We are experiencing a problem with some of our 2.4Ghz SMs across several towers/APs (hardware scheduling - 7.1.4 firmware). The SM will register and work fine for a few minutes or even a few hours. Then, it will drop-out and be inaccessible for 5 minutes up to 1.5 hours. When the SM re-registers, it only increases its session count by one and it doesn’t appear to have been trying to re-register (the AP and SM don’t show any re-registration activity). This appears to be happening with our newest radios we just received. Could this be a bad batch of radios? Any ideas?
How does the SM uptime look? It isnt loosing power is it? If it was powered the whole time I would expect that you will see re-reg values increasing.
Sorry - I should have included that info in the original post. The uptime looks like the radio has been powered-up through the entire time (that’s one of the first things I checked, thinking the power supply was bad or the customer just unplugged the radio by accident). I too would expect to see the re-reg values increase too – that’s why I posted this – to see if anyone else has been experiencing this issue with new 2.4Ghz SMs.
We also ran in to this issue, and found that our units were reporting out of range, you need to increase the range of your AP and might find that to fix your problem, or it is a faulty 2400SM.
These SMs are relatively close to the AP and well within the 15 miles we set on the AP. It seems odd that we have several SMs doing the same thing. I’ve never seen SMs “go bad” like this, so I was just curious if this is really an SM hardware/manufacturing problem or something else.
Not sure if this matters, but what freq. do you have selected in the SM? We always select all the freq.'s but have heard that the 2.4 will lock onto the first freq. it can connect to. Even if it is NOT the same freq. the AP is on, but close. Is this true?
So in this case, select the freq the AP is on, and select a few boxes prev and after the main freq.
dczimmerm wrote: These SMs are relatively close to the AP and well within the 15 miles we set on the AP. It seems odd that we have several SMs doing the same thing. I've never seen SMs "go bad" like this, so I was just curious if this is really an SM hardware/manufacturing problem or something else.
SAME problem here with 2.4 AND 5.7 with HWS. We've come to the conclusion that the problem is with the firmware, and hopefully 7.2 will fix that. Fortunately we have not lost any customers yet because of this, but they are starting to complain. Everyone says "just switch to software scheduling" - let me tell ya - 50 radios in the field, P8 and P9 - switching to software would be a big pain in the rear considering that the older SM's will have to be CNUTted from the customer's location (if you try over the radio and the connection dies, the radio will be bricked).
We switched the 5.7 to software (only 3 SM's), and it's been rock solid since then.
trying to justify the extra $$$ paid for advantage gear to the boss and patiently waiting for the next firmware release..............
- Vlad
Thanks for the info. I guess I’ll leave the radios in-place a little while longer in hopes that the 7.2 firmware will fix it. I had already pulled a few radios from the field and was getting to RMA them.
Can we get confirmation from Canopy Support that this is a known 7.1 firmware issue?
dczimmerm wrote: Thanks for the info. I guess I'll leave the radios in-place a little while longer in hopes that the 7.2 firmware will fix it. I had already pulled a few radios from the field and was getting to RMA them.
Can we get confirmation from Canopy Support that this is a known 7.1 firmware issue?
there is a general problem with hardware scheduling - from firmware 6.0 and up. Canopy tech support acknowledged it a while back and 7.2 is supposed to clear it up.
On a side note, you might have better luck with 6.1 firmware for HWS (at least on the 2.4/5.7 AP's) until the new release comes out. I've done some thorough testing on 7.0 and 7.1 with HWS and it's actually much worse. You will still have re-regs on 6.1 but recovery time is much shorter.
When it drops out do you still see it as registered in from the AP’s session page? Can you LUID to the SM? Can you ping the SM from the AP?
When it drops-out, it doesn’t show up on any of the APs and therefore isn’t accessible/pingable. When it finally re-registers to an AP, the session count has only gone up by 1 - and it doesn’t appear to have been trying to re-register (re-reg still 0).
Do the SM’s see another Canopy AP in the area? I would recommend contacting support and also send in a CNUT log so we can look further into the issue. You say that the SM’s are close to the AP, how close are they? How do the power levels and jitter look?
They could be trying to register and if they are not heard they will not trigger an increase in the counters.
No, the SMs do not see any other APs. At least none are showing up in the AP Eval data. I finally was able to stay connected to an SM long enough to get the Customer Support info from CNUT. I am sending to Canopy Support immediately.
dczimmerm wrote: We are experiencing a problem with some of our 2.4Ghz SMs across several towers/APs (hardware scheduling - 7.1.4 firmware). The SM will register and work fine for a few minutes or even a few hours. Then, it will drop-out and be inaccessible for 5 minutes up to 1.5 hours. When the SM re-registers, it only increases its session count by one and it doesn't appear to have been trying to re-register (the AP and SM don't show any re-registration activity). This appears to be happening with our newest radios we just received. Could this be a bad batch of radios? Any ideas?
We are seeing the EXACT same thing with our legacy AP's that are SW scheduling only. I don't think it is only a hardware bug. Anyone else
seeing this on their networks using SW scheduling?