12-14-2023 10:26 AM
We have about 195 AP5010's (10.6.4.0) deployed through 4 buildings. We have a mixture of older Macbook Air 2013's 2015's and 2020 models. We use 802.1x authentication for one SSID and WPA2 for another -- SSIDs are broadcasting 2.4,5,6GHz. We use a Windows DHCP server and Cisco switches. We have been noticing that our 2013 & 2015 Macbook Airs seem to have trouble connecting/staying connected. It always seems like it's failing at DHCP, per IQPilots dashboard. It does seem like if an older Mac is hits a DFS channel, it seems to always fail, but it's not consistent enough that I'm convinced that DFS is the problem. We have had this environment for about 5 months now - nothing really has changed and the issue is sort of just rearing it's head as of the last week or so.
12-15-2023 05:29 AM
We have been a large Mac shop since 2011. 25k+ devices. I've seen varying degrees of issues with dropping signal with roaming, 802.1x auth and DFS. Specifically with the "older" models. The newest model Mac's (2020+) have not been exhibiting this behavior, however. Also, we fought years of the Mac's and sticky client. Device technically drop signal and packets stop flowing because the device is out of range of the radio. But the Mac apparently ignores the obvious need to roam. We've been a customer of AH/Ext since 4.x of Aerohive. Over the years, we've seen many issues with the AP OS. The last 2~ years have been solid, however,. I could write a novel about the past experiences, but what prompted me to post was the fact that you are using older Macbooks. During those years, 11-13-15-17 we experienced a lot of random problems with the previously mentioned items. Also, radio profiles can really play into this. Have you customized the radio profiles? I assume you are using ExtremeCloud IQ?
Just an opinion, but if this just started occurring in the last week or so, something has changed in your environment.