​Steve-

That is handy on the remote web access, though I can't think of when I ever 
would have actually needed it.  Here's what I'm generally seeing (attached), 
though it fluctuates from around 30% to over 50% on all APs I randomly checked.


The word "traffic" in this case may be part of the problem. If it's not 802.11 
and it's "traffic", it implies the AP can classify other technologies in the 
spectrum, like Bluetooth and non 802.11 bridging protocols- which I'm guessing 
isn't really happening.



-Lee




Lee H. Badman
Network Architect/Wireless TME
ITS, Syracuse University
315.443.3003
________________________________
From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv 
<[email protected]> on behalf of Steve Bohrer 
<[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 3:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meraki Wifi Users: Can you confirm or deny bogus 
noise values on ap.meraki.com report?

Hey! Resolved! Meraki Support called me up and confirmed that this is a bug. 
(Thanks, Educause!)  Affects MR16s and MR18s; so far they don’t think it is in 
anything else, but they haven’t pinned that down for sure yet. In any case, it 
is minor: performance is not impaired at all, just the AP status page.

(Apparently the tech on my case was aware of this known bug, but wasn’t sure if 
they were allowed to tell me! SO, Meraki needs to work a bit on transparency to 
their customers: If they had responded to my ticket right off saying “This is a 
known display bug. Don’t worry about those noise reports” I would have been all 
set, and would have closed the ticket, instead of fussing with it back and 
forth for two weeks, and finally resorting to asking all of you about it.)


Also, Lee, it turns out there is a way to see this AP test page remotely! (Or 
at least, there is if you have access to the VLAN that your APs are on). Either 
this is a new feature, or I just never noticed it before.

In the Meraki Dashboard, on  "Network-wide > Configure General” scroll down to 
the “Device Configuration” section.

Below this are two drop down menus:

 “Local device status page enabled” (or disabled):
I had this enabled, I think by default, as I don’t really remember seeing it 
before. This lets the AP respond to my.meraki.com<http://my.meraki.com/>  (or 
ap.meraki.com<http://ap.meraki.com/>).

THEN,  “Remote device status page enabled”:
This one was disabled, by default I think. I enabled it, and then browsing to 
an AP’s local LAN address gives the same page as you get when connected to the 
AP. In my case it shows the bogus noise on my MR16s and MR18s.

Steve Bohrer
Network Admin, ITS
Bard College at Simon's Rock
413-528-7645

On Jun 26, 2015, at 2:51 PM, Steve Bohrer 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Thanks Lee. That’s just the thing: Everything is just fine on the dashboard, 
and our wifi seems to work just fine also, which is what makes me think this is 
just a bug in the test page code. But, I’d feel more comfortable ignoring it if 
I had a confirmation that it isn’t just my site.

Steve Bohrer
Network Admin, ITS
Bard College at Simon's Rock
413-528-7645

On Jun 26, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Lee H Badman 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Steve-

I love the Meraki product line, but like you, am finding their support these 
days to be a pretty hard to say anything kind about- they may as well reduce it 
to a non-changing web page that says “Engineering is looking into whatever 
problem you are having”.

All of my APs are deployed remotely, so no direct connect- is there anything in 
the dashboard to compare?

-Lee



Lee Badman
Wireless/Network Architect
ITS, Syracuse University
315.443.3003
(Blog: http://wirednot.wordpress.com<http://wirednot.wordpress.com/>)

From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Bohrer
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 12:52 PM
To: 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meraki Wifi Users: Can you confirm or deny bogus noise 
values on ap.meraki.com<http://ap.meraki.com/> report?

Recently, I've noticed that all of my Meraki MR-16 and MR-18 APs report lots of 
“Non-802.11  traffic” on their local 
http://ap.meraki.com<http://ap.meraki.com/> test pages.  I believe this was 
caused by a firmware update, as I’d never noticed it before I saw the current 
test page layout after the "early May" AP update, which we installed on May 9. 
(Meraki doesn’t seem to make firmware version numbers available; they just 
confirm that each AP is “up to date”.)

I’m hoping someone else with MR16 or MR18 APs can browse to 
ap.meraki.com<http://ap.meraki.com/> on any wireless device, and let me know 
your values for “Non-802.11 traffic” on the Channel utilization bar graphs. A 
screen grab from my phone browser to an MR18 is attached. (MR34 APs do not 
generally show these bogus values, though they briefly show utilization values 
greater than 100% on page refresh.)

This should be a quick and easy test, and I’m kinda bummed that after two 
weeks, Meraki support has not either confirmed this bug, or told me that they 
can’t reproduce it. “Engineering is looking into it” Is all I get. I suppose it 
is possible that my whole campus suddenly has lots of radio noise, but I never 
saw it with the previous firmware, which had a different layout for the AP test 
page, and I’ve had no connectivity problems.

(Meraki APs all have a built-in mini web server that lets clients easily check 
their connection strength and do a local speed test, accessible at 
“ap.meraki.com<http://ap.meraki.com/>”, which each Meraki AP will intercept.)

My last AP firmware update was May 9, but I didn’t happen to check the 
ap.meraki.com<http://ap.meraki.com/> page until I installed a new MR18 AP on 
June 12. It showed lots of noise on 2.4GHz, and then I found this same report 
throughout campus, so I opened a ticket. Now most APs show 5 GHz interference 
as well. Not a show stopper, as this report is mainly intended for user 
troubleshooting, but still would be nice to have some confirmation that it is 
just a bug.

Thanks,
Steve Bohrer
Network Admin, ITS
Bard College at Simon's Rock
413-528-7645

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