Tech Forum

We have one of our buildings with an 881 AP and two Cisco Wireless APs. The two APs are near the front the of the building (one on either side) and appear to be on the same channel. I think the AP is also on the same channel.

In any case, what I'm getting complaints about from the Bishopbric is that their devices are very often connecting and then disconnecting and reconnecting. Don't know if it's the device pinging between the two APs or what. I asked Salt Lake why they are all on the same channel and they said this is by design.

Anyone know why this might be happening or seen this before? It's pretty annoying having the devices too often dropping and re-establishing wireless connections to the APs. Mostly it appears to be Ipads they are using.

Any ideas on how to debug besides unplugging one of the APs?

Supposedly the APs are supposed to "hear" each other and report back to a central controller that will change the channels. But we just fired up a new building and both are sitting on CH1 - and I KNOW they can hear each other.

Yes, two APs with the same SSID on the same channel can create problems.

Yeah, figured that would be the case but a call to Salt Lake said that's the way the network engineers want it and they can't change it. Also, we have some evidence it might be the AP inside the firewall with the biggest issue. Seems like some were saying the AP inside the firewall has issues? Any value in shutting it's AP off and replacing it with a third external AP?

ldsrussp wrote:Also, we have some evidence it might be the AP inside the firewall with the biggest issue.

The only issue I know of is that they may not work at all.

ldsrussp,

russellhltn is correct, the APs should be adjusting their channels so that they are using the least used channels. I am not sure where GSC received the wrong information.

We would like to take a look at your site to see why it may not be functioning correctly. What building is this happening at?

This is happening at the Dacula, GA ward building. I would love if it support would login and see what they can reconfigure. Latest info I got was that during PEC they were in the back of the building and had a ton of disconnect/reconnects. This happens to be the area covered by the AP in the firewall itself. They also primarily use Ipads although a High Counselor with a mac sad he had the same problem. Guess it could be Apple centric but don't know as so very few are carrying PCs these days around here (including me).

Frustrated by this. The APs in question are Cisco 1041s and are separated by the cultural hall (ie: both are in the attic on opposite sides of the building about midway down). Firewall with AP is on the end of the building (middle).

Even after power cycling these 1041s APs still both go to channel 11 and seem to be interfering with each other. GSC tells me they have no ability to change the channel on the 1041s and that they should autodetect and change channels but this is NOT happening. Keep getting weekly complaints from the Bishopbric about drops and reconnects.

Any suggestions?

So far I've found they'll default to channel 1 unless they see a strong signal from somewhere else, then they go to 11.

Tonight we disconnected one of the offending APs and the problem seemed to go away. Not sure what I'll do now.... Cisco seems to be pretty low quality equipment from my experience with the Church equipment.

One thing I haven't found is just how a client is supposed to connect to a WAP. Does it simply follow the SSID and channel, or is it supposed to follow the MAC address? It's possible this problem is more of a client-side fault.