Wireless constantly connects and disconnects

[andrew_shur]

We are having an odd issue with random iPad's losing their connection to the WiFi, and then they start to connect and disconnect rapidly, never actually connecting back to the wireless. I can't figure out if it is a corruption in our wireless policy being pushed down or something with our wireless. We use Meru Access Points in all our schools. So far we haven't noticed a pattern on which devices do this. Attached is a small video showing the issue since it is a little hard to explain.

Video

[JayDuff]

You may want to look at the logs on the Wireless Access Point or controller, to see why it's not authenticating.

[andrew_shur]

We are seeing MIC failures when the iPad is connecting and disconnecting inside of Meru's console. And have already disabled "countermeasures" which is something in Meru that seems to affect iPads.

[andrew_shur]

Bump, just curious if anyone has seen this issue before at all.

Thanks!

[JayDuff]

Are you using TKIP? This thread seems to think this is related to a problem when TKIP detects a package that somehow passes into the MAC layer, but fails TKIP. The symptom in the thread sounds almost exactly like what you described.

Maybe switch everything to AES (WPA2). If you're set to WPA/WPA2, that could cause TKIP to be used, which is not advised anyway. WPA2 can also be set to use TKIP, so be careful not to set that up either. Unless you have some older devices, which do not support WPA2 with AES, you really should switch everything over. AES is a bit tougher on the access points, as it's a more robust encryption, so you may want to talk to Meru about what it can handle. I know our older Ruckus APs top out at around 100 AES clients, but can handle 250 TKIP ones with no trouble.

I think this is more of a Meru question than a Jamf one though.

[RLR]

I've had this with a few iPads and we have Meru also. Always thought it was a corrupt wifi profile on the iPad and the only way round it was to reset the iPad back to default settings (profile was added via AC2 and couldn't manually remove that one wifi profile without removing the MDM profile). Next time it happens I'll contact meru to see if they can shed any light.

Edit: We're using AES only with WPA2 and seem to get the issue but not very often.

[mahughe]

We've been seeing something very similar to this. What are your basic rates set at on the AP's? Apple recommends 12, 24mbps for both 2.4 and 5 GHZ connections. Changing this along with AP power adjustments per AP has help tremendously.