hide-ssid works weirdly

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Got two MikroTiks. Set up an AP on one with hide-ssid. Set up a station-bridge on the other, with that SSID in the connect list.

The second one CANNOT find the first one… until I make the SSID on the AP visible. Then the station finds it immediately.

If I now hide the SSID on the AP again, the station still finds it again with no trouble. This persists until the station is rebooted, then we’re back to square one – it can’t find the AP.

Adding the MAC address to the connect list doesn’t change anything.

Is this the way hidden SSID is supposed to work? Because it’s not very useful this way. :frowning:

2

I think I found the secret, although I have no idea whether it is a bug or expected operation.

You can reliably connect with a hidden SSID if you specify the SSID directly in the main /interface wireless configuration. If you instead use the connect list to contain the SSIDs, and leave the /interface wireless configuration SSID field blank, you get the previously described non-useful behavior.