Unifi Access Points disconnecting

[evasion]

Rolled back firmware one version before, and they do not disconnect any more. Goes to show latest firmware has a bug.

[mavhc]

Lack of testing, hmm, kinda bad. More expected if you're using obscure features, but not the fundamentals

[StevieM]

Update: Rolled back firmware to 4.0.42.10433 and have not seen any disconnections for almost a week. Goes to show latest firmware has a bug!

Not necessarily*; we're still on 3.9.3.753, which has been pretty solid for almost 2 years until a couple of weeks ago. Since I did the power cycle, we've not had any disconnections either.

 

*although quite possibly.

[mavhc]

Does it get data from the Unifi servers at all, could something it downloaded break it without a firmware update?

[Primus]

Does it get data from the Unifi servers at all, could something it downloaded break it without a firmware update?

 

No.

 

We also aren't seeing any issues at all.

 

We're on 4.0.54.10625 for both APs and switches.

[evasion]

I have seen 3 disconnections today, even on older firmware (4.0.42). All of them are Unifi Nano HD, and there is one AP lite (been tested for 2 years), that is up 38 days! Just cannot believe how unreliable these Nano HDs are. Two months down the line from new, so many disconnects (4-5 daily on latest firmware and less on older one), with 50 APs on site having to go into network cabinets to reconnect daily. I'd say they are not fit for the purpose, compared to previous Aruba system. Chat support option is clueless and not helping even with all diagnostic data supplied, including syslog errors filtered for disconnected IP addresses.

[eraser]

No disconnection issues at the sites I manage: all AP-Pro on 4.0.54.10625

[evasion]

Still seeing a few Unify Nano HD disconnections. Even on older (more stable firmware). This kind of rules out AC Pro models as they seem to never disconnect. Will be looking to replace all Nano HDs with AC Pros.

[supportman]

Still seeing a few Unify Nano HD disconnections. Even on older (more stable firmware). This kind of rules out AC Pro models as they seem to never disconnect. Will be looking to replace all Nano HDs with AC Pros.

 

Are they on POE or Injectors? I saw someone else having this issue and it was the power supply not working great.

 

The new Gen2 Unify switches just announced look incredible! But I still will probably use injectors just to be safe in our setup.

[mdrabble]

I have approx 50 NanoHD and don't have any issues with disconnections powered by a mixture of POE Injectors and POE Switches.

 

I manage they all via a VM running the Unifi Controller - I did have an issue with the Controller after an update once where it said APs were offline but they were all working fine as I would ping them and also SSH into them plus I was able to connect to the Wifi without issues. - Needed to give the controller a reboot and then all was fine.

 

When they drop connection - can you still ping/shh them?

[evasion]

these are mostly on poe switch (power on max) and some on poe injectors, they disconnect regardless where their power comes from.

[evasion]

I was able to ping only a few after they disconnected so I could the launch ssh session and reboot. Mostly they do not respond to ping, some have steady blue light, some are blinking white light. Now testing latest firmware.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I was able to ping only a few after they disconnected so I could the launch ssh session and reboot. Mostly they do not respond to ping, some have steady blue light, some are blinking white light. Now testing latest firmware 4.0.66.

[evasion]

I was able to ping only a few after they disconnected so I could the launch ssh session and reboot. Mostly they do not respond to ping, some have steady blue light, some are blinking white light. Now testing latest firmware.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I was able to ping only a few after they disconnected so I could the launch ssh session and reboot. Mostly they do not respond to ping, some have steady blue light, some are blinking white light. Now testing latest firmware 4.0.66.

Even on latest firmware 4.066 I had two disconnections. They still reply to ping, but cannot be accessed with SSH. Have logging enabled on syslog server and all I see is lots of "Kernel warnings and Kernel errors".

Also I think they are not able to use "automatic" setting for 2G radio channel. Have 2 NanoHds in library area, well spaced and yet they managed to stick to the same channel (11) in spite of being on "automatic radio channel setting", to avoid overlapping.

Clearly they are not fit for the purpose if they have features which don't work as expected. My home hub wifi knows better to automatically move from channel 11 if neighbour's wifi is on the same channel.

[howartp]

We put 75 nanoHDs in at Half Term, all running 4.0.54 on a VM controller with 5.10.24

 

Not a single dropout.

 

Regarding "automatic radio channel", note that with Unifi this only applies at AP boot. So if all your APs come up at the same time (ie after powercut or reboot of POE switch, they'll all scan for a free channel, see channel 11 free, and pick it. There's no ongoing dynamic monitoring happening.

 

We got a site-map of the school and physically set all our APs to 1/6/11 on 2Ghz. We left 5Ghz at auto as it doesn't penetrate walls so much so there's less interference.

[mavhc]

We put 75 nanoHDs in at Half Term, all running 4.0.54 on a VM controller with 5.10.24

 

Not a single dropout.

 

Regarding "automatic radio channel", note that with Unifi this only applies at AP boot. So if all your APs come up at the same time (ie after powercut or reboot of POE switch, they'll all scan for a free channel, see channel 11 free, and pick it. There's no ongoing dynamic monitoring happening.

 

We got a site-map of the school and physically set all our APs to 1/6/11 on 2Ghz. We left 5Ghz at auto as it doesn't penetrate walls so much so there's less interference.

 

Hmm, that's not good, looking for something to replace our aging cisco wifi, and things it was doing 10 years ago aren't standard yet?

[PotNoodleTech]

Hmm, that's not good, looking for something to replace our aging cisco wifi, and things it was doing 10 years ago aren't standard yet?

 

Not for free, no. Do feel free to keep paying tens of £thousands to cisco, if you wish.

[mavhc]

Well, I can keep paying £0 to them and use the existing stuff. But unifi APs aren't free, so an odd suggestion

[evasion]

Hmm, that's not good, looking for something to replace our aging cisco wifi, and things it was doing 10 years ago aren't standard yet?

 

I agree that's not good enough to have the feature which only works on boot. No dynamic channel monitoring. Things no one mentions at the point of sale.

[evasion]

Here's what my be part of the fix - when APs reboot for whatever reason (I see them trying to adopt), then they cannot resolve controller address. They keep looking for http://unifi:8080/inform and unless you have controller ip address registered in your dns as "unifi", they will eventually hang and appear "disconnected".

It is not enough to have controller on the same subnet (vlan), one would think APs will be able to find the controller always as it happens most times anyway, but for some reason it does not happen always and they end up looking for dns entry which does not exist because installation guide did not mention registering controller in dns.

[howartp]

Ah, our APs are on a different VLAN so had to put DNS in for that right at the start.

[mdrabble]

Same here...... APs in different VLAN to controller - use DNS entry to point controller.

[evasion]

even with DNS record of the controller, they still disconnect. But hey, there is one more blue tack fix - latest firmware! 4.0.69.10871 "[HD/SHD/XG/BaseStationXG] Fix a couple of rare crashes". Holding my breath.

[SystemsAd]

If I could add my 2p worth;

We have 125 APs of mixed types. We have 5 AC-Pro, they never drop off at all. AC-LR which everyday become disconnected and we SSH into them and type reboot, this always fixes it.

We also have many AP-LR (old green style) these are also rock solid and never drop off.

 

Most of our APs are powered by 24v midspans. Some others are on Ubiquiti injectors and the pros are on Aruba POE switches.

 

We have tried various firmwares on each devices, current firmwares are below;

 

AP-LR - 4.0.15.9872

AC-LR - 4.0.10.9653 (5 are being tested on 4.0.69.10871)

AC-Pro - 4.0.10.9653

 

Have tried posting in the UniFi forum for advice, the only advice is to upgrade to latest firmware... This doesn't fix the drop offs from the AC-LR.

[PotNoodleTech]

If I could add my 2p worth;

We have 125 APs of mixed types. We have 5 AC-Pro, they never drop off at all. AC-LR which everyday become disconnected and we SSH into them and type reboot, this always fixes it.

We also have many AP-LR (old green style) these are also rock solid and never drop off.

 

Most of our APs are powered by 24v midspans. Some others are on Ubiquiti injectors and the pros are on Aruba POE switches.

 

We have tried various firmwares on each devices, current firmwares are below;

 

AP-LR - 4.0.15.9872

AC-LR - 4.0.10.9653 (5 are being tested on 4.0.69.10871)

AC-Pro - 4.0.10.9653

 

Have tried posting in the UniFi forum for advice, the only advice is to upgrade to latest firmware... This doesn't fix the drop offs from the AC-LR.

 

That doesnt sound good. Having to reboot them every day is the opposite of what we need from a wifi system!

 

@richbrowncardiff you come across this on your Unifi Journey?

[SystemsAd]

That doesnt sound good. Having to reboot them every day is the opposite of what we need from a wifi system!

 

@richbrowncardiff you come across this on your Unifi Journey?

 

Precisely! We are in a difficult position now. We have Netgear keen to replace the whole system, but at a fairly sizable cost, as you would imagine. The alternative is to start replacing AP-LRs with AP-Pro... But with basically no support from Ubiquiti. I am between a rock and a hard place with this. Needless to say, we haven't made a decision yet.

 

What is strange is that we can reboot the APs via SSH, running the info command returns nothing when the AP is in a disconnected state. I am pretty sure it is the AP crashing...