Wireless dropping randomly on Chromebooks/ChromeOS

[localzuk]

We have about 1000 Chromebooks in our Trust now and in the last few weeks we've seen a massive increase in devices randomly dropping wireless mid-use and in many cases then acting like wireless is disabled on the device. Some work again if you log off and back on, some require a powerwash, some refuse to work again.

 

Has anyone else seen this? Anyone got any ideas?

[3s-gtech]

Is the wifi SSID enforced on them? Do you use proxies, and are they automatic?

[localzuk]

It depends on the school - some schools the wifi is enforced on them, some not (as we've not yet finished standardising their wifi setups). All go through a transparent proxy (so, no settings on the devices).

[TronXP]

We had this with some Lenovo N23's, sometimes a powerwash works, others needed the wifi card reseated and other times we have sent them back to lenovo and they have had either the Wifi card replaced and/or motherboard replaced. We never had this issue with the Lenovo 300e's (wifi card is onboard) but we have had it a few times with our Acer Spin 511's (again with separate wifi card), with the Acer's we sent them back for warranty and they replaced the wifi card.

[localzuk]

Thing is, they were working fine until very recently. We'd had a single faulty wifi card in about 16 months, now suddenly we've got reports of dozens of them doing it.

[3s-gtech]

I'm seeing quite a few Chromebooks insist that they're running though a captive portal, and not get to the login screen, when set with some proxy settings. Setting the proxy IP manually, with an enforced network, has worked consistently. Part of the issue may have been filtering in this case.

[PrimaryNetMan]

UniFi APs by any chance?

[localzuk]

Nope, Ruckus.

[MrEprise]

Something I noticed with our Chromebooks a few months ago is that when they first connected to our wireless, they would drop out halfway through the DHCP handshake (which leaves behind loads of BAD_ADDRESS entries) then they reconnect and they're fine until the next restart/power-on.

 

I suspected ChromeOS at the time as the issue seems to have since disappeared. I do wonder if the version of ChromeOS you're running is causing the issues you're seeing.

[psydii]

OS+Divers can evolve to the point of incompatibility with older firmware on APs. Has there been a update to Chrome OS?

[TwistedHelixis]

I started a post a couple of months ago where our new HP Chrombooks would drop the WiFi.

 

For me I think the fix was either forcing the units onto a 2.5ghz conection (just for a short while as they were fine on 5Ghz after), upgrading our WiFi firmware but most importantly upgrading ChromeOS.

[paulkerton]

Could it be a ChromeOS update causing it? 90 is just rolling out now...

[Danp]

Had two older Acers do this today. Just refuse to connect via wifi, one stopped in the middle of a lesson.

[PrimaryNetMan]

Have a school with Rucks and filtering by Exa with Dell 3180s having similar issues. Either no connection or forcing people over to gstatic Edited May 12, 2021 by PrimaryNetMan