Finally upgraded my home wifi to something that works - managed wifi review

[cyra1ax]

2 AP's here, no DHCP/association problems but I've noticed in the logs that they go down briefly in the mornings.

[benyl]

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Nope. I am still using the POE switch. This is all the excess gear because of the stupid upgrade bug.

@ganesh what is this upgrade bug you are talking about in your for sale thread?

[ganesh]

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@ganesh what is this upgrade bug you are talking about in your for sale thread?

Lol. Went from a Cloud Key to Clud Key Gen2 Plus from that to UDM Pro
In the last couple of weeks ended up installing a Beacon and Another AP Pro.
I am sure I am not done yet....

[benyl]

ah. Yeah, I am now truly eyeing the UDM PRO, for no other reason than it would make me happy. got distill.io running...

[ExtraSlow]

I feel like some of you dudes actually use all this network tinkering stuff as a hobby.

[ganesh]

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I feel like some of you dudes actually use all this network tinkering stuff as a hobby.

May be....
I need to get back into the office. WFH means I am bleeding money lol

[revelations]

So in other words - do not use DHCP handling by any USG device and its fine? I've not once had an issue with multi WAP (only) Unifi setups and DHCPs - even with 100+ devices.

I used the Edge Routers (older tech) in conjunction with the Unifi WAPS typically in a client setting.

[killramos]

Rage doesn’t have a USG so no that’s not the issue

[revelations]

Whats the DHCP issuing device then? (sorry, might have missed that discussion)

- - - Updated - - -

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I feel like some of you dudes actually use all this network tinkering stuff as a hobby.

You sort of have to be a geek/tinkerer at this point in the network (WIFI) evolution stage to get the best out of the technology - just like back in Windows 3.1 days you modded the autoexec.bat and config.sys files to optimize the system to make it work better ... lol

But at least there is always a reset button to put things back to default mode in case you fail!! (unlike PCs of old)

[rage2]

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Whats the DHCP issuing device then? (sorry, might have missed that discussion)

This is what happens when you connect to wifi as a new client.

1. connect to SSID
2. client broadcast DHCP request
3. DHCP server sees request, replies with a DHCP offer with the IP you should use
4. reply is broadcast
5. AP relays that broadcast DHCP offer to client
6. Client gets IP and "has internet"

Unifi has a bug on 5Ghz where the AP drops #5. Unifi switches also randomly blocks that (somewhere between #4 and #5) with DHCP snooping enabled (irrespective of 2.4ghz or 5ghz at this layer). Typically, if a client doesn't get the reply, it retries. Takes a few before a DHCP offer packet gets through and gets to #6. This bug was introduced around 2 years ago on the APs, not sure when on switches. There are a few ways for it to disable whatever is affecting this blocking at the AP level. #1 is to reboot, it'll work for a while before doing it again. #2 is to send a force provision to the AP, in which case during the time it's provisioning, it doesn't block anything. Once provisioned, the bug comes back.

So it has nothing to do with DHCP infrastructure, just that Unifi is randomly blocking packets it shouldn't block.

In real world, it's not a huge deal, just takes longer (1-2 mins) for you to get connected if you haven't been connected for a while (where the client decides to DHCP renew). It also doesn't happen long enough in my (or anyone else here's cases) so when DHCP expires, it'll get a renewed lease after a few retries and there's no downtime at all. Just shows up as DHCP errors on the dashboard.

Setting a static IP bypasses this bug completely since it doesn't leverage DHCP at all, so I've done that to affected devices for now. Kinda shitty on laptops because I have to go back to DHCP to connect outside the house but hey, that's not happening anytime soon anyways haha.

[revelations]

"So it has nothing to do with DHCP infrastructure, just that Unifi is randomly blocking packets it shouldn't block."

OK - dumb question - have you tried disabled some of the advanced features of the WAPs? Strange I have not seen this issue at all and I've deployed dozens of Unifi WAPs at different locations.

(The WAPs are set to dumb mode. )

[rage2]

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"So it has nothing to do with DHCP infrastructure, just that Unifi is randomly blocking packets it shouldn't block."

OK - dumb question - have you tried disabled some of the advanced features of the WAPs? Strange I have not seen this issue at all and I've deployed dozens of Unifi WAPs at different locations.

(The WAPs are set to dumb mode. )

Aside from ssid naming, my setup is pretty much default. Google unifi dhcp time-out, there are tons of people with this problem. The ones with the switches are the big issues. It affects bigger (more AP) installs than less. I have 6. Some of the people with issues are double digits into APs.

[revelations]

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Aside from ssid naming, my setup is pretty much default. Google unifi dhcp time-out, there are tons of people with this problem.

The problem IS the default modes still activates some of the advanced features. I always disable them.

Im definitely no UNIFI WAP professional - but for eg. I've read on their forums that the advanced/auto features do not work out of the box as well.

One example is the power setting (dB) in auto mode is actually high power - which can cause issues for connectivity in the fringes.

[The_Penguin]

That's effed up!
A WAP has no business blocking or dropping anything, that's not in its job description.

Also why the hell do they get all pissy when your Shaw Internet drops?
WAPs should have 0 effs to give if the WAN is down. Are they phoning home and getting upset when they don't get a response?

[rage2]

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The problem IS the default modes still activates some of the advanced features. I always disable them.

Im definitely no UNIFI WAP professional - but for eg. I've read on their forums that the advanced/auto features do not work out of the box as well.

One example is the power setting (dB) in auto mode is actually high power - which can cause issues for connectivity in the fringes.

Yea, power settings aren't advanced settings, and of course I've mapped them out through the house. Always have. https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/397...36#post4870036

This isn't a fringe reception problem, this is AP's dropping packets that it should not drop. Period. It happens standing beside the AP. It's been researched, wiresharked and investigated in detail over 20+ threads on Unifi community forums for the last 2 years. It's a bug.

The only advanced item that's enabled is DHCP snooping, which is for the Unifi Switches (of which I have none). Again, even that option is stupid in the UI because it's not reboot persistent on the switches, so you actually get a UI vs device mismatch in settings if the switch reboots for whatever reason.

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That's effed up!
A WAP has no business blocking or dropping anything, that's not in its job description.

Yup haha. Funny enough, for people with switches, there's a DHCP guard option as well which is supposed to filter out bad DHCP packets from rogue servers. Completely proprietary and non standard so nobody knows if that has anything to do with it. The APs should have some blocking capability tho such as bad devices, but it should be intended and not random.

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Also why the hell do they get all pissy when your Shaw Internet drops?
WAPs should have 0 effs to give if the WAN is down. Are they phoning home and getting upset when they don't get a response?

I haven't investigated that enough yet. I thought it would be a lesser impact issue but I never realized the frequency of Shaw maintenance (twice in last month). Yes, it should completely recover on its own. 4 years of open mesh and it was literally set and forget, never even knew these middle of the night maintenance stuff happens. I'll probably get to it this weekend to figure out WTF it's trying to do. From the data I've seen, the broadcasts just continue to amplify until the switch gets pegged. I have to unplug both the switch and unifi for it to come back up. It's like an internal network SMURF attack for you old school hax0rs haha. Google has a few articles on it with no explanation as to what causes it. I'll try to simulate it by just unplugging the WAN cable to try to duplicate it.

[Buster]

Mine has been sitting at 2 for a couple of days. Then again, I did ask ubiquiti to send me the good stuff, so who knows.

[rage2]

@kenny the dark theme on this page of the thread is fucked. Can't figure out why haha.

edit - weird, must've cached something bad. Incognito works fine. Must be Shaw.

[Buster]

Does this issue happen with the Nano or just the UAP Pro?

[rage2]

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Does this issue happen with the Nano or just the UAP Pro?

Look at the baller over here.

I have the AC-Lite. According to the threads at Unifi, the DHCP issues only happens with AC-Lite and AC-Pro. If you're sitting at 2, that's still messed up. It should be zero.

[revelations]

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Yea, power settings aren't advanced settings, and of course I've mapped them out through the house. Always have. https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/397...36#post4870036

This isn't a fringe reception problem, this is AP's dropping packets that it should not drop. Period. It happens standing beside the AP. It's been researched, wiresharked and investigated in detail over 20+ threads on Unifi community forums for the last 2 years. It's a bug.

I didnt say you had a reception issue - I said its an example of another broken Unifi setup where default modes can break someones wifi network.

They have issues of various kinds and it thus appears that the less functionality is enabled, the less likely it is that problems will pop up. The bad thing is that their functionality is turned on by default.

Things mentioned in the forums (which you've no doubt tried) include:

"Beacon Interval set to 3, Disabled Auto Optimize, No High Performing devices forced to 5 Ghz, no blocking of Multicast trafic."


For a hail mary trouble shooting step (makes no sense), someone also mentioned trying a different DNS for each WAP - (eg. 1.1.1.1 on one and 8.8.8.8 on another).