Can't add more SM - existing SM are IDEL

We have been experiencing a strange problem and I was hoping someone could give us some light. Here are some of the basics;

- We are using 5.2AP
- We are using 5.2SM
- We have three AP’s connected to CMM - Sync is ok. We just changed the CMM thinking that might be the problem.
- We have a total of 28 users on the SM with problems.
- We have been working without problems on this area for over six months.

Our problem currently is that we have users that have been working fine and now their connection status (under the session status tab) shows IDEL. However they have strong RSSI - Good Power Level and low Jitter and they had been connected before. It is almost as if the AP reached its maximum number of users.

When we visit the customer site and use the alignment tool it shows good connection but the SM does not register. We do not use PRIZM at this time.

All AP’s have the number of control slots set to 1.

We have upgraded all AP to 8.2 thinking that is the problem but no solution. Some of the SM are 8.1.4 other 8.1.5 and new ones are 8.2. We are in the process of upgrading all to 8.2

HELP

Please post screen shots of the AP and SM configuration pages.

Jerry Richardson wrote:
Please post screen shots of the AP and SM configuration pages.


There is better option than this. Upgrade to 8.2 and post the data from /engineering.cgi page.

I didn't understand well, are all of your SM idle, or some of them? If the problem is with some then try changing the frequency and look in your area for source of interference.

How can I send you the images, I copied the web pages into PDF format.

Sorry but this is my first experience using this forum and not sure how I can do that.

The problem is with some of the SM - they might be active today and working fine and the next day their status changes to IDEL and customer indicates they can not access the web.

One of them went back to active - howerver the total count of active users at any time has not ever gone over 28 - it might be 30 but two of those are IDEL

Erkan,
NICE! Now I am convinced that it’s time to upgrade. Have you dug out any other useful pages?

LJ,
As Erkan indicated copy and past the contents of http://radioip/engineering.cgi for the AP and the SM into a post on this forum.

LJOwen,

Post the engineering.cgi page, it simple copy and paste.

Idle means that the SM is not associated. It could be turned off from power and still showing that info.

This kind of problems are usually connected with the frequency. Try cycling the channels of you APs. Are they covering 180 degrees?

Jerry Richardson wrote:
Erkan,
NICE! Now I am convinced that it's time to upgrade. Have you dug out any other useful pages?


This page is in the 8.1, but it can't open trough the radio interface and you can make changes there.

No more interesting pages. Try ftp to device and than ls, that's it.

In 8.2 I like:
More PPS, useful for backhauls 20.
SM-SM isolation.
Limit for broadcast and multicast packets.
Management VLANs for BH.

The user accounts are annoying dough.

I have been working on this problem for some time and have not been able to reply, her is the information.


We continue to experiment SM’s that are active and working without a problem going to IDLE status. I have documented an example to see if someone can provide some light.

In this case the SM was working without a problem, the AP was rebooted and after this the SM went into IDEL. In the status it continued to change between SYNCING and REGISTERING. Following you will find

- the status of the SM on the AP
- the SM AP Evaluation tool and SM alignment tool (token beacon)
- the AP Configuration
- the SM configuration

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :?:




SESSION STATUS FROM THE AP


LUID: 021 : MAC: 0a-00-3e-03-8c-3e State: IDLE
Site Name : Rosa Sanchez
Session Timeout: 0, AirDelay 400 (approximately 3.71 miles (19600 feet))
Session Count: 4, Reg Count 2, Re-Reg Count 3
RSSI (Avg/Last): 1221/1214 Jitter (Avg/Last): 7/7 Power Level (Avg/Last): -56/-56
Sustained Uplink Data Rate (AP): 20000 (kbit)
Uplink Burst Allocation (AP): 500000 (kbit)
Sustained Downlink Data Rate (AP): 20000 (kbit)
Downlink Burst Allocation (AP): 500000 (kbit)
Low Priority Uplink CIR (D): 0 (kbps) Low Priority Downlink CIR (D): 0 (kbps)
Rate : VC 37 Rate 1X/1X

AP EVALUATION TOOL ON THE SM

Index: 0 Frequency: 5300.00 MHz ESN: 0a-00-3e-03-e3-f2 Other (RC: 1 CC: 1)
Jitter: 1 RSSI: 645 Power Level: -69 Beacon Count: 32 BRcvW: 1 FECEn: 0
Type: Multipoint Avail: 1 Age: 0 Lockout: 0 RegFail 44 Range: 9114 feet TxBER: 1 EBcast: 0
Session Count: 2 NoLUIDS: 0 OutOfRange: 0 AuthFail: 0 EncryptFail: 0 Rescan Req: 0
FrameNumber: 1985 SectorID: 2 Color Code: 78 BeaconVersion: 1 SectorUserCount: 27
NumULHalfSlots: 17 NumDLHalfSlots: 52 NumULContSlots: 2

Index: 1 Frequency: 5275.00 MHz ESN: 0a-00-3e-01-0f-f7 Other (RC: 1 CC: 1)
Jitter: 9 RSSI: 351 Power Level: -76 Beacon Count: 2 BRcvW: 1 FECEn: 0
Type: Multipoint Avail: 1 Age: 0 Lockout: 0 RegFail 0 Range: 0 feet TxBER: 1 EBcast: 0
Session Count: 0 NoLUIDS: 0 OutOfRange: 0 AuthFail: 0 EncryptFail: 0 Rescan Req: 0
FrameNumber: 1893 SectorID: 1 Color Code: 33 BeaconVersion: 1 SectorUserCount: 6
NumULHalfSlots: 17 NumDLHalfSlots: 53 NumULContSlots: 1

Index: 2 Frequency: 5275.00 MHz ESN: 0a-00-3e-03-24-b3
Jitter: 5 RSSI: 259 Power Level: -78 Beacon Count: 3 BRcvW: 0 FECEn: 0
Type: Multipoint Avail: 0 Age: 2 Lockout: 0 RegFail 0 Range: 0 feet TxBER: 0 EBcast: 0
Session Count: 0 NoLUIDS: 0 OutOfRange: 0 AuthFail: 0 EncryptFail: 0 Rescan Req: 0
FrameNumber: 623 SectorID: 0 Color Code: 3 BeaconVersion: 1 SectorUserCount: 1
NumULHalfSlots: 17 NumDLHalfSlots: 51 NumULContSlots: 0

ALINEMENT TOOL ON THE SM
*********************************************
Ave RSSI : 645 (-68 dBm)
Ave Jitter : 1
Users: 27
Frequency : 5300.0 MHz
ESN : 0a-00-3e-03-e3-f2
Color Code : 78
Backhaul : 0

AP CONFIGURATION (ONLY SCREENS THAT HAVE BEEN CHANGED, SCREENS NOT PRESENT MEANS THEY ARE DEFAULT)
Configuration => General
5.2GHz - Access Point - 0a-00-3e-03-e3-f2
Device Type
Device Setting : AP
SM

Link Speeds
Link Speeds : 10 Base T Half Duplex
10 Base T Full Duplex
100 Base T Half Duplex
100 Base T Full Duplex
Multiple selections enable Auto Negotiation
Bandwidth Configuration Source
Configuration Source :

Sync Setting
Sync Input :

Regional Settings
Region Code :

Web Page Configuration
Webpage Auto Update : Seconds (0 = Disable Auto Update)

Bridge Configuration
Bridge Entry Timeout : Minutes (Range : 25 – 1440 Minutes)

Translation Bridging : Enabled
Disabled

Send Untranslated ARP : Enabled
Disabled

SM Isolation :

Update Application Information
Update Application Address :

MAC Control Parameters
2X Rate : Enabled
Disabled

TCP Settings
Prioritize TCP ACK : Enabled
Disabled

Layer 2 Discovery Destination Address
Multicast Destination Address : Broadcast
LLDP Multicast



Configuration => IP
5.2GHz - Access Point - 0a-00-3e-03-e3-f2
LAN1 Network Interface Configuration
IP Address :

Subnet Mask :

Gateway IP Address :

DHCP state : Enabled
Disabled

LAN2 Network Interface Configuration (Radio Private Interface)
IP Address :



Configuration => Radio
5.2GHz - Access Point - 0a-00-3e-03-e3-f2
Radio Configuration
Radio Frequency Carrier :

Color Code : (0–254)

Sector ID :

Max Range : Miles (Range: 1-- 30 miles)

Downlink Data : %

Schedule Whitening : Enable
Disable

Hardware Scheduler Link Configurations
Control Slots : ( Range: 0 – 10 )

Scan Policy
Transmit Frame Spreading : Enabled
Disabled

Transmitter Output Power
Transmitter Output Power : dBm ( Range: -1 – 23 dBm )



Configuration => Security
5.2GHz - Access Point - 0a-00-3e-03-e3-f2
Authentication Server Settings
Authentication Mode : Authentication Required
Authentication Disabled

Authentication Server 1 :

Authentication Server 2 :

Authentication Server 3 :

Airlink Security
Encryption : Enabled
Disabled

Encrypted Downlink Broadcast Configuration
Encrypt Downlink Broadcast : Enabled
Disabled

AP Evaluation Configuration
SM Display of AP Evaluation Data : Disable Display
Enable Display

Session Timeout
Web, Telnet, FTP Session Timeout : Seconds

IP Access Filtering
IP Access Control : IP Access Filtering Enabled - Only allow access from IP addresses specified below
IP Access Filtering Disabled - Allow access from all IP addresses

Allowed Source IP 1 :

Allowed Source IP 2 :

Allowed Source IP 3 :


SM CONFIGURATION (ONLY SCREENS THAT HAVE BEEN CHANGED, SCREENS NOT PRESENT MEANS THEY ARE DEFAULT)

Configuration => General
5.2GHz - Subscriber Module - 0a-00-3e-01-17-6e
Link Speeds
Link Speeds : 10 Base T Half Duplex
10 Base T Full Duplex
100 Base T Half Duplex
100 Base T Full Duplex
Multiple selections enable Auto Negotiation
Ethernet Link Enable/Disable : Enabled
Disabled

Regional Settings
Region Code :

Web Page Configuration
Webpage Auto Update : Seconds (0 = Disable Auto Update)

Bridge Configuration
Bridge Entry Timeout : Minutes (Range : 25 – 1440 Minutes)

MAC Control Parameters
Power Up Mode With No 802.3 Link : Power up in Aim Mode
Power up in Operational Mode

2X Rate : Enabled
Disabled

Frame Timing
Frame Timing Pulse Gated : Enable (If SM out of sync then do not propagate the frame timing pulse)
Disable (Always propagate the frame timing pulse)

Layer 2 Discovery Destination Address
Multicast Destination Address : Broadcast
LLDP Multicast




Configuration => IP
5.2GHz - Subscriber Module - 0a-00-3e-01-17-6e
LAN1 Network Interface Configuration
IP Address :

Network Accessibility : Public
Local

Subnet Mask :

Gateway IP Address :

DHCP state : Enabled
Disabled



Configuration => Radio
5.2GHz - Subscriber Module - 0a-00-3e-01-17-6e
Radio Configuration
Custom Radio Frequency Scan Selection List : 5275 5280 5285 5290 5295 5300 5305
5310 5315 5320 5325 None

Color Code : (0–254)

Power Control
Power Control : Normal
Low

Switching between syncing, registering, registered, syncing… is an indication of a poor quality signal.

This can be due to low RF signal level, physical interference intruding into the fresnel path, nearby RF interference such as cordless phones, baby monitors, wireless video.

The other issue can be due to self interference between AP’s. SM’s looking at the AP on-axis working better than SM’s off-axis are an indication of possible self interference.

Could this be the case even though the SM is showing a very good signal (RSSI over 1,000, Jitter of 1 and DB -55) and it has been working well for weeks?

Yes.

you need to confirm a few things:

1. All AP’s are receiving the same sync source
2. All AP’s have the same DL%, Max distance, and # Control Slots

You should also take a liik at this:
http://motorola.canopywireless.com/supp … ng++levels

RegFail 44
Re-reg 3, but probably this number would rise quickly.

It looks like interference to me.

I have Cognio Spectrum Expert pcmci card, with that it is really easy to diagnose problem like this and push the spectrum to the limits.