caffrey Posted May 12, 2015 Posted May 12, 2015 Has anyone reached choking points with their unifi ? We usually get students running to our office with their iPads saying they can't access the wifi and when I ask what room they were in and check the number of clients attached to the AP it's usually 30+ (If I reconnect them in our office they are fine). We have 32 APs with on average about 400 clients (mainly iPads etc.) with some areas used more than others, I'm wondering if I should roll out more.
jmak Posted May 12, 2015 Posted May 12, 2015 I tested with 28 clients streaming YouTube without problems (standard APs) before I went ahead. In production, I've got load sharing set up, so that if an AP gets 20 devices connected it tells the next one to look for an alternative. We have an AP in every class and not enough devices to get 40 clients in adjoining classrooms without trying really hard.
caffrey Posted May 12, 2015 Author Posted May 12, 2015 I've just been to check the problem area, there are 38 clients attached to it and I could connect and join fine and browse - it must just be lunch time traffic. I might need to look into load sharing as there are 2 other APs close by.
mikeyd101 Posted May 12, 2015 Posted May 12, 2015 Airtime. Wifi only supports 1 client per radio at a time. Wifi all comes down to airtime and how much is available. We recently purchased a wi-spy dbx from metageek, a spectrum analyser to monitor and see where our airtime was choked or suffering from interference. It has already helped us get rid of a wireless speaker that was killing a 2.4 channel. Somethings that can help are moving clients to 5ghz, channel bonding and short guard interval. If your clients and access points support it can increase the bandwidth and reduce airtime of clients. Also check the channel configurations of adjacent APs and make sure there not talking on same channels (hard with 2.4). We have about 450+ clients on 37 Xirrus arrays across 3 campus, we are looking to upgrade as original design was for coverage now were looking for density. New plan is an array per classroom. If your having problems at lunchtimes, look at other outside interference such as microwaves, wireless speakers etc.
caffrey Posted May 13, 2015 Author Posted May 13, 2015 It's rare that there is a problem, although it's hard to say as if there is a problem it rarely gets reported. Sometimes the radios drop on the AP in the classroom above our office I think because we do a lot of the iPad configuration here (even though we have an AP in our office). It's going to be tricky to trace the problem without logs. We've also tested with a lot of devices streaming and it's always been fine, it shouldn't be Youtube traffic as that is blocked outside of lesson times. It's not a complaint of unifi - the system has been in about 2 years and apart from this it's been rock solid
Achandler Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 I was reading somewhere, now lost it sorry, that you could/ should configure your unfii points to send a disconenct packet when the signal reaches a certain strength, to stop them all hogging the same point. if the client is told to disconnect but that point is the most powerful , then it takes them back. It 8:18am though and I can't remember where I was reading it or what it was called, it was when I was researching zero hand off.
caffrey Posted May 13, 2015 Author Posted May 13, 2015 Just had another student in this morning with connection issues to that AP, the iPad connects to it but the little spinny wheel is next to the connection notification icon, if I disconnect and reconnect (or soft reset) in my office they are fine again - it's just odd that I'm getting reports of connection issues in that one particular area. Looking at the management interface, there are currently 40 devices attached majority Apple devices (22 on 5g 18 on 2g) with no particularly heavy traffic - no dropped packets on the toughswitch everything looks normal. I'll monitor it and if I get more I'll swap the AP out.
caffrey Posted May 14, 2015 Author Posted May 14, 2015 I'm actually starting to think it's something to do with this :- https://medium.com/@mariociabarra/wifried-ios-8-wifi-performance-issues-3029a164ce94 Still odd that it was only happening in one area (that I know of...)
m25man Posted May 23, 2015 Posted May 23, 2015 I have a similar issue in an area where I have a Unifi 2.4ghz outdoor (Flashed Pico) and a nearby UAP Pro indoors. The TV production crew parks right next to the Pico and see's the 2.4ghz 1x1 SSID at about 32db but their MacBook also sees the nearby UAP pro at 70-80db and insists on associating with that instead! Because it's not my Mac I don't have the opportunity to play with it but if I turn up with my Lenovo bang I'm on the Pico at 64mbps Clearly it's an Apple thing, as clients choose which AP to connect to and Unifi management isn't that smart as some vendors. My guess is you have interference affecting that AP either from another nearby unit or from a badly configured client. I often see BYOD kit trying to associate that have been given static IPs by their owners this can cause a Unify radio to stop completely! We just block such users MAC address until resolved.
caffrey Posted May 24, 2015 Author Posted May 24, 2015 Interesting, well it's not happened again and I've made no changes, but we do have a fix if it happens again :- On the iPad forget the network and join another ssid (In our case the RADIUS network), then power cycle the Ipad, forgot the SSID again then rejoin the original SSID - works 100% of the time
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