I have had a wireless link running across a road for several years now (rock solid for the most part). Recently, it’s been occasionally disconnecting, seemingly at random. After upgrading to the latest RouterOS version (5.25 from 5.4) it’s become extremely flaky.
On looking at the logs of the two devices, I see
on the “client” side:
@wlan1:lost connection, management-protection failure
On the “AP” side:
wlan1: data from unknown device , sent deauth
This is despite the remote MAC being known at both ends (Access List, Connect list); the link is normally stable at 108Mb/s with a CCQ generally of 100% (occasionally dips a little below this, maybe as low as 96%). Noise Floor is -96bBm; Signal to noise 46 dB; Tx/Rx -48/-50dBm.
It is set up to use nstreme; Polling is enabled, best fit framer policy, 3200 framer limit; CSMA is enabled (unticked).
What’s particularly strange is that this works at all - I would imagine if there were some problem with the management PSK or encryption system, it would refuse to connect at all.
The link is between two RB433, both with one Atheros AR5413; antennae are grid antennae, and the distance is probably about 100m or less.
Once I narrowed the problem down to a management protection issue, I changed the Management Protection from Required to allowed under Security Profile; the link then stayed up for about an hour. I’ll now try with “none” but for obvious reasons, I’d prefer to use this.
The disconnects seem to happen more or less at random. I had a look and there isn’t anything that would obviously get in the way (like an errant tree) and it’s way above car/truck etc. height.
Any ideas?