MR32 AP - Auto TX Power Change

[RaphaelL]

Hi there ! 

Recently we have been struggling with an issue ( or what seems to be an issue ). Our APs are always ( 10-15 times a day ) increasing and decreasing Auto TX power ( see below ).

My question :  When the Auto Tx power change occurs , are clients kicked from the AP ? People are complaining that they must rejoin the Wifi atleast 8-10 times a day.

AP : MR32

FW :  25.13

Thanks a lot ! 

[JimL]

No, the clients are not kicked off as part of the TxPower adjustment process, but if they are on the edge of coverage they could theoretically find themselves out of it if the SNR drops below their threshold. As such they would need to find a new AP to connect to. It is possible that is what is happening and there are issue with either your coverage and/or your roaming. I would recommend looking at both. As for the constant flux in AP TxPower, that makes me think your AP layout and coverage is not balanced. Have you had a Site Survey performed?

[NolanHerring]

If I were you I would just statically assign power based on site survey results. If the design done was for 11dBm, then assign all power levels to that etc.

[RaphaelL]

Hi  @JimL  , 

We have over 300 sites with Meraki APs , I will have to double check if a Site Survey was performed recently that would make sense ! 

Regarding the event logs. We can see the same client  going to association and disassociation. Not sure if the frequency is normal ( seems a lot to me ). The said ''client'' told me that these events occurs even if she doesn't move from her desk ( which could concur with the Auto TX power change as you stated ) : 

 

[JimL]

Is it just her that is having problems and how are you authenticating users? From the log I don't see a lot of AP hopping. If this a Windows machine, there was bug in a recent update that unchecked the "Automatically Connect". It looks like her NIC could be going to sleep and disconnecting, causing her to manually reconnect and where she might be fat fingering her PSK. You could run a packet capture from the AP she is connected to while she is having problems and see what messages are being sent.

[jdsilva]

Do you have client balancing enabled? If so disable that and check back with your users. Our experience with that hasn't been great and can cause users to be dropped from the network. 

We do also manually set power and do not use the auto-power.

[neverknowsbest]

@jdsilva - I was reading up on the Auto TX Power change discussion to which I'm replying... we recently experienced some connectivity issues during our company's Town Hall meeting (with lots of users and their devices crammed into the same conference room). Twice, the Video Conferencing session was disconnected and users reported temporarily being unable to connect to Wi-Fi. When I looked through the logs for the AP in that Conference Room I noticed that there were 'Auto Tx power change'[s] occurring at the same times connectivity issues were experienced. 

I have since created a new static profile for our 2 AP's which live in Conference Rooms  and following Meraki's recommended default for Conference Rooms, [see below] but I noticed your comment on the client balancing setting. I was curious on the behavior you've experienced with this setting, and if you'd recommend disabling it for the conference room environment/scenario I described. 

Thanks! 

Patrick

[NolanHerring]

Honestly never tested it but I do not believe AutoTX power levels changing will/should affect currently connected clients. Channel changes will.

[jdsilva]

Yeh I'm with @NolanHerring and I wouldn't think that power changing would drop clients, but I wouldn't bet money on it since I've never dived into that topic. Interesting though.