topic Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express in Access Points - Indoor and Outdoor

Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

bryan_berkowitz — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 21:44:45 GMT

Hi, I've got a ZD1200, 12 R700s, 2 T300s, and an Apple Airport Express. Everything is working nicely. When using airplay from my iPhone 6, The music streams well when I'm near one of the access points. When I'm in an area with limited wifi coverage - ~20db, 20% signal, it still works MOST of the time, but will occasionally glitch. It is very unreliable. Is there anything I can do improve the streaming, other than adding new access points? Looking to get this resolved, as it's been quite troublesome for this site. Thanks!

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

michael_brado — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 21:57:14 GMT

Hi Bryan,

I recommend our 9.12.1.0.140 (or build .158 if you open a support ticket) which is the most up

to date R700 AP firmware, but low wifi coverage can mean interference or distance issues, and

you're likely dropping or re-transmitting some packets. If you stream the music well in other areas

but this one, you may indeed need another AP to help improve client RSSI. Have you reviewed

the channel choice and conditions of the AP in this area? Do you employ background scanning

or channelfly to select optimal channels with controller RRM help? I would try to improve your

client signal strength in order to improve/stabilize your Airport streaming.

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

bryan_berkowitz — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 22:01:53 GMT

Thanks for your quick reply. I am running 9.9.0.0 build 216. Didn't realize there is a newer firmware out. I've looked at the channels and noticed that sometimes it's 2.4ghz and other times it's 5ghz. There are very few other wifi devices on this network. I'm not familiar with background scanning/ channelfly. Do you have any links/ resources? Thanks!

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

michael_brado — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 22:19:24 GMT

Sure, it's in the User Guide. Self-Healing (power and channel adjustments) begins on page 116.

https://support.ruckuswireless.com/documents/842-zonedirector-9-12-1-user-guide

From your ZD's Configure->Services page, Self Healing is the top section. Background Scanning

is the default channel test/selection method, and uses only channels 1/6/11 in 2.4G. If you select

Channelfly, your AP will initially go off channel more frequently to build a table of interference seen

on all 11 of the 2.4G channels, but will eventually select the best choice from 1 to 11. (should provide

~33% better overall throughput) In environments with clients sensitive to channel changes, we advise

to disable channelfly after a few hours to a couple days, when APs have settled on best channels,

leaving them statically assigned to their last channel.

The section below Self-Healing is Background Scanning interval, with a default 20s for APs to look

at the other channels and report in to the ZoneDirector. If using Background Scanning (instead of

Channelfly as your Self-Healing method), the ZD will tell APs to change channels (and/or power)

at regular 600s/10min intervals, if needed.

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

bryan_berkowitz — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 22:51:06 GMT

OK, I upgraded to 9.12.1.0.140. Still experienced the same issues.

I just configured both 2.4ghz and 5ghz to use ChannelFly. I also checked the first checkbox on the services screen, for "Automatically adjust AP radio power to optimize coverage when interference is present." That a good idea?

Will do some testing with this new configuration.

Thanks.

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

michael_brado — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 22:59:07 GMT

Hi Bryan,

Unless very densely deployed, your AP power will probably not be adjusted. I suspect possible

interference. If you save your AP support info file (from Monitor/Access Points, click the first icon

to the right of the target AP), and edit with NotePad/WordPad/NotePad++, look for the Athstats

radio 0 section, to analyze the 2.4G band. There will be a Histogram, showing how many PHY

errors are seen during the rolling 2 minute sample period. For example:

Histogram of PHY errors per second (pcttime in each range)
   0 1-500 ..1K ..2K ..5K ..10K ..20K ..50K .100K more
   1     58   21    11    7      2       1        0       0        0

------------ Airtime Stats ------------
Airtime utilized (percent) since clearing delta stats (1 sec)
   Busy: 35    RX: 8    TX: 6    Total: 49
Histograms of airtime (pcttime in each range) since clearing all stats
          0 0-10 ..20 ..30 ..40 ..50 ..60 ..70 ..80 ..90 ..100
busy: 2    93     4     1     0     0     0     0     0     0     0
rx:     0    86    12     1     1     0     0     0     0     0     0
tx:     0    97     2     1     0     0     0     0     0     0     0
tot:    0    11    76     7     3     2     1     0     0     0     0

You don't want to see more than 2K PHY errors per second. This example says 7% of packets

had 5K PHY errors, 2% had 10K PHY errors, 1% had 20K PHY errors, indicating a spike is seen

sometimes. Overall, this AP shows 91% of packets are at or below 2K PHY errors seen, so fairly

low interference and relatively good 2.4G environment.

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

bryan_berkowitz — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 23:16:47 GMT

Here's what I've got on the AP in question:

------------ PHY Error Stats ------------815489 PHY errors since clearing all stats (rx_phyerr)
710274 phy ofdm group
105215 phy cck group
0 PHY errors since clearing delta stats (1 sec)
Histogram of PHY errors per second (pcttime in each range)
0 1-500 ..1K ..2K ..5K ..10K ..20K ..50K .100K more
9 85 3 1 1 1 0 0 0 0

------------ Airtime Stats ------------
Airtime utilized (percent) since clearing delta stats (1 sec)
Busy: 0 RX: 12 TX: 2 Total: 14
Histograms of airtime (pcttime in each range) since clearing all stats
0 0-10 ..20 ..30 ..40 ..50 ..60 ..70 ..80 ..90 ..100
busy: 91 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
rx: 6 85 5 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
tx: 0 96 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
tot: 0 84 9 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0

how do I clear the stats? would like to do a clean test.

We are going to relocate one of the outdoor APs closer to the area with poor coverage.

Currently in this area, the iphone will connect to either that outdoor AP, or the closest indoor AP.... both with weak signal. Hoping that by relocating it, it will be strong enough to connect. Is that a sound assumption?

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

michael_brado — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 23:24:06 GMT

Yes, that sounds like a logical next step.

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

bryan_berkowitz — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 23:26:20 GMT

What is a reasonable signal strength that I should expect airplay streaming to work with? And sometimes, signal strength shows up as N/A. What's the best metric to go by, the Signal (%), or AP Rx Signal (dB), AP Tx Data Rate?

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

bryan_berkowitz — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 20:51:46 GMT

OK, we've relocated the T300 closer to the area that needs it the most and are now getting good streaming audio. Except for the case where we hold the phone close to our body, with our back towards the T300 (blocking it). I guess that's an extreme edge case though, probably nothing we can do about that right?

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

michael_brado — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 21:06:45 GMT

True, your body does shield signal somewhat. Early phones/tablets could even suffer Wifi connectivity

if users' hands covered antennas. Things are much improved in client devices today though.

Did you know... The FAA uses sacks of potatoes to simulate humans in plane seats in their WiFi tests?

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

bryan_berkowitz — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 21:29:27 GMT

Not that I doubted you but I had to verify.... http://www.geekwire.com/2012/boeing-inflight-wifi-breakthrough-plane-full-potatoes/

LOL.

Back to business - Are there any issues with painting the T300 to better match its surroundings? Do you have any paint type recommendations?

Thanks!

Re: Airplay Troubles! ZD1200, R700s, T300s, Apple Airport Express

michael_brado — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 22:54:58 GMT

Sorry, painting your AP will void it's warranty. Here's a link to our Warranty FAQ: http://c541678.r78.cf2.rackcdn.com/su...