I'm using RB433ah + XR5 with clients using NS5's, PS5 to connect. Over the last couple of days out of nowhere clients connected to a sector all drop off, as a matter of fact it just happened a few mins ago. The radio is still enabled but nobody connected to it, when a few mins. ago it had 20-30 units connected. What I do to get it back up and running is simply disable and enable the radio then everyone starts connecting again. The log shows nothing out of the ordinary, just a whole list disconnected, extensive data loss all at the same time. Has anyone ever experienced this before or know what is going on?

Could be a number of reasons...

What band are you using, whats the noise floor, how far away (MHz) from loudest in band transmitter? What are the Tx/Rx signals of your clients, have you verified the physical layer at the AP (LMR, radio, pigtail, etc)?

If every one of your clients are disconnecting simultaneously I'd start by verifying the physical layer components on the access point side. If the physical layer checks out, then try a new channel. Try and put some frequency separation between you and any other 5GHz devices within earshot of the AP, the further away (in MHz) the less chance of inband interference problems.

Anyway that should give you something to go off of.

I've been fighting with this thing all night, couldn't enjoy a night out with friends because I kept logging in and checking sure enough I had to disable and enable the sector several times tonight. Well finally I am home and monitoring the sector, It dropped, went from 30 clients connected to 3. I noticed on the interface status noise floor was down to -84dBm, I disabled and enabled the interface the noise floor shoots up to -104. What I also noticed is that everything is fine for about atleast an hour, this last time it was at about 1 1/2 hr before clients disconnected. I'd hate to do it but I think my temporary fix is going to be a script to disable and enable every hr, atleast so I can get some sleep.

Check the sector antenna and NS5 polarization.
If i not mistaken the NS5 default antenna polarization is Horizontal.

Sector antenna is a Vertical polarization and all clients are set to Vertical.

Sector antenna is a Vertical polarization and all clients are set to Vertical.

Here is 2 option i would like to advice you..
1) Replace the Wireless card and see how is the connection.
2) You have to make sure all the client in the optical angle zone (Sector may have 17dbi 90 degree sector antenna 90 degree on horizontal but only with 15 degree Vertical).

When practice the coverage with Sector antenna, there is more thing to consider compare to the point to point deployment.

I'd start with replacing the radio @ the AP.

Here's what gets me, its only affecting one area, off this tower we have about 100 or so people in one area, so we've stacked a few AP's to focus on that area. 3 radios on 3 different boards all broadcasting 20-40mhz apart in frequency and it's only affecting those 3 radios. Friday night it was horrible I had to login constantly and check it and had to disable and enable one radio atleast 6 different times. It seems to have settled down because I didn't have to mess with them after that really, but in the early morning hours of today one sector dropped everyone again and it wasn't until I woke up and logged in that I was able to disable and enable the sector to get people back on.

Here's what gets me, its only affecting one area, off this tower we have about 100 or so people in one area, so we've stacked a few AP's to focus on that area. 3 radios on 3 different boards all broadcasting 20-40mhz apart in frequency and it's only affecting those 3 radios. Friday night it was horrible I had to login constantly and check it and had to disable and enable one radio atleast 6 different times. It seems to have settled down because I didn't have to mess with them after that really, but in the early morning hours of today one sector dropped everyone again and it wasn't until I woke up and logged in that I was able to disable and enable the sector to get people back on.

May be, the power adapter will cause another issue, have you try with high power power adapter?

Here's what gets me, its only affecting one area, off this tower we have about 100 or so people in one area, so we've stacked a few AP's to focus on that area. 3 radios on 3 different boards all broadcasting 20-40mhz apart in frequency and it's only affecting those 3 radios. Friday night it was horrible I had to login constantly and check it and had to disable and enable one radio atleast 6 different times. It seems to have settled down because I didn't have to mess with them after that really, but in the early morning hours of today one sector dropped everyone again and it wasn't until I woke up and logged in that I was able to disable and enable the sector to get people back on.

May be, the power adapter will cause another issue, have you try with high power power adapter?

I've made it a point to check that out the last time customers lost connection, voltage on it looked fine, I'm using 24v on the RB433's and a 48v on the RB800. One of the RB433's has two radios on its board, pointed in different directions and only one of them drops, its the same radio that's pointed in the same direction as 2 other radios. I'm really starting to think its an antenna spacing type issue, its an issue that started when we put up the RB800, we put the antenna out on a Boom while the other radios are on the tower leg. It's the only thing I can think of, this is only affecting 3 radios covering a more or less same area and it started when we put up the RB800 last week. Now I just need to get my tower climbers to go move the antennas, If anyone has any more suggestions please let me have them.

I'd go with the spacing idea.. that or get more separation in bandwidth. maybe 60+MHz apart especially if all the antennas are of the same polarization.

If the clients are dual polarized, then an easy solution might be to just change the polarization on the sector, increase channel separation, and switch your clients to match the new polarization.

Just can't seem to figure this one out everybody.. I changed frequencies on this radio and it dropped on me today, didn't notice though until about 30mins after the event(our dude server is overloaded).. I'm looking at it now and client tx/rx ccq's are good everyone is consistently 75/75 or better, the noise floor is -96. I'm starting to run out of options and customers patience is starting to wear thin, I'm thinking of turning this sector off, putting a new one up on its own board. Again what baffles me is this RB has 2 radios and only one is having problems. Maybe I'll try swapping radios, I just don't know how much I trust my tower climbers to do that at 480ft in the air, not the most delicate of hands on my guys.

Just can't seem to figure this one out everybody.. I changed frequencies on this radio and it dropped on me today, didn't notice though until about 30mins after the event(our dude server is overloaded).. I'm looking at it now and client tx/rx ccq's are good everyone is consistently 75/75 or better, the noise floor is -96. I'm starting to run out of options and customers patience is starting to wear thin, I'm thinking of turning this sector off, putting a new one up on its own board. Again what baffles me is this RB has 2 radios and only one is having problems. Maybe I'll try swapping radios, I just don't know how much I trust my tower climbers to do that at 480ft in the air, not the most delicate of hands on my guys.

75/75 still is not the good sensitivity...
you have to put more effort on it..

I noticed this weekend on one radio that had dropped clients the noise floor was down to -83, I disabled and enabled the radio and it jumped up to -95. Also saw another radio down at about the same maybe even lower -80, it wasn't dropping anyone but ccq's were extremely low which normally they aren't on that particular radio, so I went ahead and disabled and enabled anyways, sure enough the noise floor went up to -98. So what I'm trying to figure out is why the drop in noise floor, if it were interference I would think it would be like that all the time, not just once or twice a week?

Take a 411 and a new XR5 in it and connect the sector antenna to it. If this makes a difference, too many cards in the same band in a 433. If you have 2-XR cards, it is possible that could happen, but your scenario looks a little different.

I have had this 'rising and lowering' noise floor issue at a client before. Turned out to be some medical equipment directly below the radio. Moved it into a shadow of the source, and never happened again.

Have you 'rotated' the channels on the cell, or have you just changed all the frequencies. Again, if only one sector in the same direction is having the problem, its likely an in-band source. It never happens to any client on another sector?

Dont know where you are, just dropped in on this thread, but does it happen in a dusk/early morning timeframe?

Without a doubt, I would change out the injector first, definitely with a high power one. I have stopped trying to use the standard injectors any longer. Keeping a lot of power headroom never hurts. The voltage could actually look good, but I would not let that rule out injector problems. Sometimes these things dont add up, and you fix it and forget it the next time...

Sorry if I missed out someone who already made these suggestions. BTW, how far out are the clients that are dropping? Have you attempted to get them to attach to an alternate AP on the cell, even though it isnt in the 'right' direction? That could tell you a lot about whats going on. The source of the problem seems to be directional.

Just my two cents from omeone who fights the same battles, including trying to get sleep by implementing 'abnormal' temporary fixes...All these problems defy any logic you attempt to put to it, but these are just the standard things to try, in order to get more sleep.

Take a 411 and a new XR5 in it and connect the sector antenna to it. If this makes a difference, too many cards in the same band in a 433. If you have 2-XR cards, it is possible that could happen, but your scenario looks a little different.

I have had this 'rising and lowering' noise floor issue at a client before. Turned out to be some medical equipment directly below the radio. Moved it into a shadow of the source, and never happened again.

Have you 'rotated' the channels on the cell, or have you just changed all the frequencies. Again, if only one sector in the same direction is having the problem, its likely an in-band source. It never happens to any client on another sector?

Dont know where you are, just dropped in on this thread, but does it happen in a dusk/early morning timeframe?

Without a doubt, I would change out the injector first, definitely with a high power one. I have stopped trying to use the standard injectors any longer. Keeping a lot of power headroom never hurts. The voltage could actually look good, but I would not let that rule out injector problems. Sometimes these things dont add up, and you fix it and forget it the next time...

Sorry if I missed out someone who already made these suggestions. BTW, how far out are the clients that are dropping? Have you attempted to get them to attach to an alternate AP on the cell, even though it isnt in the 'right' direction? That could tell you a lot about whats going on. The source of the problem seems to be directional.

Just my two cents from omeone who fights the same battles, including trying to get sleep by implementing 'abnormal' temporary fixes...All these problems defy any logic you attempt to put to it, but these are just the standard things to try, in order to get more sleep.

I very much appreciate your input, I've read about interference between cards on the same board however the two I had issue with this weekend are on two separate boards, xr5+rb433ah and xr5+rb600. Things might get confusing so I'll try and give a reference point, the problems I've experienced have been off one tower at our main site (A) but we have multiple towers in different city's in our county. The 433 (A) went out friday just as I was getting home from work, got a call from one of our salesman saying one of his customers called him saying they were down, but that was on a different tower (B) in another city but running the same frequency as the 433(A) I've had problems with. Also they are not pointing at each other just to eliminate that, anyways I disable that one and enable it (B) customers came back and have been fine since.Out of curiosity I log into site (A) that runs that same frequency and sure enough it is down as well so I disable and enable, everyone comes back up and I don't recall having a problem with it since then. Saturday morning about 8am the RB600 at site A does the same thing, unfortunately I slept in a little late and didn't see this til about an hr later, disable/enable and we're good. I wish I could pinpoint it down to a certain time frame but I can't, Friday happened at 6pm, Sat. at 8am, when this first started happening it was taking place 6pm-1am. I've tried different frequencies on these three radios at site A, spacing is atleast 40-60mhz apart and all 3 radios are on 3 separate boards. Injectors for all boards are at recommended voltage, 433ah running 24v with 1 xr5 and rb600 is running 48v with only 1 xr5. As far as clients go, they range from 1 mile out to 10miles. Also if I haven't mentioned I have a script that disables and enables these sectors at 6am every morning, I'm thinking of stopping that just to try, at this point I'm drawing straws to see what works.

Do you have wireless logging turned on? (System/Logging)

Some 600 boards in the past have had reboot problems for various problems, including firmware (not RouterOS) rev level. This is addressed in many other threads. Just read the log and see if you have a red watchdog reboot message in it. Or, what does the runtime clock show?

Notice if clients are 'cross-connecting', i.e. they jump from one AP to the other. That could be when the 600 is watchdog rebooting. Notice which clients are doing this, and if its rebooting, it will be obvious.

Yes, hard to quickly visualize your network, but it smells like one or more of the APs is rebooting. I will read your response again later, but it occurred to me that if an AP disappears, this behaviour could be the cause. No problem with 1 card in the RBs. Thats what made me think of the reboot issue. Cant explain how the 433 could be a part of this, therefore will re-read response.....

Do you have wireless logging turned on? (System/Logging)

Some 600 boards in the past have had reboot problems for various problems, including firmware (not RouterOS) rev level. This is addressed in many other threads. Just read the log and see if you have a red watchdog reboot message in it. Or, what does the runtime clock show?

Notice if clients are 'cross-connecting', i.e. they jump from one AP to the other. That could be when the 600 is watchdog rebooting. Notice which clients are doing this, and if its rebooting, it will be obvious.

Yes, hard to quickly visualize your network, but it smells like one or more of the APs is rebooting. I will read your response again later, but it occurred to me that if an AP disappears, this behaviour could be the cause. No problem with 1 card in the RBs. Thats what made me think of the reboot issue. Cant explain how the 433 could be a part of this, therefore will re-read response.....

Boards are not rebooting, AP's are just disconnecting clients, log just list everyone disconnecting at the same time and it says extensive data loss. Disable/enable sector and everyone connects back up, now when my script runs in the morning yea in the log it says item changed by admin people disconnect, item changed by admin and clients reconnect. But like I said I'm not showing any signs of equipment rebooting. I did make a mistake though its not an RB600 its an RB800, sorry bout that, been one of them days.

So it happened again this morning, I have a script that runs on my 300 sector that disables at 6am then enables 3 seconds later, it did that correctly then 12 mins later dropped everyone. I got up at about 7 and saw this immediately disabled and enabled and everyone came back up, didn't see what the noise floor was at though. Noticed that on my 180 which I haven't been having problems on but I also run the same script did the same thing, not sure about the time it disconnected everyone because the log file was full, but I did notice noise floor was down to -78, disabled/enabled everyone came back up. Is there a script I can put that if the noise floor drops below -85 it will disable and enable? I'm going to get together with some other providers in the area and try and figure out what frequencies everyone is and try to adjust accordingly. I am really reaching here guys, I know my boss is getting aggravated at the situation and taking it out on me, I could really use some help on this one.