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cihancan
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mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Thu May 14, 2020 8:47 pm

Hi sorry for bad english, I have a problem with my wifi mesh isp, i have a mikrotik ldf-5 mipsbe, wifi interface page shows me that im 14km far from Acess Point which only thing i know about it is its on routerOS 6.40.6 in a frequent frequency like once in 5 minutes i get ping spikes which cause drops in connections, it can be seen on the screenshot. What can i and my isp tech do about it please help me, there is no dsl infrastructure in where i live. i need this working

Edit:I see cpu spikes %5-%40 while this happening
Update: Cpu spikes belong to wireless module according to profiling
Screenshot from 2020-05-14 19-58-05.png
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bpwl
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 12:34 am

17 consecutive pings with that high value. Is that during 17 seconds?
Is there anything in the log of your LDF at that moment.?
What is the config of your wireless interface? ("/interface wireless export hide sensitive")
 
cihancan
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 1:02 pm

17 consecutive pings with that high value. Is that during 17 seconds?
Is there anything in the log of your LDF at that moment.?
What is the config of your wireless interface? ("/interface wireless export hide sensitive")
Sorry i lost logs and that thing doesnt happen anymore i moved from 6.46.6 to 6.45.9 and its fixed. But i have another problem right now
My tx/rx is 62/58dbm connection quality varies around %50-%80 My problem is i get frequent timeouts almost once in 30 seconds that causes kept connections drop in speed. i use this connection for almost only to watch twitch TV and that causes videos to buffer, sadly there is no buffer time setting on the twitch.tv. it gets normal after 24:00 timeouts stop happening and everything returns to normal.routeros wireless interface page shows im 14km away from the access point.Using 802.11. I live in rural area i have line of sight to access point i dont think its an interference problem. do moving to nv2 would make a difference? Or using a bigger sattelite antenna on the ldf-5? Is there something i can do to make my connection more reliable?
Thx for answers!

Edit: I tried enabling adaptive noise immunity and it made things worse
 
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bpwl
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes  [SOLVED]

Fri May 15, 2020 3:33 pm

Hi,

in this kind of problems, measuring is king. Assuming things and blindly tweaking parameters will lead you to a different experience but it is not certain it will be better or sustainable.

The thing with wifi is, that it works, because it slows down until it works. The condition in which it must work is very variable and hostile to its working. That hostility can be measured to some extend. Assuming the condition is clear is very dangerous. It also varies with time. Busier wifi spectrum in the evening is very normal. It has many consequences: you share your bandwidth with others and there is more interference that make you wait or disturbs your communication (lower CCQ).

There a few steps everyone should make, certainly with Mikrotik. You probably know and do most of them. (Sorry for bringing obvious things)

1. Scan your environment. There are 3 usefull tools in the Mikrotik. Besides the SCAN function that searches for other APs by listening for beacons. There is also "Freq Usage" that will detect all freq usage, also for non 802.11 wifi. And "Snooper" will listen for all wifi transmitters, including non-AP transmitters like clients.
(There is one some devices also the terminal CLI line : "/interface wireless spectral-scan")
Point is to understand the current usage in the spectrum, and to find a free band of 20MHz wide. 20 MHz is 4 channels wide, and so only channel 1, 6 or 11 should be used. But (2,3) will distrurb channel 1, (4,5,7,8) will disturb channel 6, and (9,10,12,13) will disturb channel 11.
Find your best channel. Don't skip this measuring step. And decide on the channel to use.

2. Do NOT use auto channel select. And do not use 40 MHz bandwidth unless there is clearly free space in the measurements. Your LDF will wait for everything that is above -96dBm. Actually that is everything that Snooper sees. Set your channel center frequency manually (2412, 2437 or 2462) at the AP side.

3. Check what you get in the "registration" tab of the wireless table. Watch how: "TX/RX Signal strength, SIgnal to Noise dB, TX/RX CCQ, TX rate, RX rate , P Throughput" vary over time. TX rate and RX rate give the inferface speed like 130Mbps/20MHz/2S/SGI. (Dual stream 20MHz and Short Guard). Convert the speed to the MCS used with known tables like http://mcsindex.com/ . We are here at MCS6 (high end of the range). The quality of the connection is seen with the ratio of "TX/RX frames" over "TX/RX HW frames", as the HW includes the retransmits. This in converted in CCQ and P throughput (which is averaged over time).

4. Depending on what is seen in 3 , some tweaks can be taken. No general rules here, and no copy/paste from another known good tweak in a setup in another location or direction. E.G. just one exemple, dropping to CCQ 50% shows a disturbed communication. The first step should have learned who the possible root cause candidates are. But maybe it is just your own setup like obstructions in the fresnel zone of the antenna beam. Mikrotik can be tuned a little bit to perform better in difficult conditions. Like limiting the highest MCS to be used (do NOT remove the lower here), setting HW_retry to a lower value to make the drop to lower MCS faster, or set hw_retry higher if higher retransmits allow to stay in that higher MCS, reducing the A-MSDU size from the default 8192 to 2048 will help in reducing the retransmit volume, setting hardware protection mode, adaptive noise immunity, TX poxer reduction by using a higher antenna gain setting ,....... All these tweaks can make it somewhat better, or can make it much worse. So change only one at a time, and check again step 3 (even step 1 to verify conditions have not changed in the mean while, also setting the original back and checking again helps to estimate the correlation between the tweak and the outcome). To know what to tweak to do first is based on the observation in step 1 and step 3, and the correlation you get with the (improved or reduced) working.

Disable the "station roaming" in the station side WLAN setting. Because enabling it will cause to reconsider the link to that far away AP, and might drop the connection while scanning for other AP's. (At least that's what it did in my setup). But if there is only 1 AP to connect to, don't bother to reconsider the association every x minutes (x depending on the signal strength of quality))

5. NV2 and Nstreme will lead you away from those 802.11 AP's and clients. They will not see NV2 or Nstreme. So they will not even wait for it. They will treat it just as non-wifi noise, and they will be noise to NV2 and Nstreme. The way I do this is to set the "station-bridge" to "any" protocol, and prepare all settings. The AP can then just switch between 802.11, nstreme and NV2. The client will automatically reconnect with the proper protocol. Stability with NV2 for my setups (! my setups!) gives more stability but is slower than 802.11ac. So I leave it on 802.11ac but can switch remotely over internet if there would be some need. (I'm 1200 km away from the setups, and border crossing travel is forbidden in corona times)
 
cihancan
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 4:30 pm

Hi,

in this kind of problems, measuring is king. Assuming things and blindly tweaking parameters will lead you to a different experience but it is not certain it will be better or sustainable.

Thx for all help. Unfortunately i cant do change anything on the ap side as my isp doesnt let me, but with the other recommendation of your your i could be able to make signal to noise about 3db higher and looks like my ccq is a little bit higher, im not sure if my ping is more stable but too early talk about the timeouts. i will update for that later.

Thx very much for helping me understand mikrotik basics.
 
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bpwl
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 5:32 pm

Ok clear. Don't forget the "station roaming" , it's on your side of the link. The interference can come from any electromagnetic device in your house, you could be surprised which one. The A-msdu is negotiated between AP and station, so you have influence.
 
cihancan
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 5:58 pm

Ok clear. Don't forget the "station roaming" , it's on your side of the link. The interference can come from any electromagnetic device in your house, you could be surprised which one. The A-msdu is negotiated between AP and station, so you have influence.
Timeouts still happen but at much lower rate, A-msdu was set to 0 , i removed it completely. My ldf-5 is at the roof sadly there is a tree just in the line of sight to Acess Point i suspect that causes the timeouts
 
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bpwl
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 7:10 pm

" a tree just in the line of sight". This is a major obstacle. The tree and leafs contain water and absorb the signal. Moving the antenna should be your nr 1 correction. (apart from cutting/trimming the tree). No tuning can ever compensate this.
 
cihancan
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 7:51 pm

" a tree just in the line of sight". This is a major obstacle. The tree and leafs contain water and absorb the signal. Moving the antenna should be your nr 1 correction. (apart from cutting/trimming the tree). No tuning can ever compensate this.
Its a poisonus acacia we've told its owner to cut it but he didnt accept i dont think i can find a spot on roof to pass this tree over. I will ask him again. also ldf-5 on a 60cm satellite dish if use a bigger antenna would i have better connection?

right now my connection vitals sorry for funky background (tx bounces around %65-%95 it was %45-%80 before the tweaks)
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bpwl
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Fri May 15, 2020 8:42 pm

" a tree just in the line of sight". This is a major obstacle. The tree and leafs contain water and absorb the signal. Moving the antenna should be your nr 1 correction. (apart from cutting/trimming the tree). No tuning can ever compensate this.
Its a poisonus acacia we've told its owner to cut it but he didnt accept i dont think i can find a spot on roof to pass this tree over. I will ask him again. also ldf-5 on a 60cm satellite dish if use a bigger antenna would i have better connection?

right now my connection vitals sorry for funky background (tx bounces around %65-%95 it was %45-%80 before the tweaks)
I don't know from here if a bigger disc will improve your connection. The bigger disc will come with a higher antenna gain, because of the narrower beam is uses. How much is covered by the tree. It could be better, it could be worse.
https://dot11ap.wordpress.com/cwna/radi ... ne-issues/

I think Apple also has trim software for screen shots. On a Windows PC I use Xnview, or the newer Windows10 "shift+windows+S" key combination.

You will have more information in "webfig", certainly if you click the registered line.
Klembord-2.jpg
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cihancan
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Sat May 16, 2020 3:31 pm

I don't know from here if a bigger disc will improve your connection. The bigger disc will come with a higher antenna gain, because of the narrower beam is uses. How much is covered by the tree. It could be better, it could be worse.
https://dot11ap.wordpress.com/cwna/radi ... ne-issues/

I think Apple also has trim software for screen shots. On a Windows PC I use Xnview, or the newer Windows10 "shift+windows+S" key combination.

You will have more information in "webfig", certainly if you click the registered line.
No matter the connection quality, sometimes in the day there are very long ping problems and timeouts happening im suspecting that there is high load on the acess point or its getting attacked, those gets fixed by itself and happens on random times
Last edited by andriys on Sat May 16, 2020 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Properly quoted citation
 
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ahteran
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Sat May 16, 2020 9:21 pm

I don't understand which wisp 802.11 uses on MikroTik?
The protocol you should use is Nv2
 
cihancan
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Tue May 19, 2020 8:51 am

I don't understand which wisp 802.11 uses on MikroTik?
The protocol you should use is Nv2
On some APs they explicitly enabled nv2 protocol but sadly on the mine i guess there are non mikrotik devices too, i asked wisp technician he sad there are client that doesnt support nv2 so they didnt change it.
 
michaelnielson
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Tue May 19, 2020 12:07 pm

Hi,

in this kind of problems, measuring is king. Assuming things and blindly tweaking parameters will lead you to a different experience but it is not certain it will be better or sustainable.

The thing with wifi is, that it works, because it slows down until it works. The condition in which it must work is very variable and hostile to its working. That hostility can be measured to some extend. Assuming the condition is clear is very dangerous. It also varies with time. Busier wifi spectrum in the evening is very normal. It has many consequences: you share your bandwidth with others and there is more interference that make you wait or disturbs your communication (lower CCQ).

There a few steps everyone should make, certainly with Mikrotik. You probably know and do most of them. (Sorry for bringing obvious things)

1. Scan your environment. There are 3 usefull tools in the Mikrotik. Besides the SCAN function that searches for other APs by listening for beacons. There is also "Freq Usage" that will detect all freq usage, also for non 802.11 wifi. And "Snooper" will listen for all wifi transmitters, including non-AP transmitters like clients.
(There is one some devices also the terminal CLI line : "/interface wireless spectral-scan")
Point is to understand the current usage in the spectrum, and to find a free band of 20MHz wide. 20 MHz is 4 channels wide, and so only channel 1, 6 or 11 should be used. But (2,3) will distrurb channel 1, (4,5,7,8) will disturb channel 6, and (9,10,12,13) will disturb channel 11.
Find your best channel. Don't skip this measuring step. And decide on the channel to use.

2. Do NOT use auto channel select. And do not use 40 MHz bandwidth unless there is clearly free space in the measurements. Your LDF will wait for everything that is above -96dBm. Actually that is everything that Snooper sees. Set your channel center frequency manually (2412, 2437 or 2462) at the AP side.

3. Check what you get in the "registration" tab of the wireless table. Watch how: "TX/RX Signal strength, SIgnal to Noise dB, TX/RX CCQ, TX rate, RX rate , P Throughput" vary over time. TX rate and RX rate give the inferface speed like 130Mbps/20MHz/2S/SGI. (Dual stream 20MHz and Short Guard). Convert the speed to the MCS used with known tables like http://mcsindex.com/ . We are here at MCS6 (high end of the range). The quality of the connection is seen with the ratio of "TX/RX frames" over "TX/RX HW frames", as the HW includes the retransmits. This in converted in CCQ and P throughput (which is averaged over time).

4. Depending on what is seen in 3 , some tweaks can be taken. No general rules here, and no copy/paste from another known good tweak in a setup in another location or direction. E.G. just one exemple, dropping to CCQ 50% shows a disturbed communication. The first step should have learned who the possible root cause candidates are. But maybe it is just your own setup like obstructions in the fresnel zone of the antenna beam. Mikrotik can be tuned a little bit to perform better in difficult conditions. Like limiting the highest MCS to be used (do NOT remove the lower here), setting HW_retry to a lower value to make the drop to lower MCS faster, or set hw_retry higher if higher retransmits allow to stay in that higher MCS, reducing the A-MSDU size from the default 8192 to 2048 will help in reducing the retransmit volume, setting hardware protection mode, adaptive noise immunity, TX poxer reduction by using a higher antenna gain setting ,....... All these tweaks can make it somewhat better, or can make it much worse. So change only one at a time, and check again step 3 (even step 1 to verify conditions have not changed in the mean while, also setting the original back and checking again helps to estimate the correlation between the tweak and the outcome). To know what to tweak to do first is based on the observation in step 1 and step 3, and the correlation you get with the (improved or reduced) working.

Disable the "station roaming" in the station side WLAN setting. Because enabling it will cause to reconsider the link to that far away AP, and might drop the connection while scanning for other AP's. (At least that's what it did in my setup). But if there is only 1 AP to connect to, don't bother to reconsider the association every x minutes (x depending on the signal strength of quality))

5. NV2 and Nstreme will lead you away from those 802.11 AP's and clients. They will not see NV2 or Nstreme. So they will not even wait for it. They will treat it just as non-wifi noise, and they will be noise to NV2 and Nstreme. The way I do this is to set the "station-bridge" to "any" protocol, and prepare all settings. The AP can then just switch between 802.11, nstreme and NV2. The client will automatically reconnect with the proper protocol. Stability with NV2 for my setups (! my setups!) gives more stability but is slower than 802.11ac. So I leave it on 802.11ac but can switch remotely over internet if there would be some need. (I'm 1200 km away from the setups, and border crossing travel is forbidden in corona times)
Very thorough. thanks!
 
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canerandagio
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:01 pm

Ok clear. Don't forget the "station roaming" , it's on your side of the link. The interference can come from any electromagnetic device in your house, you could be surprised which one. The A-msdu is negotiated between AP and station, so you have influence.
Hi, I don't find "station roaming" setting, where are it?
 
erlinden
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Re: mikrotik wireless network ping spikes

Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:13 pm

/interface wireless
station-roaming (disabled | enabled; Default: disabled)

Station Roaming feature is available only for 802.11 wireless protocol and only for station modes.
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ ... +Interface

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