WPA3-Personal issue for Android and Ios

[Forrest]

Hi folks,

I have a wireless network including 11 Meraki MR APs (9 MR33 and 2 MR36)

They all have latest firmware MR30.6

the SSID used to have WPA2-Personal (with PSK) and it worked pretty well.

A few days ago I modified it into WPA3-Personal (PSK).

I've tested with our Windows11 mobile computers and they all connect smoothlessly.

Our Android devices don't, altough they are almost new: Samsung A54 (Android 13), Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (also Android 13). They don't show any error, they just don't connect. According to specs they are capable of WPA3.

A user also tried with the newest iPhone 15 and it didn't work neither.

When i look in Connection Logs (Wireless>Access Points -> Connection Log tab: I see no error whatsoever.

I've set it to WPA3 only & 802.11r Enabled.

I've tried it with WPA3-Transition mode also, but I had still the same issue.

Anyone has encountered this situation before? Or could lead me in the right direction?
I don't know if I should modify something on the wireless clients (hopely not, there are a lot) or if I should modify my wireless network.

Kind regards,

Erik

[GreenMan · Accepted solution]

Did you try it wihout 11r?

I just did a quick test and my Samsung (somewhat to my surprise) carried on working quite happily when I changed the SSID from WAP2 to WPA3

Note I'm running with a CW9164 on 30.6 firmware

[KarstenI]

As mentioned by @GreenMan, with Passphrase based WLANs, 802.1r is not that relevant. It saves a round-trip time when roaming, but roaming is typically fast enough without.

Other than that, I am running WPA3 Personal and Enterprise with the major operating systems without relevant problems.

And:

With regards to security: nothing good ever comes out of transition modes (ever)

(Quote from Stephen Orr, Distinguished Systems Engineer, Cisco)

[cmr]

I have an SSID running WPA3 only with Pak and 802.11r.  My S22 Ultra connects to it okay most of the time...   APs are CW9166 and CW9163 running r31 beta.

[bitkiller]

Is it still 5GHz or did you b.t.w. switched also to 6GHz?

[GreenMan]

None of the access points that @Forrest has are 6 GHz capable   (MR36 are WiFi6, not WIFi6E)

[cmr]

I enabled 6GHz (indoors only in the UK), but so far I've only seen connections on 2.4 and 5 bands.

[KarstenI]

Accidentally configured a device restriction to 5GHz? My 6GHz capable clients connect happily with 6GHz. 

And I miss a nice connection statistics view (as it is available in Mist) on the Meraki platform.

[bitkiller]

Did you try out to forget WiFi-Settings and reconnect to the same WiFi as a new one?

[PhilipDAth]

I have had nothing but terrible compatibility and reliability issues using WPA3.

IoT devices needs a lot more time till they get their stacks right.

[Forrest]

By disablin 802.11, it sees to work smoothly. Thx Greenman & Karsten!
I'm going to test the roaming part now, I hope you're right Karsten.

Btw: my APs are indeed not 6GHz capable like Greenman cleverly noticed.