Apple Connection issues with Ruckus Cloud

[chris_ashmore_a]

Over the last few months I have noticed that Apple devices have connectivity issues with Ruckus Cloud APs. Macbooks, AppleTVs, iPhones, the whole gambit. I am seeing it at different physical locations too, so this leads me to believe it is not location specific. I also do not see this with Unleashed or ZoneDirector networks. Client events often show that they were "disconnected due to lack of activity," however I have personally watched a user get disconnected while streaming from multiple sources. I am also noticing errors related to handshake, dhcp, or 802.11 authentication. I'm not sure how much I trust this information though. Has anyone had this issue and/or have solved it? So far Ruckus Support has said there is nothing wrong with my configuration......

[DarrelRhodes]

Hi Chris,

I've just had a look at a network with 60+ devices, a mix of Android (Google), Microsoft, Apple and non-standard devices and I noticed that static devices didn't have any connection failures but all the mobile ones (regardless of type) did.  This is usually caused by the device roaming out of signal range before the connection has had time to complete. Do you see difference in behaviour from an iMac to an iPhone?

By centralised services, I was suggesting DHCP, DNS, RADIUS, VPN, etc. anything that is common to all your locations besides the Wi-Fi controller platform.

Have you tried a limited test to try clients on 2.4GHz and/or 5GHz only? Just to help rule out issues with DFS or other RF anomolies.

Thanks,
Darrel.

[chris_ashmore_a]

Hi Darrel. I appreciate your help on this. I assumed for mobile devices that this was the case, but I see the same pattern on macbooks and appletvs.

Right. I've gone through all of those and nothing seems to be an issue. Well there was a dhcp issue which was fixed a few weeks ago, but the connectivity problem is still present.

Actually, I just disabled 2.4GHz on a few APs where we get the most complaints to see if that helps. Hopefully I see some improvement. What I'm noticing is that macs tend to bounce between 2.4 and 5GHz and they may be running into interference on 2.4 thus dropping their connection.

[DarrelRhodes]

Hi Chris,

What you've done sounds like a good plan! 🙂

Glad to be of (a little) help. I'm not a support guy, but have a fair bit of experience and I use a lot of Apple devices.

Keep us posted on how you get on.

Best,
Darrel.

[daniel_kerr_cr7]

Did this coincide with your account being migrated to the new converged Ruckus Cloud release? We've noticed some issues with iOS devices not reconnecting after sleep which seem to match that timing.

[chris_ashmore_a]

Well, in my case I believe it is mainly an interference issue. When macs try to "optimize" their signal, it seems they bounce around between 2.4g and 5g, and then encounter interference. We ended up just plugging important devices into ports and reducing the tx power on 3 APs in the area where these macs are typically used.

@Daniel This was prior to that. But that is not good news because we are now on the new cloud release.