WiFi Keeps Dropping Connections (R750 WAPs)

[SomeGuy543]

So I'm pretty new to this all, but to give some background, we've been using Ruckus Wifi access points for our local office network. As a stopgap until we received our Cisco networking equipment, we just used a regular home router, and the setup worked fairly well.

When we migrated to the Cisco network and configured the wireless system to work with it recently, I started noticing some problems. This also coincides with a period of rapid significant growth in users at the office, but I'm having trouble telling if it's due to that or maybe something on our Cisco network that's dropping the connections. At first we only had two APs for our office (which was fine on the old network for many months) and I noticed recently by looking at the data that a few of the connections were listed as "poor", so I added two more APs in to the mix. Now I don't see as many poor connections but I still notice pretty much every device seems to lose its connection to the Wifi network for a little at some point (after which it may reconnect if set to automatically reconnect, but this presents problems of course, especially with video calls). The actual signal strength of the network is good though, pretty much always full bars appearing on each device, and the connection itself, once it's on, is good. It just seems to randomly drop it fairly often.

I've tried taking a look at Logs under Diagnostics on our Unleashed dashboard, but they don't seem to indicate much. I also then went to the Client Troubleshooting section and tried to do a test with the MAC address of a certain computer's Wifi NIC but again it wasn't very helpful in terms of elucidating what's going on with the dropped connections. When the connection actually happens successfully, everything seems to check out on there, otherwise there isn't info on it. When I try to download the log, I get a .tac file that I can't do much with. Any advice on better troubleshooting with these logs?

Here's some information:

- mesh network is enabled

- both 5 GHz and 2.4 Ghz networks are enabled, but they are combined and set to auto

- radio is mostly 802.11ax but some are ac or n, and most have excellent or moderate signal strength

- *something to note is that all of the WAPs have a warning saying "Not enough electricity power is provided to this AP, its capabilities are degraded". But this has always been the case even from the start when we didn't have this problem with dropping connections. The Cisco switches that they are connected to are PoE and in one case we even added a separate PoE injector, but the warning is still there. Could this be part of the problem?

- we have over 35 users here but four APs in a medium sized office should handle that, I believe

- DHCP and all of that is not done on the Ruckus network but handled by the Cisco equipment it is connected to (switches, firewall, etc.)

- we do plan on eventually getting actual Cisco wireless equipment, but until then we want to get this stabilized

- I am considering doing a firmware update later today maybe

From the info I've given here (I can provide more if necessary), would you say I need to be looking at the Ruckus network itself or rather the Cisco network and security equipment behind it rather? Any tips to optimize our Ruckus wifi experience on the dashboard?

Thank you, and any advice is much appreciated.

[Vineet_nejwala]

@SomeGuy543 

After changing the channel setting lets enable "RF Management, 802.11, System Management and
Access points'  and debug log per Client MAC (adding client MAC). Once you see issue with this client the AP support log and debug should work.

Best Regards

Vineet

[SomeGuy543]

Hm, so oddly enough it seems to have stabilized over the last half day. I haven't noticed any dropping now. I think it is possibly because one of the four APs in our network had an unspecified gateway of 0.0.0.0 instead of the actual one. And because the network was set to mesh, if there is one AP with a bad config, the whole network is affected. After fixing that, there doesn't seem to be dropping. I may be speaking too soon however, so I will let you know if it persists and if that was maybe just a weird coincidence. Because I thought we started experiencing these symptoms before that AP was added into the mix, though I could be wrong...

Thanks for the help so far!

[Vineet_nejwala]

@SomeGuy543 

Sure, if problem persist we would help further.

Best Regards

Vineet

[SomeGuy543]

So it's been functioning much better over the last week, with minimal dropping. I did remove all but the 1, 6, and 11 channels for 2.4, although I've noticed the vast majority of clients use the 5G anyway. I also administratively enabled PoE+ on the APs via the Cisco switch, so the warning is gone now.

Just out of curiosity and for my knowledge, what exactly is meant by 'auto' for the various settings, like Tx power, channel, etc? I assume this means it just detects and chooses whatever is optimal... so ideally they should be left alone? Or do you recommend manually setting some? For example I was reading about the benefits of lowering transmit power from APs as it can cause interference, drain power and battery for mobile devices, cause distortion, affect proper roaming, and doesn't really increase coverage much. Do you recommend doing this, or just leaving it as is?

Thanks!

[Vineet_nejwala]

First of all that sounds great that the network has been stable. For "auto" as the name suggest it will adjust the APs TX power and channel according to the neighbour AP and chose best availability. I would suggest to let it as since this is working great for you.

Best Regards

Vineet