Ruckus 10.4 firmware buggy

[CraigM]

Hi everyone,

 

Our school has 29 Ruckus AP's - 21 R500 and 8 R510 models. Our ZoneDirector is a 1200 model.

 

For years I've had zero issues with the system. Firmware upgrades always went smoothly, until the 10.4 branch. All of a sudden, I was getting random reboots of all the AP's, didn't matter if it was under load or in the early morning dead hours.

 

Opened a ticket with Ruckus and after lots of back and forth, it appears that this issue is happening with other customers as well, so their engineers are going to be checking the code and issuing another update at some point to hopefully resolve this issue. I had to downgrade to the 10.2 branch eventually as my users couldn't take waiting any longer. What do you know, 10.2 is rock solid stable... Thankfully the downgrade process was a cinch and 15 mins after starting we were up and running again.

 

I do love my Ruckus kit and the ZoneDirector, but the costs of Ruckus equipment have gone sky high in my country now compared to a few years ago when they were real value for money. Throw in that the R500 AP's are EOL and will need replacement in the future and it becomes a costly exercise really. I'm really starting to understand why Ubiquiti is eating the lunch of these enterprise kit vendors...

 

Anyway, would be interesting to hear if anybody else out there also got hit with a buggy 10.4 firmware and what you did to remedy the situation.

[ricki]

The cost goes up because it popular because it's a good product.

[CraigM]

The cost goes up because it popular because it's a good product.

 

Maybe, but it also doesn't help that Ruckus has also been bought and sold like 3 times since we started using them. But probably the biggest issue is the local exchange rate going down the toilet. As of this writing, we are R22.07/£ and R16.73/$. Add in importing costs and all the other markup and the cost has really gone up.

[timbo343]

Funny you should mention 10.4 been buggy - i thought it was my phone. I'm downgrading to 10.3 later tonight.

[CraigM]

Funny you should mention 10.4 been buggy - i thought it was my phone. I'm downgrading to 10.3 later tonight.

 

I never did upgrade to the 10.3 branch, I just jumped from 10.2 to 10.4

 

I will look into the 10.3 branch over the weekend and see what's new in comparison to 10.2. Maybe it can be a happy medium between solid 10.2 and buggy 10.4. I saw the 10.4 branch has a new release, but that was more than a month ago so couldn't have fixed the issue we've been having.

[timbo343]

I never did upgrade to the 10.3 branch, I just jumped from 10.2 to 10.4

 

I will look into the 10.3 branch over the weekend and see what's new in comparison to 10.2. Maybe it can be a happy medium between solid 10.2 and buggy 10.4. I saw the 10.4 branch has a new release, but that was more than a month ago so couldn't have fixed the issue we've been having.

 

I actually applied 10.4.1 last night instead of the latest version of 10.3 and my phone still fails to roam between access points. We aren't seeing issues with our 1200 box or our 22 APs but staff members are now starting to complain about roaming between APs. We too have the R510 and it has been rock solid and not caused a Ruckus in the time we have had it.

[timbo343]

I cannot downgrade to 10.3 but i went up to 10.4.1.0.214 and we were having issues with clients connecting, almost like something was flooding the Wireless network.

 

I've just downgraded to 10.4.0.0.69 and things seem to be ok now. Will see what it's like tomorrow.

[timbo343]

10.4.0.0.69 and things are still really buggy, doesn't help the smoothwall VLANs weren't playing ball either.

 

Looks like a full rebuild of the Wireless network tonight is on the cards for me.

[timbo343]

Moved back to 10.2.1.0.183 last night after a full re-build and the wireless is perfect!

 

Unable to upgrade to 10.3 now as the license file is now missing from the controller - D'oh!

[smarties11]

We are also seeing issues here with 10.4 build 98. Not causing us big enough issues yet to do a roll-back, but we are getting 5 or 6 APs per day that are crashing and rebooting. It seems to be down to load, as I did this upgrade during the summer holidays and didn't get any issues at all until the students came back. Intrestingly, on the ZD1200 support page the 'recommended firmware' is still 10.2.1.0.183 refresh 5.

[timbo343]

We are also seeing issues here with 10.4 build 98. Not causing us big enough issues yet to do a roll-back, but we are getting 5 or 6 APs per day that are crashing and rebooting. It seems to be down to load, as I did this upgrade during the summer holidays and didn't get any issues at all until the students came back. Intrestingly, on the ZD1200 support page the 'recommended firmware' is still 10.2.1.0.183 refresh 5.

 

Yeah that's what i'm on now but downgrading meant it wiped everything out as i made a skoolboy error and didn't keep my .bak files but on the other hand there were loads of changes made moving from 10.2.1 to 10.3 to then 10.4.

 

Plus i think going up between versions caused one of the SSIDs to have an issue with one of the VLANs.

 

Sometimes it's good to flattern and start again.

[5tu]

We're seeing issues on 10.4.0.0.98 firmware too. Clients appear to randomly lose connectivity when on the 2.4ghz band (although windows reports they're still connected). Is this the same behaviour others have seen?

[timbo343]

Yup, that's what i was getting.

[smarties11]

I downgraded on Friday, down to 10.2.1.0.183 which is the Ruckus recommended version for our ZD1200. Thankfully I still had a 10.2 .bak file but it was almost a year out of date, so lots of changes to remember and implement! So far so good though....

[5tu]

Revisiting this old thread as I have a new batch of HP ProBook 440 G7 laptops that really don't like our 802.1x SSID. We've pretty much ruled out everything except Ruckus firmware.

 

Has anyone found a stable version higher than 10.2.1.0.183?

 

The issues our new HP ProBooks are experiencing are as follows....

 

- Regular network packets dropped resulting in slow network connectivity

- over 40% of network pings timeout when pinging any network address

- After maybe 30 minutes the connection stabilises but roaming between APs causes the connection to become unstable again

- Successful NPS server 6272 events are logged for the affacted devices multiple times a minute as though they are having to reauthenticate every few seconds

 

We have ruled out the WiFi NIC on these devices as the same behaviour occurs when using a USB WiFI adapter from a different brand.

 

All HP firmware / BIOS / drivers are up to date.

 

Connecting the same devices to a different SSID (on the same network) which has "Open" authentication and WPA2/AES encryption always results in a stable connection.

Edited April 23, 2021 by gybe78

[Net-Ctrl]

There is a slight enhancement to the FW you're using 10.2.1.0.192 -might be worth trying that as well. There is also 10.4 released in December time but I have not heard back from clients using this FW. I can send you a copy of the release notes for both if that would help.

[smarties11]

Revisiting this old thread as I have a new batch of HP ProBook 440 G7 laptops that really don't like our 802.1x SSID. We've pretty much ruled out everything except Ruckus firmware.

 

Has anyone found a stable version higher than 10.2.1.0.183?

 

The issues our new HP ProBooks are experiencing are as follows....

 

- Regular network packets dropped resulting in slow network connectivity

- over 40% of network pings timeout when pinging any network address

- After maybe 30 minutes the connection stabilises but roaming between APs causes the connection to become unstable again

- Successful NPS server 6272 events are logged for the affacted devices multiple times a minute as though they are having to reauthenticate every few seconds

 

We have ruled out the WiFi NIC on these devices as the same behaviour occurs when using a USB WiFI adapter from a different brand.

 

All HP firmware / BIOS / drivers are up to date.

 

Connecting the same devices to a different SSID (on the same network) which has "Open" authentication and WPA2/AES encryption always results in a stable connection.

 

The AP reboot issues were apparently fixed in 10.4.1.0.214, but I've yet to test. Latest release is 10.4.1.0.238

 

EDIT: Have you checked in the ZD which AP these laptops are connecting to? We've randomly had a few computers recently connect to distant APs (even when there is one in the room!) resulting in similar issues

Edited April 23, 2021 by smarties11

[5tu]

Thanks for the reply @Net-Ctrl. I'll try the .192 release and see if it changes anything.

 

Keen to hear from others that may have upgraded to 10.4 to see whether any issues have arisen as a result.

[5tu]

The AP reboot issues were apparently fixed in 10.4.1.0.214, but I've yet to test. Latest release is 10.4.1.0.238

 

EDIT: Have you checked in the ZD which AP these laptops are connecting to? We've randomly had a few computers recently connect to distant APs (even when there is one in the room!) resulting in similar issues

 

Yes we’ve checked this and devices are talking to their nearest AP. It’s really strange behaviour. Older Dell laptops have rock solid connectivity but these HP Probooks have very intermittent connectivity for over half an hour before it finally settles down. However roaming between APs or disabling/enabling WiFi makes the connection unstable again. Never seen anything like it.

[CraigM]

Revisiting this old thread as I have a new batch of HP ProBook 440 G7 laptops that really don't like our 802.1x SSID. We've pretty much ruled out everything except Ruckus firmware.

 

Has anyone found a stable version higher than 10.2.1.0.183?

 

The issues our new HP ProBooks are experiencing are as follows....

 

- Regular network packets dropped resulting in slow network connectivity

- over 40% of network pings timeout when pinging any network address

- After maybe 30 minutes the connection stabilises but roaming between APs causes the connection to become unstable again

- Successful NPS server 6272 events are logged for the affacted devices multiple times a minute as though they are having to reauthenticate every few seconds

 

We have ruled out the WiFi NIC on these devices as the same behaviour occurs when using a USB WiFI adapter from a different brand.

 

All HP firmware / BIOS / drivers are up to date.

 

Connecting the same devices to a different SSID (on the same network) which has "Open" authentication and WPA2/AES encryption always results in a stable connection.

 

I wish I could be of assistance, but I very much suspect that the issue is with the Ruckus firmware. Unfortunately our ZoneDirector 1200 died a hard death earlier this year and I had to step up to a virtual SmartZone controller. It didn't make sense to take another ZD1200 box when it looks like Ruckus is trying to kill the ZD controllers - there's been nothing new released in ages. When you open up the 1200, you can see just how dinky the hardware is really, so it wouldn't surprise me that they are struggling with issues. The vSZ has been pretty decent for us all things considered and it certainly keeps much logs for a longer period with not having to worry about the puny CF card storage on board the ZD unit.

 

My best guess is that the 10.4 branch introduced some really deep code regressions somewhere and they still haven't ironed out the kinks yet. Before our ZD died I was still on the 10.2 version I downgraded to after the bad 10.4 experience.