Apple Device Roaming

[jeremy_west_564]

I am having a problem with frequent disconnects on apple devices when signal strength is great. In looking into this further, I noticed that the apple devices in question are roaming at an alarming rate. This is happening across iPad, iPod, and MacBook platforms. For example, I looked at an apartment with an iPod touch that was roaming every 30 seconds or so. There is a Win7 laptop in the same apartment that has not roamed one time. I have about 40 Apple devices on the network and similar behavior is happening on 70% of them. I have about 40 other devices on the network and this is not happening with any of them that I have looked at so far. What is more, the Apple devices are roaming out from a nearby AP to an AP several hundred feet away with a few buildings between them. The user is not leaving the apartment but the device is roaming to APs throughout the campus, even APs it either should not see at all, or just barely.

Any ideas? Has anyone seen anything like this before?

[santosh_bittu]

Hello Jeremy,

With reference to your post, roaming is always a client decision and never an AP's, do you have channelfly enabled on the ZD? What is the version of firmware on the ZD?
Also are the devices roaming on the 2.4 GHz spectrum of frequency or on the 5 GHz, there might be interference being experienced by the AP that us causing the devices to roam .
Also kindly enable 802.11d under the Advanced Option of the WLAN that these devices are connecting to, we have seen that Apple devices sometimes default to the lowest available speeds when this feature is not enabled.

Also I would recommend you contact Ruckus Support for further investigation of this issue as the support info file of an AP gives valuable information regarding client statistics.

Hope this helps.All the best.

[greg_gilbert]

I had a similar issue with apple devices recently, and here is what was going on. the apple devices typically use a 5GHz radio, and if the channelization is set to Auto, then they can't make up their minds. fix the channelization to 20MHz (I would do it for both 2.4 & 5GHz radios) and the problem should go away.

[santosh_bittu]

Valuable input Greg.. 🙂

[spikes_it]

I've had the same problem. This appears to affect OSX 10.7 and later. I have one system still running OSX 10.6 that stays connected (probably not a 5G connection). I can replicate the problem quickly by spinning up an HD Skype call or Google Hangout with another client and within minutes the Macbook disconnects from the wireless network (even though it's still available).

I've been working with Ruckus support for over well a month now on this issue with no resolution...we've gone through all the settings, dropped the environment down to a single AP, RMA'd the APs, spun up a new SSID, set the channels statically, etc... My Apple devices still disconnect and don't reconnect!. Even though the SSID remains available, the Macbooks don't rejoin the network without manual intervention (simply selecting the SSID to join will _immediately_ reconnect the Macbook to the network).

I was hopeful that Greg's recommendation above (set static to 20 MHz) would be the magic bullet but I can still see and replicate the issue.

Any other suggestions out there?