WiFi clients randomly get disconnected

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hey guys,

I would really appreciate your support here… Since last two weeks I’ve observed that all my clients randomly get disconnected from the AP although they have a pretty good signal strength.
I have an RB5009 which is acting as CAPsMAN and a cAP-AX access point. AP is mounted on a hallway and usually where I stay I get a signal strength between -60 and -75. I have added a temporary hAP-AX2 in one of the rooms but the problem still persists even at a much stronger signal strength (-54dBm )

Here are is an example from the logs:

 2025-04-04 14:45:11 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 reauthenticating
 2025-04-04 14:45:12 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disconnected, not responding, signal strength -54
 2025-04-04 14:45:12 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disassociated, not responding, signal strength -54
 2025-04-04 14:45:13 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 associated, signal strength -58
 2025-04-04 14:45:14 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 connected, signal strength -58
 2025-04-04 14:45:55 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disconnected, connection lost, signal strength -55
 2025-04-04 14:45:55 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disassociated, connection lost, signal strength -55
 2025-04-04 14:45:55 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 associated, signal strength -57
 2025-04-04 14:45:55 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 connected, signal strength -57
 2025-04-04 14:46:56 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disconnected, connection lost, signal strength -54
 2025-04-04 14:46:56 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disassociated, connection lost, signal strength -54
 2025-04-04 14:46:57 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 associated, signal strength -57
 2025-04-04 14:46:57 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 connected, signal strength -57
 2025-04-04 14:48:02 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disconnected, not responding, signal strength -54
 2025-04-04 14:48:02 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi2 disassociated, not responding, signal strength -54
 2025-04-04 14:48:02 wireless,debug 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi3 associated, signal strength -45
 2025-04-04 14:48:03 wireless,info 98:43:FA:F5:51:EA@cap-wifi3 connected, signal strength -45

Here is the config related to WiFi:

# 2025-04-04 15:01:30 by RouterOS 7.18.2
# software id = 5C7T-I0CP
# model = RB5009UPr+S+

/interface wifi channel
add band=2ghz-ax disabled=no name=2.4Ghz-Band reselect-interval=3h..4h width=20mhz
add band=5ghz-ax disabled=no name=5Ghz-Band reselect-interval=3h..4h width=20/40/80mhz
/interface wifi datapath
add bridge=bridge disabled=no name=Home-Wifi-DataPath vlan-id=10
add bridge=bridge disabled=no name=Home-Guests-DataPath vlan-id=40
add bridge=bridge disabled=no name=Home-IoT-DataPath vlan-id=20
add bridge=bridge disabled=yes name=Controlled-AP-DataPath
/interface wifi security
add authentication-types=wpa3-psk disabled=no ft=yes ft-mobility-domain=0x10 ft-over-ds=yes name=Home-Wifi-SecProfile
add authentication-types=wpa3-psk disabled=no ft=yes ft-mobility-domain=0x40 ft-over-ds=yes name=Home-Guests-SecProfile
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk disabled=no ft=yes ft-mobility-domain=0x20 ft-over-ds=yes name=Home-IoT
/interface wifi configuration
add chains=0,1 channel=2.4Ghz-Band country=Romania datapath=Home-Wifi-DataPath disabled=no mode=ap name=Home-WiFi-2.4Ghz security=Home-Wifi-SecProfile security.ft=yes .ft-over-ds=yes ssid=Home
add chains=0,1 channel=5Ghz-Band country=Romania datapath=Home-Wifi-DataPath disabled=no mode=ap name=Home-WFi-5Ghz security=Home-Wifi-SecProfile ssid=Home steering.rrm=no .wnm=no
add chains=0,1 channel=2.4Ghz-Band country=Romania datapath=Home-Guests-DataPath disabled=no name=Guests-2.4Ghz security=Home-Guests-SecProfile security.ft=yes ssid=...::::Guest::::...
add chains=0,1 channel=5Ghz-Band country=Romania datapath=Home-Guests-DataPath disabled=no mode=ap name=Guests-5Ghz security=Home-Guests-SecProfile security.ft=yes ssid=...::::Guest::::...
add chains=0,1 channel=2.4Ghz-Band country=Romania datapath=Home-IoT-DataPath disabled=no mode=ap name=IoT-2.4Ghz security=Home-IoT ssid=IoT
/interface wifi steering
add disabled=no name=SG-Home neighbor-group=dynamic-...::::Guest::::...-4ac71332,dynamic-IoT-5b54c363 rrm=yes wnm=yes
/interface wifi configuration
add chains=0,1 channel=5Ghz-Band country=Romania datapath=Home-IoT-DataPath disabled=no mode=ap name=IoT-5Ghz security=Home-IoT ssid=IoT steering=SG-Home
/interface wifi capsman
set ca-certificate=auto enabled=yes interfaces=Management package-path=/ require-peer-certificate=no upgrade-policy=suggest-same-version
/interface wifi provisioning
add action=create-dynamic-enabled disabled=no master-configuration=Home-WiFi-2.4Ghz slave-configurations=IoT-2.4Ghz,Guests-2.4Ghz supported-bands=2ghz-ax
add action=create-dynamic-enabled disabled=no master-configuration=Home-WFi-5Ghz slave-configurations=IoT-5Ghz,Guests-5Ghz supported-bands=5ghz-ax

I see a lot of messages in the logs with “disconnected, not responding”, and I don’t know how to interpret it.
Any ideas on what could I check?

Thank you.

1 Like
2

I have a similar configuration: RB5009 (CAPsMAN) with 2x wAP ax, RouterOS 7.18.2. Dual band clients were alternating between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands on the same AP every few minutes. I silenced this beast by configuring a single frequency in each band. Client associations are stable now.

1 Like
3

How is this client connected, ft-wpaX-psk or wpaX-psk? I had to add the connect-priority=0/1to get better experience, can you give that a try (it is part of security).

While I’m at it: settings can be overwritten. Configuration is the highest level, hence if you set things like security.ft=yes it will overwrite what is set in the Security settings part. And there it was already set. To have best overview, only set on one place.

1 Like
4

I have clients who are connected with ft-wpaX-psk and with wpaX-psk. All of them were disconnecting with the same error message (connection lost) although the WiFi signal strength was really good.
I have applied your suggested changes, but unfortunately the clients were still disconnecting, so I could not see any improvement.

But, I think I found the issue, and most probably it was related to the Steering Groups.
I think I have misunderstood how the Steering Group needs to be configured. Since I have three SSIDs, when I configured a steering group for one SSID, I've selected from the drop down Neighboring Group menu, a group that was dynamically created for a different SSID. Yesterday afternoon, after I tried your suggested settings and observed that there was no improvement, it drove me crazy and started re-analyze every single setting, turning off one of the AP's at a time, re-checking everything and finally I have looked again at the Steering group menu.
After some more reading on Mikrortik Router OS documentation on this topic, I have created one Steering Group for each SSID, and selected from the drop down Neighboring Group menu the dynamically created group for the exact same SSID.

Before the changes:

0    name=SG-Home neighbor-group=dynamic-...::::Guest::::...-4ac71332,dynamic-IoT-5b54c363 rrm=yes wnm=yes

After the changes:

 0   name="SG-Home" neighbor-group=dynamic-Home-4e5087da rrm=yes wnm=yes 

 1   name="SG-Guest" neighbor-group=dynamic-...::::Guest::::...-b42c77bd rrm=yes wnm=yes 

 2   name="SG-IoT" neighbor-group=dynamic-IoT-9568b38b rrm=yes wnm=yes

After I made these changes, everything calmed down and now clients are roaming a lot more and no disconnections anymore.
I will give it a few more days for testing and if everything's good, I will close this topic.

I hope I've explained this well enough. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know

Thanks everyone for your input! :slight_smile:

1 Like
5

I’ve been scratching my head over some similar disconnect issues and wouldn’t have thought to double-check how the Steering Groups were set up. It’s easy to overlook those dropdowns, especially when they’re dynamically populated. Going to revisit my config now with this in mind, glad you figured it out!

1 Like
6

Nice finding, I hope it helps! AFAIK there is no need to create these groups manually, as they are dynamically created automatically.
But setting things explicitely is always a good idea!

1 Like
7

There does not seem to be a way to create steering groups manually - and this can turn into a problem in some cases…

1 Like
8

Sure there is.
What makes you think it’s not possible ?

1 Like
9

What makes you think you can’t create steering groups?

In /interface/wifi/steering you can add groups which can be part of the /interface/wifi/configuration


/interface wifi steering
add 2g-probe-delay=yes disabled=no name=MYSSID-steering neighbor-group=MYSSID-Group rrm=yes wnm=yes

/interface wifi configuration
add channel=CHAN-5G-binnen country=Netherlands disabled=no dtim-period=3 mode=ap multicast-enhance=enabled name=MYSSID-CONF-5G security=MYSSID-PSK ssid=MYSSID steering=MYSSID-steering
10

I meant neighbour-groups, which are used in steering groups. This way new neighbour-group will be created but there’s no obvious way to manage members of neighbour-group. Winbox view of neighbour groups has only dynamic groups and no way to add or edit anything.

New neighbour-group created inside steering rule is empty and does not show up in interface/wifi/steering/neighbor-group/print

1 Like
11

Regarding the “randomly get disconnected” issue: there is a fix on the way. see announcement "not responding" - f.k.a. SA Query timeout - #388 by normis

12

Every time you add FT settings to an SSID, a dynamic entry will be created.
Roaming then happens for all devices using that same group.

You can add steering groups manually (why ?) but AFAIK it’s only via CLI for now.

13

Only time will tell if we will have (at least) new beta before midsummer day. All tends to slow down at this season around here in the north…

1 Like
14 
> interface/wifi/steering/neighbor-group/    
comment     edit     find     print     reset     set

There’s no “add” command - and “edit” is not possible for dynamic groups (only values are “name” and “bssids” - edit on these is producing error message “action cancelled”)

15 
[xyz@RB5009] /interface/wifi/steering> add neighbor-group=TEST
name: TEST
[xyz@RB5009] /interface/wifi/steering> print
Flags: X - disabled 
 0   name="<local>" neighbor-group=dynamic-<local>-9ccb946e rrm=yes 
     wnm=yes 

 1   name="TEST" neighbor-group=TEST 
[xyz@RB5009] /interface/wifi/steering>

And still …

16

but does neighbour-group TEST have any BSSID’s in it or not? Is it present in neighbour-group/print?

1 Like
17

That’s again something else you ask.
No, why would it ? It’s not active.

Once you attach FT settings to an SSID, it will appear automatically as dynamic steering group.
Why would you want to do that manually ? For what purpose ?
Answer that one first, please.

1 Like
18

Like this…

/interface/wifi/steering/neighbor-group/print
0 name=“dynamic-001-d319a8b8” bssids=18:FD:01,48:A9:02,48:A9:01

1 Like
19

FT and steering are not the same thing and steering can be in use while FT is not enabled or even supported by client device.

Manual managing of steering groups has its own purpose.

20

This ?
A dynamic neighbor group will not be created if EAP is used, it needs to be defined manually.

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