Setup is
uplink router to internet
wAP ac ethernet connected. WLAN1 for clients, WLAN2 for clients and bridge to hAP ac2
hAP ac2: WLAN2 connected to wAP ac (AP bridge - station bridge), WLAN1 for clients
This all works very well. hAP ac2 upgraded to ROS 7.0beta5 for use of User Manager as RADIUS server for wAP ac virtual WLAN3 (WLAN1 based) with EAP. This works great, except for the Wndows clients (known problem)
On wAP ac there is also WLAN4 (WLAN1 based) with RADIUS to a Synology NAS RADIUS server. Works great.
After downgrading hAP ac2 (no progress in ROS 7.0beta for a long time) and disabling WLAN3 and WLAN4 , and disabling the RADIUS settings in the wAP ac, we are back to the normal stable and LT releases, and everything is expected to work as before the RADIUS tests.
However all wifi connnections to WLAN1 on the wAP ac fail. And the wAP ac cannot be connected via the ethernet link.
Luckily the connection via the hAP ac2 still responds.
The problem is frustrating, as nothing in this setup is special or gave any problems before. Reboot, upgrade, downgrade, etc etc nothing helps. The log is not very helpfull in pointing to any cause. DIsconnecting stations, with remark station leaving is what we see from time to time, and we normally have no clue. But this one is persistent and immediate.
Then a bit of intuition. Removed the disabled WLAN3 and WLAN4 , and everything becomes OK! How come ??? It was disabled, and actually only the RADIUS server on hAP ac2 was missing., but not used. The RADIUS definition was disabled as well. WLAN1 is PSK, not EAP. The wAP ac release was not changed.
ANd you know these mystery problems. Restored the WLAN3 and WLAN4 with the “back” key in WinBOX. The problem does not reappear with the current connection. However new ones DO fail. At least this is repeatable!
Actually it is WLAN5 and WLAN6 that were removed.
This is a test setup for many things (nv2, WDS, …) don’t be confused by the settings on 5GHz. export.rsc (7.66 KB)
More complexity. After removing WLAN 3,4,5,6 and removing RADIU settings, I tought to be safe to use this setup without hickups.
It worked for a while.
It did not last. After a while it stopted again receiving wifi associations on WLAN1 and connections via ether1.
Reboot does not help. Nothing else in the log.
Now did a “power off/power on” cycle. Back in via WLAN1. LT release 6.45.8 .
(Forgot to check memory usage before cycling)
After 18 hours … wAP ac on 6.45.8 and hAP ac2 on 6.46.5
Everything in 2.4 GHZ
Still connected on wAP ac
hAP ac2 SSID beacon is gone. Cannot connect.
Tablet still has hAP ac2 in its known list. Can connect. SSID hAP ac2 and then it is visible again on PC. Connected.
Now back to wAP ac with the PC … problem is back. No association possible.Repeated attempts but disassociates as previous log.
Mem and CPU OK. (34MB free, 3% load)
Disabled and enabled WLAN1 … association OK on wAp ac but “no Internet”. No access via WinBOX (IP and MAC)
After a while … (minutes?) there is Internet. !? (Done lots of diagnostics on PC in the mean time. But after a long wait it seems always to work.) Connection with WinBOX now OK.
Sorry. Finally this was a misconfig.
All versions of RouterOS behaved the same.
Only the wAP was behaving erratic. hAP ac2 was fine
Mystery was that after some time (5 minutes) or after a DHCP renewal it all worked. Very strange.
But then looking at details (Winbox) I overlooked the bridge port for WLAN1 setting. Learning was set to “no”. Don’t remember ever doing that , but it was there.
“add bridge=bridge comment=defconf interface=wlan1 learn=no”
Still don’t understand what happened to that hAP ac2 SSID disappearing.
Edit: To be clear, setting the “bridge port” learn mode to “auto” solved everything. That was the modification I made last year, and hit me with mysterious disconnects a year later (I had not seen it all that time, because I had been using other virtual WLAN interfaces testing and using the new RADIUS/User Manager login.)
, last year …