EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot

EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot

EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot
EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot
2024-07-23 23:00:21 - last edited 2024-07-25 03:11:48
Tags: #Network Connectivity #Kicking Clients
Model: EAP245  
Hardware Version: V1
Firmware Version: 1.4.0 Build 20180323 Rel. 32551(4555)

Hi, I'm getting a strange issue where my EAP245v1 (On firmware 1.4.0 Build 20180323 Rel. 32551(4555)) is suddently kicking most clients out and I need to reboot the device for normal operation. It does not seem to kick all clients, and its does not seem to be predictable as far as I can see.

I believe this is the latest firmware for the EAP245v1, no VLANs are in use, signal strength is good for nearly all clients.

 

Here is a screenshot of the issue, clients are missing from the SSIDs, the "WuTangLAN" is the busiest:

 

Another failure event from a separate failure:

 

And here is after a reboot, everything operates normally:

 

 

I have tried diabling everything I can find (QoS, energy saving, entire SSIDs, etc), resetting the EAP245v1 back to defaults, and starting over...

 

Still seems to happen after some time, could be a few hours, could be 30 minutes...

 

Any help would be appreciated, I'm pretty suck what to do.

 

 

 

EDIT:

I've factory reset again, and left everything else untouched except for this:

- Set Username/Password as required.

- Deleted all example SSIDs.

- Configured 2x 2.4GHz SSIDs.

- Configured NTP to point at my local router, and Daylight savings.

 

I was going to see if this continues with this basic setup, but as I went to check, I see it happened again within a few minutes.

 

Screenshot, "WuTangLAN" had 31 clients connected and now:

 

EDIT2:

I've noticed that the 2 clients still connected are 2 Samsung Galaxy Phones that I have connected.

I used both of them to try and connect to "WuTangLAN" and both get a "Connection failed" but can easily connect back to the other SSID without any issue.

Rebooting the AP fixes the issue, and all clients are able to connect again, but it seems they are always being refused a while later.

So it seems that at some point the EAP245v1 decides that this SSID refuses all clients, but not the first SSID.

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#1
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4 Reply
Re:EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot
2024-07-24 07:27:58

  @KptnKMan 

For 2.4 and 5G, how about you just make one SSID each? Does this problem occur lately?By what means is it powered? The original power adapter—do you use it? Kindly check that there is sufficient power available.Change the Ethernet wires that were used to connect it to the internet is another choice you have. Additionally, consider adjusting certain wireless configurations to enhance the network performance as there could be channel issues causing the clients to disconnect.

How to optimize wireless performance of EAP products

 

Best Regards! >> Omada EAP Firmware Trial Available Here << >> Get the Latest Omada SDN Controller Releases Here << *Try filtering posts on each forum by Label of [Early Access]*
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Re:EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot
2024-07-24 14:52:37

  @Hank21 Hi, I think I made some progress late lasy night, but to answer each of your questions.

For 2.4 and 5G, how about you just make one SSID each?

I tested a lot and it certainly seems to be this particular SSID, as other don't seem to kick clients at all. It's just that most clients in my home use this SSID on 2.4GHz.

I use both, but this one is dedicated for IoT devices and some other things.

 

Does this problem occur lately?

It has not occured in my memory, I recently reverted to using this EAP245v1 as the primary AP, wheras before it was part of an Omada cluster using the same SSIDs and authentication.

 

By what means is it powered? The original power adapter—do you use it? Kindly check that there is sufficient power available.

Using the official power adaptor supplied with the AP, no problems I could see with the adaptor. It's not getting hot either or anything strange.

Additionally, the unit is on a APC unit, and the power is measured as abundant and stable.

 

Change the Ethernet wires that were used to connect it to the internet is another choice you have.

I did change out the ethernet cables, and used a different port on the switch, one of the first things I did. Issue persisted.

 

Additionally, consider adjusting certain wireless configurations to enhance the network performance as there could be channel issues causing the clients to disconnect.

I haven't set a static channel but I have done a lot of other config variations, in small changes to test if there is something meaningful.

 

Now I will talk about my findings as of late last night/this morning's testing.

I think I found something interesting, and I have successfully replicated it multiple times to confirm.

 

So, as I indicated before, I reduced the SSIDs down to 2x 2.4GHz SSID configurations, and I commenced with modifying the troublesome one "WuTangLAN" to see if I can find something interesting.

 

To summarise, I noticed through testing that by using Security Mode WPA-PSK (WEP is not considered, and WPA-Enterprise is too much trouble for this particular) is mandatory for all this testing. Now, the Version and Encryption is where things get interesting.

Setting Version to WPA-PSK works fine, and I know many IoT devices will struggle with WPA2-PSK, so it's WPA-PSK for 2.4GHz. It is what it is.

Setting Encryption to TKIP is where this seems to exibit the same behaviour, the clients connect, and after some time the AP kicks everyone from the SSID (Other SSIDs keep clients), now unfortunately TKIP is probably the widest supported but I don't like to use it, still it's an option as of now.

Setting Encryption to AES, however, has proven more stable, and does not seem to be kicking clients YET. It's been up for a few hours without kicking anyone, but I suspect not all clients are connected so some are missing (Which I will need to investigate which are having issues, if any). The devices I don't see in particular without diving deeper are a few kWh meters that are very recent from 2022 and should be fine, but I need to investigate further. It may just be that they are in an error state from being fed up being kicked and need to be cycled of forced, remains to be seen.

 

I think that the Version/Encryption "Auto" setting uses TKIP more often, but I cannot see anywhere to prove this exactly, apart from the resulting number of clients seems lower than expected. In my opinion, MAYBE one of the clients is doing something unexpected and the AP kicks EVERYONE from the entire SSID and refuses any more connections? Seems like weird behaviour. The resource usage is low, CPU is consistently 8-13%, the memory is always around 49-51%, doesn't seem to be under strain for 30-35 mostly low traffic clients.

 

This definitely seems like a software bug to me.

I'm not sure if time would be put into investigating this, and I doubt they would do that for such an old model anyway.

 

For the record, I added back both the 5GHz SSIDs.

All 5GHz SSIDs are left Security Mode WPA-PSK, Version "Auto", Encryption "Auto".

The 5GHz SSIDs do not seems to exibit any issues kicking clients, from the beginning of all of this.

 

This is the current situation since this morning:

 

This is the configuration that doesn't work, clients get kicked:

 

This also doesn't work, same behaviour as before clients get kicked:

 

This seems to work (for now) but I think not all clients are conencting:

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Re:EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot
2024-07-25 01:27:02 - last edited 2024-07-25 03:11:48

  @KptnKMan 

I previously forgot to mention that I suspected this might have anything to do with the encryption. I'm happy to hear that your test yielded valuable results. But as you pointed out, this is a really outdated model that was introduced roughly eight years ago and has now reached its end of life. It could be that some hardware is malfunctioning. I advise you to use a more recent hardware version in order to maintain a steady connection.

Best Regards! >> Omada EAP Firmware Trial Available Here << >> Get the Latest Omada SDN Controller Releases Here << *Try filtering posts on each forum by Label of [Early Access]*
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Re:EAP245v1 loses clients regularly, from 31+ to 8 and requires reboot
2024-07-25 03:11:21

  @Hank21 I can't believe you've marked a solution.

This issue is not resolved, the AP is still kicking clients.

I have previously stated that the hardware is working and was just part of an Omada cluster but is now standalone.

 

I am still investigating this issue with this AP, but THIS IS NOT RESOLVED.

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#5
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