Epmp 3000 dropping SM

Thank you… i am fine to go straight from 4.4.3 to 4.5.6 correct?

@Fedor So going on almost 2 hours with no SM dropping… but I think my issue is that the epmp 3000 is losing internet connectivity, I noticed while in the GUI of the radio the globe symbol went from green to grey to green in a half second or so… I need help diagnosing the issue… the ethernet status in the GUI of the epmp 3000 stays at 1000mbps full, never goes red.

@Fedor I had a SM get dropped by the AP so it is doing it even on 4.5.6, let me know what you need from me

Yes, you can go with the upgrade from 4.4.3 to 4.5.6 directly.

Ideally I would ask you for the remote access to your sector where the issue can be investigated.
But we can start with Tech Support Files collected from AP and at least 2 SMs which are experiencing disconnects.

Thank you.

@Fedor now I am also experiencing sm drops on the opposite sector (east) as well…this has just come out of nowhere, never experienced this before.

Had a similar problem. Not sure if you are using GPS sync. At the end of the day after installing external GPS antenna for the 3000’s, this was resolved.

Same here, no real responce from Cambium and definitely no garantee that it is identified and taken care of any time soon. Please advise of any other fixes other that going back to 4.4.3?

How do you know if GPS sync is not working? I have checked my system logs and see no GPS loss, on the web UI of the ePMP 3000 I have a green symbol, and I have satellites being tracked. Is this an actual GPS issue?

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I was going to mention this… Cambium makes it pretty easy to see if your GPS sync is working correctly in the form of the dashboard status indicator, log files, and tracked satellites page, etc. If these things looks positive, then GPS sync between correctly configured radios is GOOD TO GO!

IF you see GPS sync down and/or your settings are incorrect, then you’ll typically see the following issues:

  • In back to back frequency reuse situation, 1 or both AP’s will often start dropping some or all SM’s
  • Very poor modulation for SM’s
  • Frequent messages in the logs that GPS sync is lost and that free run mode is in play

Okay, well everything checks out: dashboard indicator is green, no synch errors in the logs, satellites are tracked.
I am experiencing your first 2 bullet points but just in the last few weeks, before that everything was A OK

you setup ACS on this tower, unfortunately there is no coordination scheme to make sure you have appropriate frequencies on the back half of the tower.

Use fixed RF channels, either front to back same channel or each sector gets its own channel. Just make sure you have the tower settings set to match your other in-range towers.

Eric is correct that GPS can be easily checked but there is a known issue with GPS active but no sync, we have chosen to use an over the cable sync method as the epmp3000 series has too many GPS related issues. Adding a 30$ GPS puck can clean up the GPS signal if there is a GPS signal issue.

When I ordered epmp 3000 and epmp 90 degree sectors the puck(with cable) was included… as per the install guide the gps antenna cable connects to radio and goes through the sector to the top of the sector that has a spot that the puck sits in… is this not the appropriate setup?

I am definitely moving toward packetflux sync.

use the square puck not the round one, place it on the tower leg not the antenna or on a vertical piece of metal with the cable pointing down.

with 4 90deg sectors, select 2 center frequencies at least 20Mhz apart. This will have to be coordinated with your other towers. Make sure your sectors on all towers follow the same grid pattern so that you have predictability and follow the admin guides recommended 4 sector 2 channel pattern. set the scheduler settings and the sync settings the same on all APs. Sync should be with co-location on (many will tell you to not use it but it helps mitigate sync discrepancy), source to GPS or CMM4 (packetflux Cambium Sync is same as CMM4, the Canopy Sync is the same as CMM3), guard interval to match the interference sources, wifi is usually long. Make sure your downlink ratio is the same on all AP’s as well.

I will look into the square pucks, thank you. I have done pretty much everything as you described, minus square pucks. Very funny you mention co-location, cambium support told me to turn it off…I will leave it on. I have all sectors set to short guard interval, long is a better setting? As per web ui it says long interval reduces channel efficiency…

Unless you are running a homogeneous network (all epmp only), use colocation on. Keep in mind that if there is any newer Airfiber links in the area, the colocation mode helps reduce that interference.

Guard interval choice is based on distance you want to reach and what your interferers are. Most wifi is long guard by default as that allows for walls, some local sleuthing is required to get this right. Using long will reduce channel efficiency but we are talking a few microseconds more turn around time between transmit and receive during a 5ms frame, unless you are having 100+sm/per ap then the difference is negligible.

The square pucks are the newer ones that work with all three gps constellations and have better immunity to LTE cellular signals. You are thinking about packetflux, skip the puck unless its a 3000L.

I am running all epmp across the network and ptp 550 for backhauls. There are airfiber links in the area from a competitor.

Hi All

Has this issue been solved? and what was the cause of the issue as i seem to be having this issue currently where my EPMP 3000 drops some of the clients connected to it than it quiet for a few days than it does it again.

Please see the attached log.
EPMP 3000 log.txt (246.2 KB)

rise of the necro-thread!

looking at your log, the repeating reason is communications loss. As long as all SMs have good signal and reasonable snr then we look for interference sources with the spectrum analyzer.

I do not think this is a GPS issue because your log does not show TX hold off messages.

So a few questions:
which firmware are you running?
is all SMs force300 or do you have some force200 and f180s in the mix?
AP radio config details: center frequency, channel size, tx power setting, ATPC setting, GI setting and are you using frequency reuse? if so what is the physical pattern. it needs to be ABAB or ABCABC
Are you noticing a specific time of day or weather event that the drop offs happen at?

2 posts were split to a new topic: SMs not registering on AP