RB loses all wireless connections on all interfaces

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

First this happens

17:03:12 wireless,info 00:80:48:47:63:07@Office-Town: disconnected, no beacons received 
17:03:13 wireless,info 00:02:6F:44:16:84@Office-Town: disconnected, no beacons received 
17:03:13 wireless,info 00:0C:42:1F:2D:A1@Office-Farm: disconnected, no beacons received 
17:03:13 wireless,info 00:02:6F:44:16:B8@Office-Town: disconnected, no beacons received 
17:03:14 wireless,info 00:15:6D:FE:67:0A@Office-Town: disconnected, no beacons received 
17:03:16 wireless,info 00:0C:42:1F:2F:65@Office-Town: disconnected, no beacons received

Then this

17:03:19 hotspot,warning,debug biboyer (172.23.0.4): RADIUS accounting request not sent: no response 
17:04:08 hotspot,warning,debug idw (172.23.0.99): RADIUS accounting request not 
sent: no response 
17:04:42 hotspot,warning,debug mkulukei (172.23.0.25): RADIUS accounting request
 not sent: no response 
17:05:28 hotspot,warning,debug hulley (172.23.0.18): RADIUS accounting request not sent: no response 
17:05:52 hotspot,warning,debug lees (172.23.0.32): RADIUS accounting request not
 sent: no response 
17:05:58 hotspot,warning,debug chandler (172.23.0.107): RADIUS accounting request not sent: no response 
17:06:34 hotspot,warning,debug craig (172.23.0.97): RADIUS accounting request not sent: no response 
17:06:37 hotspot,warning,debug ywf (172.23.0.31): RADIUS accounting request not 
sent: no response 
17:06:37 hotspot,warning,debug jdevilliers (172.23.0.1): RADIUS accounting request not sent: no response 
17:06:52 hotspot,warning,debug keideli (172.23.0.30): RADIUS accounting request 
not sent: no response 
17:06:52 hotspot,warning,debug breetzke (172.23.0.96): RADIUS accounting request
 not sent: no response

then after a few minutes, everything reconnects

17:08:29 wireless,info 00:0C:42:62:B1:E4@Office-Farm: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:02:6F:44:16:84@Office-Town: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:02:6F:44:16:B8@Office-Town: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:80:48:47:63:07@Office-Town: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:0C:42:1F:2D:A1@Office-Farm: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:15:6D:FE:67:0A@Office-Town: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:0C:42:1F:2F:65@Office-Town: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:02:6F:44:14:3C@Office-Town: connected, is AP, wants WDS 
17:08:30 wireless,info 00:02:6F:44:16:AB@Office-Town: connected, is AP, wants WDS

Does anyone know what could be causing this?

2

Information from here
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Wireless_Debug_Logs

“no beacons” - no beacons received from remote end of WDS link. Most likely weak signal, remote turned off, strong interference, some other RF related issue that makes communication impossible.

Do you have RADIUS communications established over wireless? Then wireless communication is impossible, then errors shown below are displayed.

3

I’m not aware of any interference in the area and all but two of the 9 APs that connect to this base station (RB532) have good signal and CCQ.

My RADIUS server runs on a RB750G which is connected to the RB532.

At the same time that this happens, my PC’s firewall alerts me to Port Scanning attacks originating from the RB532, and once from the MAC address of one of my users. This user was not connected during the last event though. Could a port scanning attack cause the RB to lose all 9 AP connections on both interfaces?

I’ve implemented firewall rules to drop port scanning but they aren’t getting triggered during these events.

Could the RB be damaged? We get frequent power cuts and surges, one of which destroyed the POE port.

4

When RouterBOARD is damaged, you should not see frequent disconnects of WDS clients, I assume they would not work at all.

5

It works fine most of the time, so probably is not damaged then.

I’m going to try changing one of the interfaces to a different frequency today, to see if it solves the problem. Will update later.

Many thanks,

Gareth

6

Okay.

Switching one of the interfaces onto a different frequency did improve CCQ for APs linked to that interface and the problem has not reoccurred in its entirety… yet.
However, I still continue to experience problems, as the RB seems to be disconnecting APs at random for minutes on end. e.g
One AP will be unable to connect (no beacons received, deauth etc.) for several minutes.
Then it reconnects and everything will be OK for a few minutes
Then the 532 disconnects another AP and the cycle repeats…

To make matters worse, one of the APs (a RB133) which connects to the RB532 suddenly started doing the exact same thing today (on its link to the 532). I checked its log and discovered that it hasn’t done it at all in the last 8 days since it was rebooted, so why now? Signal received by the 532 is -67 CCQ is 98/97. Signal received by the 133 is -71 Tx and Rx CCQ fluctuates between 80 and 100.

Coincidentally, my firewall alerted me that the RB133 was scanning my ports when this happened. As a test, I manually disabled the link to the 532 on the 133 and then re-enabled it again. The firewall alerted me again when I did this, so I guess it must just be a normal thing for the RB to do when it tries to reconnect.

I’ve tried every different combination of settings on the 532 and absolutely nothing makes any difference.

I’m going to replace the 532 with a 433AH on the weekend. Will also replace the cables, pigtails and minipci cards to see if that helps.

7

It turns out that this was the problem: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Fix_Broken_Wireless_Following_an_Upgrade