Bugzilla – Bug 14368
Jive 7.4 loses WiFi signal extremely quickly.
Last modified: 2009-10-12 10:50:10 UTC
This is a long ongoing issue that I have been testing for months... I had assumed that it was related to my own specific system, but I have now run out of ideas to fix it, so I'm opening a bug. BRIEF PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Controller loses WiFi signal extremely quickly after walking 10-15ft from access point. Problem exists with multiple controllers, and only occurred after 7.4 software upgrade. Did not occur with 7.3. I have 2 Controllers, a Baby and 2 Booms on the wireless network in my house. My house is two-levels, with 2 Apple Airports. Upstairs Airport Settings: Multicast Rate set to High Channels 1,149 (dual-band airport) WiFi Transmit Strength to 100% Downstairs Airport Settings: Multicast Rate set to 11mbps (aka, High) Channel 11 (single band) WiFi Transmit Strength to 50% Controller Signal Upstairs in certain locations: -) Next to Airport: 100% -) In charging station, 25ft from airport (line of sight): 100% -) Bathroom, 15 ft from airport, through 2 interior walls: 75% -) On deck, through glass doors, 10 ft from airport: 75% -) On deck, 5 ft away from glass doors, 15ft from airport: 40% <<<< -) On deck, 10 ft away from glass doors, 20ft from airport: 0% <<<<<<<< The thing about this thats so strange is that I can put my iPhone or Macbook right next to the Jive and get 100% signal anywhere I go upstairs. I've tried multiple jives, countless network setting changes and had no luck. I will be trying Radio on the deck tonight to see what happens... but this issue only popped up when we switched to 7.4. In 7.3.3 it worked just fine.
(on a separate note... with the old 7.3.3 code my Jive would often connect to the downstairs airport, but since theres no roaming, i would have to reset it to get it onto the upstairs airport. the new jive code does not even see the downstairs airport as far as I can tell...)
I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be the assignee for this one -- I haven't touched any jive code in a year at least. My first suspicion is that the Controller is switching APs to the far-away one for some reason when it shouldn't. We should try replicating this behavior, though it might be hard in this building.
Agreed, you were just the default assignee.. :) Perhaps I could set up remote access to the Controllers and my Airports for someone to troubleshoot this remotely?
I tried the same tests with my SB Radio... it maintains 85+% connectivity at all times. Right next to it, Controller completely looses connection.
Swapped in a brand new retail jive unit, still same problems.
Hey Matt, thanks for the detailed report. However I must admit I am puzzled especially about the fact that 7.3.x was ok and 7.4.x is not. I am not aware of any low-level wireless changes - for instance we are using the same wireless driver. Richard: Do you have any idea what could have caused that in 7.4? Matt: Have you established that indeed the wireless connection is interrupted and not the application level? I.e. if you ping your 7.4 Jive from a PC / Mac is ping dying? Some other thoughts: You said you tried different settings already, did you try a different wireless channel on your AP? Also, did you try to relocated your AP? Are the two AP settings the same as it was when using 7.3? Would it be possible to turn off the downstairs AP temporarily? If you connect Jive to the downstairs AP do you also only get very limited coverage? Could you try a different brand of AP upstairs altogether? Thanks Felix
Nope, nothings changed in 7.4 that should change the wireless range. I have good range here on 7.4, it's a mystery.
I'll do some more testing this afternoon... what about the code that recognizes the wifi signal and determines whether or not it should look for another AP, or for MySB.com? Are there updated drivers available for this chipset?
QA is seeing the same thing, what other diagnostics would you like us to do?
Well, the usual if you think SBC has lost it's connection. We need to know if the wireless connection is down or if it's a higher level issue. - Check Diagnostics - Try to ping SBC from your PC / Mac - Using a serial debug, type: wpa_cli status - ifconfig - ps - Try pinging mysb.com from SBC - Maybe reconfirm there is no issue with 7.3 Thanks Felix
Matt:does the same thing happen if you remove the SD card from your controller?
qa to investigate using Matt's router
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 14570 ***