My MR36 is on the ceiling, but the user prefers the farthest AP.

[Schiller]

I have an MR36 with the radio setting set to auto. I've noticed users in the same room are connected to the farthest access point. How can I resolve this issue?

Thank you.

[KarstenI]

This is a client decision. And there are countless parameters going into this. First is to look at the signal of the MR36 in the room and the signal from the other AP. Compare this to your Wireless design. Very likely, the roaming threshold is not crossed because the other AP is too "loud". If Wireless is important, let someone do a validation survey. Based on the OS, you can also reconfigure the roaming agressiviness on the client. But always only do one change at the time as things could easily get worse.

[Schiller]

Thank you for your response.

[Amit_pal]

I had similar issue , turning off client balancing fixed the issue ...

You can find that in Wireless---> Radio Settings--> Go to RF Profile and then turn off client load balancing

[KarstenI]

If I remember right, it should be disabled by default, at least nowadays. But it's still good to check.

[GreenMan]

Only off by default for newly created networks, I think

[Amit_pal]

If i create a new RF Profile in the Network , it is On by default

[Schiller]

Thank you!

[Schiller]

Thank you @Amit_pal. I try it but didn't fix my problem. 

[GreenMan]

That's because the default behaviour lies with the Network, not the RF Profile.   If you created a brand new Network (not cloned or bound to a Template) it would be off.

[GreenMan]

Just one other thought;   do those users who are connected to the more distant AP actually suffer any noticeable problems that might be caused by that happening?   If not, I'd be tempted to just not worry about it.   If they are laptops, look at increasing the roaming aggresiveness in the driver settings

[KarstenI]

And what kind of devices are having these problems?

[thomasthomsen]

Some clients (In my experience especially Apple computers, and I think it is even in their documentation) REALLY prefer wider channels, so if you are running "auto" on channel-width, and one AP is at fx. 40Mhz and the other one is at 20Mhz , then the client might prefer the AP with the 40Mhz channel, even though it is far away. I always recommend "static" channel-width, so 20,40,80 depending on your local regulatory domain, and whats feasible.

[cmr]

Totally agree with you there @thomasthomsen, fixed channel width is the way to go and invariably in any vaguely dense environment it is best fixed at 20MHz to maximise the number of non interfering channels.  In low density environments you can use 40MHz+

[thomasthomsen]

Some Apple documents that might be of interest for some.

https://support.apple.com/en-jo/guide/deployment/dep3b0448c58/1/web/1.0 <- See the AutoJoin section, for some "dbm" numbers.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/dep98f116c0f/web <- See the "Selection criteria for band, network and roam candidates" for some "trigger" values, how much better the new signal must be, and preference in wide channel, and "Wi-Fi generation" when roaming.