Can someone explain how Fixed Mode is even supposed to work? It seems broken by design; the SM needs an internet connection to connect to the AFC, otherwise it refuses to transmit. If it refuses to transmit, it will never connect to the AP, so it can’t reach the AFC?? What am I missing?
So far, this has not worked for us at all… We have had to leave the SM in Standard Mode.
Pleaser review this article for detailed information on standard vs fixed mode and how it operates
Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear… I understand the technical aspects. I’m saying, it doesn’t work because the SM can’t reach the AFC, because it refuses to transmit until it reaches the AFC. It’s a catch 22.
The Subscriber Module (SM) will revert to standard client mode when it first powers up. In the SM UI, both standard client and fixed client modes available as choices to configure but by default all SMs boot up in standard client mode. Once the SM connects to the AP and has a path to the internet, and fixed client mode is configured then it will start querying the AFC system similar to the AP. If the AFC server connection fails for the AP, it will never transmit. However on the SM side if the connection fails once fixed client is configured it will default to standard client mode. If it succeeds on the first attempt but days later it fails, there is a 24 hour grace period for the SM where it continues to use the allocated fixed client frequency and EIRP before falling back to standard client.
Yea I read that; doesn’t seem to work. It never even connects to the AP when configured as Fixed Mode.
Can you share a screenshot of the AFC status on the SM set to fixed mode?
What happens if you reduce the channel width to 20MHz on the AP?
As as side note, doesn’t it seem a bit disastrous if your APs give up and never retry after trying to contact the AFC once? What happens during power outages when the network may come up in an indeterminate order? Do we have to try to go around and reboot things manually, and hope they have a path at that point to the AFC?
I hadn’t really bothered trying other channel widths in Fixed Mode, since it worked under Standard but I can do that. I’ll try to grab a screenshot as well. I know it doesn’t quite match the AP but I dont remember which error (I’ve seen AFC Expiry and Waiting…but not sure if that’s what I’ve seen on the SM in Fixed Mode… I’ll verify).
Hello @Chisholm_Wildermuth,
could you PM me a techsupport file from this unit when Fixed Client is enabled?
On the second screenshot is looks like the radio can reach AFC server and waits for spectrum inquiry response. Does it keep waiting forever?
It finally connected to the AP, but I believe it took 10-15 minutes. I didn’t time it; but it was much longer than it does in Standard Mode, so I can only assume the behavior of “start in standard mode, then try to contact the AFC, then move to Fixed Mode once verified” is not working correctly.
Once it did connect to the AP, it has still not switched to Fixed Mode; it shows “AFC Expiry”.
Wouldn’t it make sense also, to store the AFC results in memory so it survives reboots? With an expiration timestamp, if I reboot an AP shouldn’t it still be valid and just ‘work’ (unless AFC auth has expired of course). Likewise, the SM could save the AFC and channel details, etc so a reboot and reconnection would occour much faster, and not require a wait time and re-check, etc.
Goin to PM the support file now. Thanks!
Hello @Chisholm_Wildermuth,
in your techsupport file I see:
So it was connected from the beginning and then AP has changed the frequency. SM has got reconnected after 3 min. As it had to scan all freq list. There are no other events at all.
Does it match the time of your observation? Or this connect-disconnect cycle is not related to your issue?
AFC expiry means “Spectrum inquiry response expired, waiting for renewal, working till grace period end.” So this is not a problem. I will add statuses description to knowledge-base soon.
About connection period after reboot. According to your logs, SM got connected in 268 sec after boot up. AFC response came 2 seconds later.
If the issue with slow connect is really there, I will really appreciate if you can show it to me.
Download techsupports from AP and SM when it is in progress or right after before any reboot.
Or in remote session format.
Thank you!
