iPhones dropping wifi (CAPsMAN)

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi,

Everything used to work fine on the following devices: RB2011UAS-2HnD and RB951G-2HnD. Then I made 3 things:

  1. changed main router/gateway from RB411AR to RB433 and not all the settings are the same (DHCP, pool, etc.)
  2. changed firmware from 6.35.2 to 6.36 on all devices,
  3. configured CAPsMAN on RB433 to manage wireless connections from one place.

Now I have 2 issues:

  1. my 3 iPhones and other iPads started to loose wifi when locked and not used for some time, which is quite annoying,
  2. when connected via winbox with RB433 it drops connection too when not touched for a while; sometimes it disconnects even, when used at the moment.

Is there anything I can do to improve both issues?

Cheers,
matt

2

Have you tried turning off “TKIP” on the wireless “Secruity Profiles”?

3

I never use TKIP mate. There is only WPA2 AES. Nothing else is set up.

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4

Do you have an error message on the log?

5

No errors, just infos like these below:

Aug/22/2016/20:32:53 memory caps,info AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF@cap3 disconnected, received dissasoc: sending station leaving (8)
Aug/22/2016/20:41:50 memory dhcp,info DHCP-server deassigned 192.168.83.15 from AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
Aug/22/2016/20:42:01 memory caps,info AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF@cap3 connected
Aug/22/2016/20:42:02 memory dhcp,info DHCP-server assigned 192.168.83.15 to AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

That’s all. It keeps repeating of course.

6

Well, the disconnect from Lock screen is due to iThings, not Mikrotik.
iThings power down their WiFi radios to conserve power when the screen is locked.
We have similar problems with iStuff users on our guest WiFi here at my work where we use Aruba + Captive portal.
Apple users complain about having to enter their credentials over and over. It’s just because the devices actually leave the network on purpose.


As for getting disconnected from Winbox, it sounds like you’re using the MAC connection - which is often flaky like that whenever you have actual IP addresses on your device and on the Mikrotik you’re talking to. If this is the case - start using the IP address and not the MAC address to connect to your ROS gear from Winbox.



p.s. - I’m an iThings user myself, so I’m not some Android guy saying “apple suxx”

7

I would agree with this what you posted, if it happened before, but it didn’t. I will keep looking then.
As it comes to winbox, I am using IP connection. What is strange, I haven’t got disconnected for single time since I put the first post in this topic… That is magic… :slight_smile:

8

Your posted log segment starts with “received disassoc” - meaning the client waved goodbye.
Perhaps an Apple Update came along which changed your phones’ behavior at a similar time to your ROS update?

My iPhone4 started behaving VERY badly with my car’s bluetooth after an update - a new phone on the same version magically had no trouble. Same car. Same bluetooth…
Sometimes, I just shrug my shoulders when it comes to Apple.

9

I thought about it, but I made an update quite long time ago. Besides, I have 4 completely different iDevices (iPhones 5S and 6S and iPads 1 and Mini) which behave the same way… Must be something else. I am thinking about getting back to v6.35.2. I don’t want to turn CAPsMAN off as it is really comfortable to use.

10

Before you make that assertion, try those iDevices with an iAccessPoint :wink:

I’ve spent longer than I care to remember investigating this kind of thing (my “real” business involves delivering real-time push events to mobile devices, and those stop arriving when the device drops WiFi when sleeping..).

What I have found, after purchasing and testing with some Apple AP’s, is that they do not disconnect from Apple WiFi access points.

So there is some secret sauce there.

11

Oh yeah, I’m completely certain that Apple has some “secret sauce” in their kitchen.

And I will say that my experience with Apple stuff + Mikrotik WAPs has been less than stellar. Apple devices seem to be pretty hard to please with them for some reason. I’ve seen this issue come up on the threads from time to time over the years, and I don’t recall ever seeing anything definitive as a solution. My iPhone 4s was not super zippy with my 2011’s AP, for instance. However, I think that device is just a single chain 802.11n so it’s somewhat to be expected. My 5c and iPhone 6 both perform quite well - or at least well enough for me. I don’t do any “on-net” stuff like stream from a plex server in my entertainment center or anything like that. I’m able to reach my Comcast connection’s top speed when I run speed tests now, and that’s good enough for me…

But I do agree that Apple seems to be a bit problematic with some wireless vendors. Mikrotik is one, and Aruba is another.
One thing, though, is that the Aruba stuff works great on the wpa2-enterprise wlan. The open wlan with captive portal is VERY bad for Apple users, though, and it’s definitely because the iThings are so dadgum narcoleptic.

12

What’s your DHCP lease time? Maybe it’s too low? If I recall correctly iOS doesn’t like very low DHCP lease times.

You could raise the “Group Key Update” of your Security Profile to something like 1h. This should only be relevant to WPA2-EAP (as far as I know), but might be worth a try.

13

I haven't changed anything in lease time for ages. It is set up to 00:10:00.

As it comes to "Group Key Update" I can't see anything like that at CAPsMAN... When APs were working separately it was set up to 00:05:00.


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14

10min is probably too short. Try 2h or higher. iOS does some aggressive optimizations for wifi and I guess the downside is that it doesn’t renew its DHCP lease in time. You could also set the DHCP server to “authoriative” (if it’s the only DHCP server on your network) which makes DHCP faster.

15

I set it up to 2 hrs. Will see if there’s any difference after I come back home.

This is the only DHCP server I have.

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16

Till v.6.35 if i recall correctly, i had similar issues without using capsman (which i recently discover and playing around) and
combination of iDevices in power saving mode (or locked screen mode).

I remember that i tweaked the parameters on the physical interface like multicast helper and wmm support.
The latter is not included on capsman, if i recall correctly.

17

Hi, when can we expect this to be resolved?

I have the same issue, everytime my iphone connects to wifi, wifi stops working for this period.

18

I don’t know what was the problem, but after upgrading MT to the latest OS and iPhone to iOS 10 all problems are gone.


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19

If iphone has cellular data and wifi enabled, even then it using cellular data for push notifications (with lock screen enabled). In this state, I can’t see any connections from iphone on the router. I think this behavior causes issues with captive portal. You can check it by disable cellular data and look if iphone will be disconecting from network or not.

To prevent disconnecting from my wifi network, I changed dhcp lease time and arp timeout on mikrotik, and extend inactivity timeout on my cisco aironet access point.
After that iphone stays connected to my wifi for long hours. But notice that, it still uses cellular data for notifications. I think even that it is connected to wifi network, the problem with captive portals will be occurrs.
Captive portal can’t see any connections, maybe can’t see arp from device, and it think that the device was disconnect from network.

Sorry for my english.

Regards

20

Hi Jan,
I have no cellular signal at home. At all.
Anyway, problem is gone.


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