ZD1200+R710: Apple products unusable with "Force DHCP" option

Question

We have ZD1200 9.13.3.0b41 and 5xR710.
Recently the "Force DHCP" option was turned on with value 20 seconds and immediately Wi-Fi on all Apple products became not stable.

From ZD log I can see that these clients are getting "Receive Force DHCP DROP" every 5-10 seconds. How can the system force the AP to drop every 5 to 10 seconds if the configuration is set to wait 20 seconds for the station to do DHCP?

michael_brado · Answer

Hi Donald,

Please contact Tech Support to report this possible anomaly.  If you have configured 20 sec
ForceDHCP, you should not see clients getting 5-10 sec "drops", regardless of whatever else
Apple devices may do.   https://support.ruckuswireless.com/contact-us   Thanks!

unknown · Answer

Indeed this behavior is not expected based on the documentation.

It is a bug in my opinion, either in the documentation or the functionality.

I would prefer to force clients to use DHCP as well. It seems as-is the feature only works if using several subnets under one SSID.

I hope this thread may provide helpful for everyone else fighting with this unexpected behavior.

unknown · Answer

Donald,

I saw a similar issue and raised a topic here about a month ago.

I was advised that the "Force DHCP Option" should only be used when roaming across subnets- although that wasn't the way I read the documentation either.

I was using 10.0.0.0.1424 GA (the latest release) and saw similar problems as devices (particularly Apple) moved from AP to AP.

Things were pretty stable and worked "as expected" until a roaming event occurred.

I've left it turned off, but would prefer to have it enabled. To me it makes sense to prevent statically addressed clients connecting.

Hope that helps a bit.

Kind Regards,

Andy