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Can Connect to Wireless Access Point, but No Further

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Have four Wireless Access Points, three of which are working fine – the fourth is giving me no end of problems. There must be a simple explanation, but it’s eluding me!

WAP#1 I can connect a laptop/PDA/iPhone successfully and browse the web.

I then take any one of those devices to another building and connect to:

WAP#2 I can connect successfully and browse the web.

I then return to the original building and

WAP#1 I can connect successfully, but can no longer browse the web.

I can return to WAP#2 and browse with no issue, but can never again return to WAP#1 and expect to browse the web with any device that has connected to WAP#2.

Existing devices that are connected wirelessly to WAP#1 continue to perform as expected, as long as they are never connected to WAP#2.

For some reason, on return to WAP#1 the default gateway is no longer pingable.

Any ideas / suggestions on how I can progrees this, as the WAP providers (Belkin) are stumped.

Topic

Clarifications

In reply to Can Connect to Wireless Access Point, but No Further

Clarifications

I need to know if these routers are connected to just one..

In reply to Can Connect to Wireless Access Point, but No Further

Internet cable? If so then (if my brain serves me right) you can only have three wireless (max) routers/devices connected to one internet cable, when you have a forth it interferes with the others because of the signals. whether you have different routers from different makers does not matter. You best option is to just have ONE wireless router connected to the internet cable and then “Adhoc” (piggyback, up to 256 connections) the second on to this, you will need to go into the settings of the second router to set it up. You will need to read the manual(s) to find out how, or go to the router makers web site. My question to you “Why have three/four wireless routers/switches when one will do just fine”?. You can only use ONE device at a time, unless you are an octopus. 🙂

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.

These are Access Points, not Routers…

In reply to I need to know if these routers are connected to just one..

Thanks for your reply…
These are on a company LAN, connected to the existing ethernet, in different buildings.
They are Wireless Access Points (not routers). The are all assigned static IP addresses.
The use of four is down to physical distances between the rooms in the buildings, and the composition of the walls and the listed building status (destructive cabling).

Ok sorry for that..

In reply to These are Access Points, not Routers…

Then what you need to do is to find out if the forth is either interfering (or being interfered with) from the other wireless access points in question. Is there a log that you can access on these access points?, this will give you some info as to why you are having trouble.

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.

Hang on – let’s back up a bit here …

In reply to Can Connect to Wireless Access Point, but No Further

You originally posted “[i]Have four Wireless Access Points, three of which are working fine – the fourth is giving me no end of problems[/i]” yet you’ve only mentioned WAP#1 & WAP#2.

What about WAP#3 and WAP#4 eh ?

What happens if you go from WAP#1 to either #3 or #4 then return to #1 ??

I think the lower “WAP#1” was supposed to be the third one.

In reply to Hang on – let’s back up a bit here …

The forth one i do not know.

You’re Quite Right – Let Me Explain Further…

In reply to Hang on – let’s back up a bit here …

I only quoted WAP#1 & WAP#2 as WAP#3 is working in extender/repeater mode and is connected wirelessly to WAP#2. WAP#4 has always worked fine and never affected any device.
My thoughts are it’s something to do with WAP#2 which affects whatever device you connect and that device can never connect to WAP#1 again.

I have reset all the WAP’s back to factory defaults and re-input all the parameters, without resolving the issue.

It’s strange that the range of devices I have tested (laptops/PDA’s/iPhones), it all results in the same symptom.

What authentication are you using?

In reply to You’re Quite Right – Let Me Explain Further…

WEP, WPA, WPA2, none?

There are two hurdles to jump with WLAN communication: Association and Authentication

Association means the radios are talking to each other…that’s the easy part.

Authentication allows the layer2 and layer3 communication to happen. Issues such as time-outs and all sorts of odd timing issues can make authentication fail.

Do your clients use DHCP or static IPs?

When in failure-mode, can you ping anything at all?

Can you get to the Web interface of the repeater all the time from the main network?

Are these WAPS on non-overlapping WLAN channels?

When the failed clients cannot connect to wap1, are they still in radio range of wap2? In other words if a client is in ‘failure mode’, what happens if you power off wap2?

Is the WAP2 repeater function being done with one radio? (some ap’s use two radios so repeater mode is faster).

If so, and wap1 and wap2 were on the same channel, then the client association to wap2 might interfere with the repeater connection between wap1 and wap2.

Re: Authentication

In reply to What authentication are you using?

Authentication: WPA-PSK TKIP

DHCP: All devices being assigned a DHCP address successfully.

Failure Mode: Can ping loopback and Wireless Access Point but no further.

Repeater: Web interface always available, as are all the WAP’s interfaces.

Channels: All WAP’s are on different channels.

WAP#1 and WAP#2 are out of range of each other (separate buildings).

WAP#2 Assume two radios.

WAP#2 not in range of repeater. Extender/Repeater is only configured to connect to WAP#2 and extend it’s range.

We have another wireless network area, with seven access points and this works flawlessly and any device which fails internet access on WAP#1 still works fine on this other network.

Also, all devices work fine on home wireless network.

Just to eliminate…

In reply to Re: Authentication

…I have turned off security and the problem still persists.

Goes without saying…

In reply to Just to eliminate…

…unplugging ethernet cable from WAP and plugging into laptop gives full capability.

So what is it about the wireless NIC?

So is it working or have you found the weakest link? :)

In reply to Goes without saying…

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.

So if you do a DHCP refresh in failure mode, does that work??

In reply to Re: Authentication

DHCP is usually the first thing to fail (canary in the coal mine). Is there one DHCP server on the LAN, and is it all one subnet (flat network)?

Have you tried using a static address?

I’m starting to think that this is somehow more related to the ethernet switches than the WLAN.

Since APs are mac-layer bridges, and the wap2 can see wap1 via layer3, and you can talk layer3 to wap2, ….

The only logical explanation I can think of would be if the ethernet switch were doing something odd or there’s some DHCP issue causing a routing problem.

For example, if spanning tree protocol is enabled in the switch, perhaps one of the waps is confusing the switch’s spanning tree protocol? Or somehow duplicate mac addresses are being propagated on the network.

DHCP refresh

In reply to So if you do a DHCP refresh in failure mode, does that work??

I can release/renew IP fine…

The thing that baffles me, is other laptops and devices continue to work as expected with WAP#1 (as long as the device has never connected to WAP#2).
It’s only when I visit WAP#2 with a device that the problems begin – it’s as if something is written to the configuration of the wireless NIC.
It must be something fundamental, considering the different OS’s are being affected in the same manner?

[Author]

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