i have 3 hAP mini connected to a CHR central router with working CAPsMAN. wireless clients frequently jumping between AP (hAP). users are very upset - every time they loosing all connections and have to reconnect to remote_servers/vpns/chats/voise_sessions/etc. and they are not roaming office with notebooks - just sitting still...

please any suggestions on CAPsMAN configuration to avoid clients reconnection?

Set signal strength parameter and check the actual RSSI of the clients, who are complaining about this. Wireless roaming works this way... If the signal is poor and there is AP, which provides much better signal - computers switch to this AP.

thanks for reply. signal strength floating from -30 to -60 for users sitting within 3-5m from AP (hAP mini) another AP (also hAP mini) placed 30m away. maybe i can somehow increase transmitter power on problematic AP?

maybe i can somehow increase transmitter power on problematic AP?

IMHO, thie right way is quite the opposite, meaning to decrease the TX-Power of the APs.
Even if you could increase the TX-Power on the AP, the client maybe cannot....resulting not in a feasible two-way connection.
By decreasing the TX-Power, you can make sure, that clients in the surrounding / range will find the nearest AP with a good distance to another (power level wise), so there will be less conflicts in their own decision making when to switch over to other APs.
You can as well require clients to only connect to an AP when the RX-Level is adequate/above a certain level (see access-list feature of capsman).
However, this can result in clients to be completely unable to connect to any AP.

thanks for clarification. i guess i must decrease tx power on AP. but doesn't this result in bad-connection or some packet-lost ? and thus leading to reconnection attempts for clients to find better AP...

Welcome to WiFi world...

1) Wi-Fi is not GSM
1b) Wi-Fi is not GSM also because Client connect to one frequency at time (now, on future is another question)
1c) Wi-Fi is not GSM also because Client connect to one AP at time (now, on future is another question)
2) Client device do not transmit at same power of AP for battery saving, and have usually smaller antennas
3) You can increase TX power of AP, but you can not increase TX power or change antenna on the Client device
4) any form of repeater/extender, or adding one non-mikrotik device, make capsman useless

If capsman and all wifi AP are correctly configured, the users rarely notice when AP switch happen

thanks for clarification. i guess i must decrease tx power on AP. but doesn't this result in bad-connection or some packet-lost ? and thus leading to reconnection attempts for clients to find better AP...

By increasing TX-Power on the AP you will, most likely just create more noise, than quality of the connection.
Thus my recommendation to decrease power, even when resulting - maybe - in a lower range where a client can connect to an individual AP safely.
In order to compensate for that, deploy more APs (which lower TX-Power each, so overlapping noise gets reduced and clients have a good decision base (APs TX-Power wise) when to roam).

Welcome to WiFi world...

If capsman and all wifi AP are correctly configured, the users rarely notice when AP switch happen

thanks :) but please evaluate "correctly" in full possible detail...

By increasing TX-Power on the AP you will, most likely just create more noise, than quality of the connection.
Thus my recommendation to decrease power, even when resulting - maybe - in a lower range where a client can connect to an individual AP safely.
In order to compensate for that, deploy more APs (which lower TX-Power each, so overlapping noise gets reduced and clients have a good decision base (APs TX-Power wise) when to roam).

thanks again. be back after testing

it seemed to me that i don't understand parameter "Tx power"
i've setting it to -15 .. -21 but AP ranges are still ovelapping :(
maybe i should delete cap interfaces after each parameter change and create again?

new problem: mikrotik hAP ac lite has two wifi bands 2.4 + 5
CAPsMAN creates two interfaces for them.
some notebooks makes infifnite jumps between those interfaces. sessions constantly interrupting. users complaining on RDP and VoIP crashes

maybe it's not mikrotik but windows10 needs some adjustment?

need help! :(

@szhura

how is your "Access List" looks like?

how is your "Access List" looks like?

like this:
https://clip2net.com/s/4cLmK8g

This could be due to the reject rule at the top of the list. These are processed top down and generally you would want an overall disconnect rule at the bottom.

If you create allow access rules with the appropriate signal range (-75..120) and with an allow out of range time of 15-20 seconds, this should help.

The default reject rule at the bottom would only go into effect if the client has a poor signal for some time and capsman would have to process all access rules before getting to the reject rule at the bottom of the list.

i'm not sure i follow you... are you suggesting to move first rule down? or altering some bottom rule? or adding new rule with allow signal range (and on which position?)?

see screenshot: it seemes from the log that wifi-attached notebook itself constantly changes APs. not by routeros doing something. am i wrong?

Looking at this log, the device is choosing to move between different access points. These are not errors, but just log entries showing the client roam. Roaming decisions are make by the client.

If the client was being dropped for a poor signal, the disconnect message would be different.

At least for this for device, it looks like something on the client, if they are complaining.

They are probably complaining because you used Mikrotik wifi.

I had to replace a couple hundred on my own dime.

Fact... Mikrotik WAPs use Mikrotik's proprietary drivers.
These drivers are wildly out dated.
The radios do not deal well with interference.
The radios do not handle high client counts per AP.
The antennas just are not that good.
MU-MIMO is not supported in 2021. It's in the development branch... When competition is working in WiFi6.

Until Mikrotik fully moves to Router OS7... You are wasting your customer's time.