WNDAP350 significant problemsI have 5 of these on various network segments over a large geographical area. All are using different wiring, different network switches, nothing in common with any of them except one thing. All are experiencing exactly the same problem.Log excerptMar 21 11:41:51 hostapd: Network Integrality: Ping FailedMar 21 11:41:51 hostapd: Network Integrality: Host: 10.110.255.254 is down.Bringing down all the vapsMar 21 11:41:51 kernel: brtrunk: port 2(wifi0vap0) entering disabled stateMar 21 11:41:51 hostapd: wifi0vap0: STA 00:1b:63:cc:f5:40 IEEE 802.11: disassociatedMar 21 11:41:51 hostapd: wifi0vap0: STA 00:26:4a:c1:51:26 IEEE 802.11: disassociatedHere is what I've learned:When there are no associations at all (over a weekend for example) there are no problems; pings are always successful.After there are a couple (two or so) associations then the above occurs maybe about once every 4 hours. You start getting more associations then the “Ping Failed” occurs more frequently. On one where there are about 30 associations the failure occurs about every 20 minutes, sometimes more frequently.I am aware that these 350s ping their respective default gateways. Examination of the router's respective logs show the routers are working flawlessly. Indeed, everyone “wired” on the various network segments are not having any problems. Each 350 has it's own Gig/sec connection. Measured network traffic is rarely over 3% of available capacity.So, in the 350's firmware, is it waiting a shorter and shorter amount of time for a ping return as the number of associations increase? Therefore, it is timing out waiting for the return when if it would wait just a little longer it would be satisfied?I've got to solve this problem before I can deploy anymore 350s. I'm not replacing anymore WAP54G's which are working just fine.Thanks for any help here.Bob

This morning I replaced one of the WNDAP350s with a Cisco Aironet 3500. Been watching it all day. 36 connections and it's been working great.So, right now my WAP54G's are working fine, the 3500 is working fine, and the Netgear 350's are periodically turning off their radios because they think they're not connected to a network.Hmmmm.... I wonder where the problem lies?

hi,Sorry i think i can't help you; just to say we have many WNDAP350 (firmware 2.0.9) and we never had your issue.They work great (with bugs :D but nothing serious)Did you call the support ?Hope you'll find the way out ;)

Yea... I'm running the latest firmware also.I just replace another one with an Apple Airport. The Airport has been working flawlessly all day.So now..All the Linsys's have always been working well.The Aironet has been working flawlessly.The Apple Airport has been working without problems all day.Just the 350's are periodically deciding they are not wired to the network and then turning of their radios. And, the higher number of associations, the more frequently they decide they don't have a wired connection.I appreciate you relaying your experience with them.Not contacted support yet. Wanted to make sure of the facts before I talked to Level 1/2 support.Bob

Since we have our WNDAP350 we had never need to reboot or something like that until we have upgraded firmwares ;). We use lot of SSID and 2,4ghz/5ghz together.They are wired to a Netgear GSM7224v2. Jumbo disabled for AP. We also have 1 old Cisco Aironet 1131AG. All work flawlessly.Did you try Wireshark to see what's going on ? A reset factory ? With another switch ?;)

I should point out that I believed my 350's were working fine. The users never really reported any problems other then usual “sometime slow printing” or, “my Email client required I re-authenticate to the Email server”; things that could be solved by updating out of date drivers or stop wandering between cells, etc. Most all users attributed their problems to old operating systems, not enough memory, or this is just the way the laptops run. It's the OS; just reboot and everything worked fine.When looking at the 350's logs I would see nothing wrong. At that time I didn't really pay attention to the fact that the logs only kept about 10 minutes of data.The way I found out that these units had problems is from my network management software. It checks to see if all the units on my network are alive by pinging them every 10 seconds. I usually do not check it's logs because I see everything in the green all the time. However, one day I did check the logs and saw that the 350's were frequently not there then reappearing in about 30 seconds or so. When looking at the 350 logs I didn't see anything because the problem had already scrolled out of the buffer. It was a cat-and-mouse game for several days until I caught a 350 going dark. I immediately checked it's log and found the “ping failure”. I saved the log. After doing a lot more legwork I picked up on the fact that the problem was more severe as the number of associations increased. And, the problem was only associated with the 350's.So, like I said, I hadn't been made aware from my users that there were any kind of problems that I could associate with anything other then normal under provisioned hardware for the kind of heavy duty apps. they were trying to use.It's quite possible others have this problem and never know it.Just some thoughts.Bob

WNDAP350's are constantly rebooting

45 Replies

RSchwein
Aspirant
Mar 29, 2011
Tomorrow I'm going to disable the auto channeling. I've already turned off the 5 GHtz radio, the rouge detection, ..... I've not unplugged them yet but, that just may be my last step. Well, selling them on Ebay may be the last step.:(
RSchwein
Aspirant
Mar 30, 2011
Well, I turned off auto channeling on all of them. I set them to least congested frequencies in their areas. About 1 hour later one of them went down. Same problem. Ping failure, turn off their Ethernet port but, it still continues to ping as if it's still connected even though it's turned off it's port. About 11 minutes later some kind of watchdog kicked in, cleared everything up, it turned it's Ethernet port back on and guess what..... ping success.

About the only thing left to turn off is the device it self by unplugging it.

By the way, this is not happening on just one 350. I have five of them and they are all doing the same thing.
RSchwein
Aspirant
Apr 15, 2011
Just finished beta testing a firmware upgrade. Appears to have solved the problem.

Bob
overlook
Tutor
Apr 19, 2011
RSchwein wrote:
Just finished beta testing a firmware upgrade. Appears to have solved the problem.

Bob

hi RSchwein

Could you tell me what beta release you have tested please ?

thank you
RSchwein
Aspirant
Apr 21, 2011
Certainly; tomorrow afternoon when I get back to the office.
RSchwein
Aspirant
Apr 22, 2011
V2.0.18

Everything looking good. I'm sure Netgear will be coming out soon with an updated firmware version.

Bob
Glith
Aspirant
Apr 28, 2011
2.0.18 is still working good? I hope Netgear will release it soon so I can try it out. :)
lachli
Aspirant
May 02, 2011
Finnaly someone elso who has this simmular problem. I spoke to netgear support (norway) regarding this problem, they just told me to reset to factory default and upgrade the firmware again. Of course this didnt change anything, any news on a new firmware?
Glith
Aspirant
May 06, 2011
RSchwein, any chance you could share 2.0.18 if it still is working good?
Glith
Aspirant
Jun 12, 2011
RSchwein wrote:
V2.0.18

Everything looking good. I'm sure Netgear will be coming out soon with an updated firmware version.

Bob

No news from Netgear yet. :(

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WNDAP350's are constantly rebooting