WDS repeater disconnected, no beacons received

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi,

after a few days running with the new WDS configuration I regualarly get failures where the whole connection seems to stop working.

The logs look like this:

Feb  1 19:11:38 10.x.x.x wireless,info ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ@ssid1: disconnected, no beacons received
Feb  1 19:11:39 10.x.x.x wireless,info ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ@ssid1: connected, is AP, wants WDS
Feb  1 19:11:44 10.x.x.x wireless,info ssid1: data from unknown device ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ, sent deauth
... repeated more than 20 times ...
Feb  1 19:11:49 10.x.x.x wireless,info ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ@ssid1: disconnected, unicast key exchange timeout
Feb  1 19:12:00 10.x.x.x wireless,info ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ@ssid1: connected, is AP, wants WDS

After running the Scanner in Wireless/Interfaces everything goes back to normal for a few hours.

The two devices are just about 10m apart from each other, separated by a thin sheetrock wall.

The signal is somewhere between -50 and -60, noise is around -100.

Any idea why the connection stops working after a few hours?

Zap.

2

if you are using exryption on WDS link you need to switch thw wds-mode from regular to -mesh and then the wifi link will work ok.

3

Hi uldis,

thanks for your advice. I set the VAPs to static-mesh and will report back if the occasional behavior stops.

One thing I don’t understand is, why does it work in WDS mode “static” and “static mesh” at first and only messes up after several hours? Shouldn’t it fail right away?

Zap.

4

if you would not use encryption for the WDS links then the problem would not happen. If you use encryption and regular wds and one end disconnect the WDS link the other end doesn’t know that and the encryption sequence is broken. If you use mesh-wds option then the wds link state is updated when the wds link disconnects.

5

Hi uldis,

I changed the configuration to “static mesh” on both ends and still get weird errors every day. This looks like this:

disconnected, management-protection failure
connected, is AP, wants WDS
disconnected, management-protection failure
connected, is AP, wants WDS
disconnected, received deauth: reserved (0)
connected, is AP, wants WDS
disconnected, no beacons received
data from unknown device xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, sent deauth
connected, is AP, wants WDS
...

This sometimes keeps going for 60-120 minutes before it “vanishes” for several hours. Then it returns again for an hour or so.

Is there a way to get any insights in what happens there?

Zap.

6

Hello Zap, look at this http://www.wirelessinfo.be/index.php/mikrotik/pages/logging

For add log information

7

Hi plisken,

unfortunately both routers already run in wireless debug log. But it doesn’t give any further information in the logs.

Zap.

8

Hi uldis,

I switched my WDS from dynamic to dynamic-mesh and now it stays connected.

Thanks for the advice.

Sincerely,

Don James