Title: WiFi clients experiencing random drops every few hours – CAPsMAN / RouterOS 7.23

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi all,

I’m looking for some advice with a MikroTik WiFi setup.

I have a MikroTik hAP running RouterOS 7.23 as the controller, with 4 additional MikroTik CAPs. In total I have 5 AP locations with 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios.

Network layout:

Internet (500 Mbps)
↓
MikroTik hAP / Router / CAPsMAN
↓
New network switch CRS320-8P-8B-4S+
↓
MK-AP01
MK-AP03
MK-AP04
MK-AP05

The hAP itself also provides WiFi, so there are 5 WiFi locations / 10 radios in total.

The switch was recently installed, so I also want to rule out anything on the wired side such as link negotiation, loops, packet loss, STP or something related to the new switch.

Users are reporting that the WiFi becomes bad or drops every few hours, especially at night.

My current WiFi setup:

  • 2.4 GHz SSID: Willows

  • 5 GHz SSID: Willows5G

  • WPA2-PSK / CCMP

  • 802.11r FT and FT-over-DS enabled

  • RRM and WNM enabled

  • Country: South Africa

  • 2.4 GHz frequencies: 2412, 2437, 2462

  • 5 GHz frequencies: 5180, 5200, 5220, 5240, 5745, 5765, 5785, 5805

  • DFS channels currently skipped

  • Internet connection: 500 Mbps

For example, AP01 currently shows:

2.4 GHz
channel: 2462/ax/eC
registered-peers: 8
tx-power: 17

5 GHz
channel: 5745/ax/Ceee
registered-peers: 4
tx-power: 11

I have also noticed some 2.4 GHz clients with weak signals around -79 to -83 dBm and very low negotiated rates.

At the time I checked the WAN during one of the complaints, Internet usage was only approximately 4.7 Mbps RX / 6.6 Mbps TX with no TX queue drops, so the 500 Mbps WAN did not appear to be saturated.

My questions are:

  1. Would you recommend forcing 20 MHz channel width on 2.4 GHz?

  2. Is there anything wrong with my current frequency/channel configuration?

  3. Should I manually assign channels 1/6/11 across the five APs?

  4. Would you recommend using the same SSID for 2.4 and 5 GHz, or keeping them separate?

  5. Could FT / FT-over-DS, RRM or WNM cause periodic client disconnects?

  6. What logging/debugging should I enable to determine exactly why clients are dropping?

  7. What should I check on the new switch to rule out the wired network as the cause?

  8. Is there a recommended way to monitor the CAP Ethernet links for link flaps, packet loss or CAPsMAN disconnect/reconnect events?

I can provide the full /interface wifi export, registration table, /interface wifi monitor output and switch configuration if required.

Any advice on what I should check next would be appreciated or change.

Thank you.

2

Hi,

Pure config export would help a lot. It replaces, as a picture, "more than 1000 words" :slight_smile: however your description is also needed as it describes network configuration.

3

willows-hap.rsc (7.6 KB)

Apologize for the 1000 words.

4

Not focusing on the WiFi problem I would start with upgrade to 7.24.5 as it has no security problems.
Maybe it would resolve your problem too. If not, you can check 7.25rc1 as :

5

Your controller seems to be AC3 with wifi-qcom-ac drivers.
I see you have (correctly) configured those radios as local (using the same config as caps).
You mention 4 CAPs but you do not specify which ones ?

What I already would change right away is this

/interface detect-internet
set internet-interface-list=WAN lan-interface-list=LAN wan-interface-list=WAN

Detect Internet is, despite what it was aimed for to do, usually a PITA hence most around here will disable it at first sight.

/interface/detect-internet/set detect-interface-list=none