Ipad guru for Site connectivity issue
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Anyone here big on iPads?
The reason I'm asking is I have a client running a Point of Sale System on 18 iPads, During high volume times at the restaurant, I get calls that everything is running slow, and taking forever to send back to the kitchen .We've put all iPads to static to test connection on that end, same issue. I have read only access to the site's Unifi Portal, and can see everything- few random things, but didn't see anything that would strike me as it's a network issue.
Edit: there are also 9 Credit Card Devices on the Wireless
Looking for ideas on things to look at either on the iPads, or bring up to the team that did the network (another company handles that, I just happen to know the owner)
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@WrCombs It's the network. How many access points are being used, how are they configured, do the iPads roam, if so is fast roaming enabled?
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@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs It's the network. How many access points are being used, how are they configured, do the iPads roam, if so is fast roaming enabled?
there are 4 Uap-NanoHD's in use.
Most iPad aren't roaming between, they just lose connection completely then come back from what I understand.
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@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
Most iPad aren't roaming between, they just lose connection completely then come back from what I understand.
With this, I wouldn't jump to thinking that the iPads are the issue - I want to, but I would suspect the wireless is getting dropped.
Have you check the APs for uptime etc?
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@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
Most iPad aren't roaming between, they just lose connection completely then come back from what I understand.
With this, I wouldn't jump to thinking that the iPads are the issue - I want to, but I would suspect the wireless is getting dropped.
Have you check the APs for uptime etc?
Yes, Last night while they were having issues and I was looking at the Unifi Portal and uptime was 9+ hours on all APs . And I saw that wifi Experience was dropping on all APs randomly.
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@WrCombs So that is wireless interference, I'm not an expert on how to try and address that.
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@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs So that is wireless interference, I'm not an expert on how to try and address that.
Sadly that's what I thought too, but Maybe there was something I missed.. with the iPads.
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So to add some salt to this, the "Wifi Experience" is something of a red herring according to all of the UI support forums. /salt
Are the AP's all up to date with firmware, is the controller current, how are the APs configured?
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@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
So to add some salt to this, the "Wifi Experience" is something of a red herring according to all of the UI support forums. /salt
Are the AP's all up to date with firmware, is the controller current, how are the APs configured?
Ap's are on firmware version 5.16.0.11715
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@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
So to add some salt to this, the "Wifi Experience" is something of a red herring according to all of the UI support forums. /salt
, is the controller current
I believe so, yes.
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@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
Most iPad aren't roaming between, they just lose connection completely then come back from what I understand.
With this, I wouldn't jump to thinking that the iPads are the issue - I want to, but I would suspect the wireless is getting dropped.
Have you check the APs for uptime etc?
Yes, Last night while they were having issues and I was looking at the Unifi Portal and uptime was 9+ hours on all APs . And I saw that wifi Experience was dropping on all APs randomly.
Not trying to throw a wrench into this because you guys may be correct, but at my last job we had issues with apple devices roaming correctly. It ended up being an issue with the device judging the signal strength correctly and the AP's were slightly too close together. We unplugged the closest AP to the one in use and it ended up working flawlessly after that. Just something to think about. Too much overlap can cause weirdness.
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@wirestyle22 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
Most iPad aren't roaming between, they just lose connection completely then come back from what I understand.
With this, I wouldn't jump to thinking that the iPads are the issue - I want to, but I would suspect the wireless is getting dropped.
Have you check the APs for uptime etc?
Yes, Last night while they were having issues and I was looking at the Unifi Portal and uptime was 9+ hours on all APs . And I saw that wifi Experience was dropping on all APs randomly.
Not trying to throw a wrench into this because you guys may be correct, but at my last job we had issues with apple devices roaming correctly. It ended up being an issue with the device judging the signal strength correctly and the AP's were slightly too close together. We unplugged the closest AP to the one in use and it ended up working flawlessly after that. Just something to think about. Too much overlap can cause weirdness
Yeah the fix to that would be to enable fast roaming and allow the controller/devices to manage their power automatically so they don't overlap.
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@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@wirestyle22 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
Most iPad aren't roaming between, they just lose connection completely then come back from what I understand.
With this, I wouldn't jump to thinking that the iPads are the issue - I want to, but I would suspect the wireless is getting dropped.
Have you check the APs for uptime etc?
Yes, Last night while they were having issues and I was looking at the Unifi Portal and uptime was 9+ hours on all APs . And I saw that wifi Experience was dropping on all APs randomly.
Not trying to throw a wrench into this because you guys may be correct, but at my last job we had issues with apple devices roaming correctly. It ended up being an issue with the device judging the signal strength correctly and the AP's were slightly too close together. We unplugged the closest AP to the one in use and it ended up working flawlessly after that. Just something to think about. Too much overlap can cause weirdness
Yeah the fix to that would be to enable fast roaming and allow the controller/devices to manage their power automatically so they don't overlap.
We tried a lot of solutions and none of them worked. Unplugging one of the AP's didn't really reduce quality so it was a redundant AP in my case.
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Thanks for the input, I'll get a hold of their Network people and see what they think.
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@wirestyle22 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@DustinB3403 said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
@WrCombs said in Ipad guru/ Site connectivity issue:
Most iPad aren't roaming between, they just lose connection completely then come back from what I understand.
With this, I wouldn't jump to thinking that the iPads are the issue - I want to, but I would suspect the wireless is getting dropped.
Have you check the APs for uptime etc?
Yes, Last night while they were having issues and I was looking at the Unifi Portal and uptime was 9+ hours on all APs . And I saw that wifi Experience was dropping on all APs randomly.
Not trying to throw a wrench into this because you guys may be correct, but at my last job we had issues with apple devices roaming correctly. It ended up being an issue with the device judging the signal strength correctly and the AP's were slightly too close together. We unplugged the closest AP to the one in use and it ended up working flawlessly after that. Just something to think about.
yeah over aggressive roaming can definitely cause issues. you might have way more APs than you really need. You might need to dial the AP signal strength down so they don't overlap as much with each other.
I used to use Ekahau Heat Map on Windows to get site maps Wifi coverage. Looks like they no longer have the free version on their website. I still have the installer if you want it.
You install the software, upload a map of the building layout, then walk around the building and click where you are standing.. when you're down it will will show you the overlapping heat map of your wifi.
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ipad's do silly/crazy things with fast roaming turned on and with overlapping coverage. As others have suggested a simple fix may be to turn one AP off and see if things improve. You could also reduce your channel width on 5GHz (If you're using 40MHz wide channels, try going to 20MHz wide) to reduce co channel and adjacent channel interference.
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iPads and iPhones are headaches to keep working reliably on wifi. For whatever reason, Apple devices just do not roam well no matter what settings you change on the device.
The good news is there is a relatively simple fix, turn down the signal strength on any access point that has overlapping signal. It doesn't have to be much, but it means that Apple devices won't try to hold on at all costs to an iffy AP signal.
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For reference here's Apple's doc on roaming:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203068 -
If the issue is from a volume of devices, it's not the devices that are the issue. This isn't related to them using iPads, other than they are using lots of devices on wifi all at once. It's not an iPad issue, but a wifi/network issue.
Too much power, overlapping APs, too many APs, all kinds of things can cause issues. Or too few, bad signal, etc.
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@scottalanmiller I understand what you are saying, but if the device was not directly related you'd see it across other networked devices and you don't even remotely as much (in my experience).
