Multi SSID with iOS 16 not supported?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi everyone,
i have 3 Audience running in my house. One on each floor. I have 3 SSIDs with different VLANs to organize my network and devices. This setup runs great for at least a year. After upgrading our iPhones and iPads to Version 16 they won’t connect to any channel that is shared with other SSIDs. I put them into an another Wifi that uses a 5GHz channel exclusively and that works but the apple devices will disconnect/reconnect randomly. Maybe they would switch to 2.4GHz in that case and can’t connect because 2.4GHz is shared between all SSIDs.

Here is my configuration:

/interface bridge
add ingress-filtering=no name=bridgeLocal vlan-filtering=yes
/interface list
add name=WAN
add name=LAN
/interface wifiwave2 channel
add band=2ghz-n frequency=2412 name="CH 1" width=20mhz
add band=2ghz-n frequency=2437 name="CH 6" width=20mhz
add band=2ghz-n frequency=2462 name="CH 11" width=20mhz
add band=5ghz-ac frequency=5500 name="CH 100"
add band=5ghz-ac frequency=5580 name="CH 116"
add band=5ghz-ac frequency=5180 name="CH 36"
add band=5ghz-ac frequency=5260 name="CH 52"
/interface wifiwave2 security
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk name=Private-WPA passphrase=*****
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk name=Guest-WPA passphrase=*****
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk name=Public-WPA passphrase=*****
/interface wifiwave2 configuration
add name=Private security=Private-WPA ssid=WL_PRIV
add name=Public security=Public-WPA ssid=WL_PUB
add name=Guest security=Guest-WPA ssid=WL_GUEST
/interface wifiwave2
set [ find default-name=wifi1 ] channel="CH 1" configuration=Private configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2.4GHz Private" disable-running-check=yes
set [ find default-name=wifi3 ] channel="CH 100" configuration=Private configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="5.5GHz Private" disable-running-check=yes
set [ find default-name=wifi2 ] channel="CH 36" configuration=Public configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="5GHz Public" disable-running-check=yes
add configuration=Public configuration.mode=ap disabled=no master-interface="2.4GHz Private" name="2.4GHz Public" disable-running-check=yes
add configuration=Guest configuration.mode=ap disabled=no master-interface="2.4GHz Private" name="2.4GHz Guest" disable-running-check=yes
add configuration=Guest configuration.mode=ap disabled=no master-interface="5GHz Public" name="5GHz Guest" disable-running-check=yes
/user group
set full policy="local,telnet,ssh,ftp,reboot,read,write,policy,test,winbox,pas\
    sword,web,sniff,sensitive,api,romon,dude,rest-api"
/interface bridge port
add bridge=bridgeLocal ingress-filtering=no interface=ether1
add bridge=bridgeLocal ingress-filtering=no interface=ether2
add bridge=bridgeLocal interface="2.4GHz Guest" pvid=99
add bridge=bridgeLocal interface="5GHz Guest" pvid=99
add bridge=bridgeLocal interface="2.4GHz Private" pvid=1030
add bridge=bridgeLocal interface="5.5GHz Private" pvid=1030
add bridge=bridgeLocal interface="2.4GHz Public" pvid=1020
add bridge=bridgeLocal interface="5GHz Public" pvid=1020
/interface bridge vlan
add bridge=bridgeLocal tagged=bridgeLocal,ether1 vlan-ids=1030
add bridge=bridgeLocal tagged=bridgeLocal,ether1 vlan-ids=1020
add bridge=bridgeLocal tagged=bridgeLocal,ether1 vlan-ids=99
/interface list member
add interface=ether1 list=LAN
add interface=ether2 list=LAN
/ipv6 settings
set disable-ipv6=yes
/ip dhcp-client
add interface=bridgeLocal
/system clock
set time-zone-name=Europe/Berlin
/system identity
set name="Audience-DG"
/system leds settings
set all-leds-off=immediate
/system routerboard settings
set auto-upgrade=yes

The apple devices were in WL_PUB and are now in WL_PRIV.

Any ideas what I can try?

Thank you!

2

One more thing: Our MacBooks have no problems with any wireless network

3

Try to disable wifi private addresses on that Apple device temporary to test if that helps:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211227

4

Do the VAPs have the same Mac address as the main?

5

Don’t connect, meaning there is a connection attempt that fails? In that case, what does the wireless debug log say in the router? Or they don’t even see the SSID?

6

Disabling private addresses on iPhone or iPad don’t change anything.


The Mac addresses of the VAPs are identical to those of the masters.


Yes, the devices show all SSIDs of the three networks. If I want to connect to a network other than “WL_PRIV”, it tries to establish a connection. The attempt fails with message “Connecting failed” (german version).

I have tried to activate the wireless debug log, but I still only see messages with the topic “wireless, info”. Do I need to take other steps to enable debug logging with wifiwave2?

However, when I change the network from “WL_PRIV” to “WL_PUB” on an iPhone, I see in the log that the device disconnects from “5.5GHz Private” but I don’t see a new connection attempt to “5GHz Public”.

Immediately after the update to iOS 16, I got a message a few times that no connection can be established because the channel is shared between several networks. Unfortunately, I can no longer generate this message in the same way.

7

In this case, in your mikrotik router, add Logging rule like this. Then see in Log section, what is written, when you try to make the connection
Screenshot 2022-12-06 at 15.31.55.png

8

That’s exactly what I’ve done. But this is all I got in the log:

14:57:39 wireless,info 66:BB:A3:96:94:08@5.5GHz Private disconnected, connection lost, signal strength -53 
14:57:56 wireless,info 66:BB:A3:96:94:08@5.5GHz Private connected, signal strength -58 
14:58:33 wireless,info 66:BB:A3:96:94:08@5.5GHz Private disconnected, connection lost, signal strength -57 
14:58:49 wireless,info 66:BB:A3:96:94:08@5.5GHz Private connected, signal strength -61 
14:59:27 wireless,info D2:CA:C7:30:4F:64@5.5GHz Private connected, signal strength -59 
14:59:55 wireless,info 0E:4C:49:6E:82:BD@5GHz Public connected, signal strength -72 
15:01:11 wireless,info 66:BB:A3:96:94:08@5.5GHz Private disconnected, connection lost, signal strength -61 
15:01:28 wireless,info E6:18:D3:C2:F2:B7@5GHz Public connected, signal strength -68 
15:02:53 wireless,info D2:CA:C7:30:4F:64@5.5GHz Private disconnected, group key timeout, signal strength -59 
15:03:21 wireless,info 0E:4C:49:6E:82:BD@5GHz Public disconnected, connection lost, signal strength -56 
15:03:21 wireless,info D2:CA:C7:30:4F:64@5.5GHz Private connected, signal strength -60
9

I have an Audience with similar config, which version of ROS are you using?
Try to use only WPA2 and ROS7.6

This is my WiFi config from Audience used at home:

## LAN Wi-Fi ROS7.6 ###
/interface wifiwave2 security add authentication-types=wpa3-psk encryption=ccmp ft=yes group-encryption=ccmp name="LAN-WiFi" passphrase="(PASSWORD)" sae-pwe=both wps=disable
/interface wifiwave2 set [ find default-name=wifi1 ] configuration=WiFiWave2_2Ghz arp=enabled configuration.mode=ap .ssid="(SSID)" name="LAN-WiFi_2Ghz" security="LAN-WiFi" disabled=no
/interface wifiwave2 set [ find default-name=wifi2 ] configuration=WiFiWave2_5Ghz arp=enabled configuration.mode=ap .ssid=(SSID)" name="LAN-WiFi_5Ghz" security="LAN-WiFi" disabled=no
/interface wifiwave2 set [ find default-name=wifi3 ] configuration=WiFiWave2_5Ghz-2 arp=enabled configuration.mode=ap .ssid="(SSID)" name="LAN-WiFi_5Ghz-2" security="LAN-WiFi" disabled=no
10

Log has no Debug entries, do you have that option also enabled like in my picture?

11

okomor13

For my WAG (Wild A$$ Guess)

Try giving the VAPs different MAC addresses.

See if that fixes it.
(I was debugging something for another manufacture and this rings a bell.)

12

Yes
logging-config.jpg

13

As @gotsprings already noted, MAC addresses of VAP should not be the same. Client distinguishes APs according to their MACs and having them the same makes life of wireless station miserable. Seems some take it very seriously…

Default config in modern ROS versions constructs unique MAC for each VAP created … if they match master’s MAC, it’s either remnant of old config or somebody set them to be the same manually.

14

Sorry, my fault. The first part of the mac address is different. So each AP/VAP has a unique Mac address. I don’t set them manually. I use the configuration from my first post as script to set up the Audiences after reset without default config.

It’s crazy, but today it was possible to connect to WL_PUB with Apple devices. This was not possible for weeks, even with resetting the iOS network stack.

Yesterday I changed WL_PRIV so that it only uses 5.5GHz and removed the assignment to 2.4GHz. The current assignment:
5.5GHz: WL_PRIV
5GHz: WL_PUB (master), WL_GUEST (slave)
2.4GHz: WL_PUB (master), WL_GUEST (slave)

I also upgraded ROS from version 7.5 to 7.6. I think that’s all I changed.

I can’t understand why it is possible now. I will reassign WL_PRIV to 2.4GHz as master tomorrow and test it again.

15

I don’t understand why but everything works as expected now.