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420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

 
Jason Scott
Regular Advisor

420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

He have some 420wl APs configured with basic wep. Looking through the logs the clients keep reauthenticating every few seconds. Coverage is good and we're running G mode only. Has anyone encountered this before?
7 REPLIES 7
Matt Hobbs
Honored Contributor

Re: 420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

Hi Jason,

I haven't really come across that before. What firmware are you running? I'd recommend you update to 2.1.2 if you haven't already.

What sort of wireless NICs do the clients have? Have you tried updating their drivers?

If you're still having the same problem, if you can capture the logs and attach it to your post it may help understand what's happening.

Status -> Event Logs -> Copy & Paste of Event Logs

Also how many AP's are involved, how far apart are they, and what channels are they on? A network map would be useful.

Matt
Jason Scott
Regular Advisor

Re: 420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

Hi,

We're running 2.1.2. It is occuring in 3 different locations. In each location the APs are about 20 meters apart. I've checked that their channel selection is good - on one pair they'd both auto'd to channel 6 so I forced one to channel 1.

Our clients are Compaq/HP laptops with Intel Centrino chips. I have actually observed the taskbar balloon notification constantly appearing and disappearing as the client continually reassociates.

Samples of logs are below. Is there a way of debugging the association and authentication process in more depth?

Thanks for your help.

1 Feb 08 06:58:09 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
2 Feb 08 06:58:09 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
3 Feb 08 06:57:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
4 Feb 08 06:57:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
5 Feb 08 06:57:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
6 Feb 08 06:56:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
7 Feb 08 06:56:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
8 Feb 08 06:56:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
9 Feb 08 06:56:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
10 Feb 08 06:56:39 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
11 Feb 08 06:56:30 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
12 Feb 08 06:56:29 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
13 Feb 08 06:56:29 Notice: 802.11g:Station Forwarding: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b Encryption key type=STATIC WEP
14 Feb 08 06:56:29 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
15 Feb 08 06:56:29 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
16 Feb 08 06:56:29 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
17 Feb 08 06:56:28 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
18 Feb 08 06:56:28 Notice: 802.11g:Station Forwarding: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b Encryption key type=STATIC WEP
19 Feb 08 06:56:28 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
20 Feb 08 06:56:21 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
21 Feb 08 06:56:21 Notice: 802.11g:Station Forwarding: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b Encryption key type=STATIC WEP
22 Feb 08 06:56:21 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
23 Feb 08 06:56:08 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
24 Feb 08 06:56:08 Notice: 802.11g:Station Forwarding: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b Encryption key type=STATIC WEP
25 Feb 08 06:56:08 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
26 Feb 08 06:55:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
27 Feb 08 06:55:33 Notice: 802.11g:Station Forwarding: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b Encryption key type=STATIC WEP
28 Feb 08 06:55:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
29 Feb 08 06:55:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
30 Feb 08 06:54:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
31 Feb 08 06:54:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
32 Feb 08 06:54:33 Notice: 802.11g:Station Forwarding: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b Encryption key type=STATIC WEP
33 Feb 08 06:54:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
34 Feb 08 06:54:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
35 Feb 08 06:54:33 Notice: 802.11g:SSID 1 ::Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
36 Feb 08 06:54:33 Notice: 802.11g:Station Forwarding: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b Encryption key type=STATIC WEP
Jason Scott
Regular Advisor

Re: 420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

Here is an excerpt of the logs from the neighbouring AP to the one shown above:

Feb 08 07:59:18 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
2 Feb 08 07:59:18 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
3 Feb 08 07:57:13 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
4 Feb 08 07:57:13 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
5 Feb 08 07:55:48 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-32-34-de
6 Feb 08 07:55:48 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-32-34-de
7 Feb 08 07:55:12 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
8 Feb 08 07:55:12 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
9 Feb 08 07:53:09 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
10 Feb 08 07:53:09 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
11 Feb 08 07:52:02 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
12 Feb 08 07:52:02 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
13 Feb 08 07:49:54 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
14 Feb 08 07:49:54 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
15 Feb 08 07:47:50 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
16 Feb 08 07:47:50 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
17 Feb 08 07:45:46 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
18 Feb 08 07:45:46 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
19 Feb 08 07:43:41 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
20 Feb 08 07:43:41 Notice: 802.11g:Station Authenticated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
21 Feb 08 07:42:29 Notice: 802.11g:Station Associated: 00-12-f0-64-68-6b
Tony Barrett_2
Frequent Advisor

Re: 420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

Jason

I see exactly the same problem with our 420ap's (with f/w 2.1.2), although we are running with Security Suite 7 (WPA/TKIP/802.1x).

Bursts of client authentication requests show in the AP logs. I was originally told this only happened when the client roamed between AP's, but I don't think this is the case. Happens too often.

Apparently, there is a v2.1.3 of the firmware in 'debug' that you were meant to be able to get hold of from HP Customer Care that fixed the problem, but when I asked, HP claimed it wasn't available! So, maybe it will be released sometime soon, who knows.
Jason Scott
Regular Advisor

Re: 420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

Thanks for your input Tony. I'm getting a bit disheartened with Procurve's updates lately :( We've had a lot of recent problems with switches and RSTP that have seen about 7 updates in the last 2 months. It seems each update brings about more issues.
Matt Hobbs
Honored Contributor

Re: 420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

In this case it looks like just the one client is jumping from one AP to the other. It's possibly due to the cilents 'roaming aggressiveness' which you can set in the intel adapter settings.

As you've already done, make sure the AP's are on non-overlapping channels 1,6 & 11.

The other thing you may want to try is reducing the radio power on the AP's to see if this improves the situation.

It's likely that the clients are in between the 2 AP's, or are getting the same signal strength. The clients keep making the call to jump to the other AP with slightly higher stength.

In the logs I can see duplicate entries which isn't a huge issue, I've noticed this bug before and it can be temporarily resolved by rebooting the AP.
Jason Scott
Regular Advisor

Re: 420wl APs - Clients constantly reassociating

Thanks Matt, I'll give your suggestions a try.