices.

Also, I can see that my devices are connecting for a few seconds and then connecting to another AP. I'm wondering if this could cause issues or if this is to be expected for a high density area? We have around 80 ipods connecting to the AP's.

Thanks

Alex

[PhilipDAth]

That means a client is trying to connect using the wrong PSK.  It's as simple as that.  It might not even be one of your iPods.  It could be someone who has tried to connect up their personal device and put in the wrong PSK or some stranger.

You just need to figure out which client it is now.

[Alex_Green]

unfortunately that's not the case,

The SSID Is hidden and the password was distributed via Jamf Now to the iPods. I've then manually checked all of them to ensure they are connected to the network. On top of all of that some of the devices which are throwing errors are promptly succeeding with their PSK without issue.

Cheers

Alex

[DensyoV]

hi Alex, kindly ensure your APs are running on the latest stable version. there was an issue before in the 26 and earlier 27 version wherein the wireless health is showing false positive authentication failures. 

[Alex_Green]

Morning,

I'm up  to date with the firmware (MR 27.5.1) and I've also confirmed that it's on all the individual AP's as well. I'm still getting the authentication issues today, I'm wondering if it's because I turned off client balancing and they are bouncing between the AP's causing this authentication issue? I was recommended to turn it off by Meraki Support.

Thanks

Alex

[DensyoV · Accepted solution]

Hi Alex,

If the clients' connection is bouncing between APs although they are stationary, then you may need to tune the transmit power of your APs to ensure they have sufficient signal to avoid these unintended roaming and yes if the client roams from one AP to another before completing the authentication process, the AP will fail to receive to the client's reply and therefore logged it as authentication failure.

[FFT]

I am having a very similar issue.  

"Roamed from "AP 1" then unexpectedly disassociated, but the client had a successful connection to SSID "**********" for a minute on "AP 2", and then the client roamed to "AP 2".  

802.11 REASON (CODE 2)

Invalid authentication"

What is your advice on how to tune the radios?  Do you want overlap or do you want them to not overlap much?

Thank you for the help!