I think I have solved this one and here is what I learned:
2 trillian users:
both experience weird disassociations and packet loss.
the symptoms definitely present themselves while using trillian.
AOL AIM seems to remedy the situation.
Final analysis:
nothing trillian related at all.
one user was connecting to the network via a wap11 in client mode in a
weather-proof box at the apex to his roof with a 12 db panel using PoE
across his roof, down his house (3 floors) and into his house, and then half
way across the house and into the closet. (from there: ICS box to wap11 to
like 6 laptops inhouse). Whole rig worked great for like 2 months and has
been flakey for like 2 weeks. Wireless link shuts down completely and won't
reassociate for HOURS... (nothing in the base AP's logs at all)
Than after a couple hours or so a weak link starts up, gets better and then
works great for between 2 and 20 hours... real frustrating...
he is also my most remote user but when his link is good, it is great...
second user: lives one townhouse over from the house that hosts one of my
remote AP's.
he uses a USB adapter to connect to the network I installed and configured
personally.
he has an 80% signal ALL the time. Every once in a while he disassociates
and has to disconnect and reconnect his USB adapter and that only helps
sometimes. sometimes he has to this this very often and it seems to happen a
lot while using trillian, he switched to AOL AIM and it fixed things
briefly.. like 2 days, and then the problem resurfaces. He finally agreed
to an onsite visit and I found he had added a USB hub and his wireless NIC
was plugged into that...
I have never read it anywhere, but I know those things are bad.
My experience say 16' USB cables are fine, 20' is usually ok, 25' rarely
works and all of this depends on the make and model usb adapter you have
dangling. I think this is all timing related but I'm just guessing and
sharing what I've seen. USB hubs should be avoided... Taking that thing
out of the mix fixed all of this guys problem (and 2 others I've seen). He
still reassociates once or twice a day, but it never causes an interruption
and everything (including trillian) work great and have for a week solid.
The other trillian troubled guy had all of his problems fixed like this:
His cable from the roof to the ground was too long. not enough power was
making it to the roof to keep the radio up I'm assuming here. really
strange: his ethernet interface stayed up, I could configure, flash
firmware, etc. from his end of things, just no link to the main access
point. I tried reverting his firmware back from 1.4i.1 and his AP ended up
just returning one out of 6 ping attempts successfully and failing on all
the rest. rebooting itself over and over, again I'm assuming. no info was
available aside from that and I was about to go get my ladder, cross my
fingers and head for his roof). instead, here's what I did: I hacked his
cable...
I powered everything down, disconnected the wall wart, and left the network
punched down.
I went across the room to where the cable enters the house (basement
nid/cable tv entry) and used a razor to open the jacket of the ethernet
cable and I split the blue pair and the brown pair and connected my wall
wart right there (saving about 20' of cable for the power to travel). I
went back to my laptop and everything was up working and perfect.
I can unplug and replug and get a solid reassociation every time and the
logs are clear from this client except for of course the very occasional
reassociation (stranger still: he used to reassociate every 30 minutes, 42
and 12 minutes after the hour exactly, but thats gone now). It's been 2 and
a half days since this bit of surgery and he hasn't lost a packet since.
sorry, I know this has been explained here before, but can someone make it
clear exactly what to buy from radio shack to compensate for making your
cable longer: wap11 wall wart says 4-5.5v and 2.6-2.3 a. it has been my
experience that radio shack doesn't stock much over 1 amp.
doesn't that not have enough juice to do what we need? I really can't add
50 or 60 bucks to my install cost.
sorry for the long windedness (I can't help it), but some poor guy might do
a google search and hit this that is having the same troubles and it's no
good unless you post the solution.
long story short:
New info for me #1: USB cables: the shorter the better after 16'. also:
STAY AWAY FROM USB HUB's
Users almost always have 2 USB ports and I make them swap immediately if
I'm on site.
New info for me #2: PoE: pretty simple stuff but when something isn't right
it might not be black and white... I could access this guys client mode AP
using his ethernet side, just not enough power to light the radio, shorten
the pairs headed for the power adapter and try again.
hope this helps someone:
thanks to everyone whos info has saved me in the past and future on here.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bernard Michael Tyers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: [BAWUG] trillian and wifi...
> Jon from Nova Wireless wrote:
> > I couldn't possibly be the only one...
> > is anyone else having all sorts of trouble with user having trillian
> > running?
> > I am experiencing extremely unstable links when users connect to
trillian
> > services.
> > Perfect links (no packets lost for 24 hours) are suffering
disassociation
> > and packet loss as soon as users connect to trillian.
> > other trillian users are unable to maintain a constant connection. the
> > problem goes away as soon as trillian is closed. no trouble when the
users
> > use AOL IM client.
> > really frustrating...
> >
>
> <SCHNIP>
>
> Hi John,
>
> I use Trillian (ver1.0c) over my WiFi link in my apartment.
> What version do you use?
>
> There have been some updates for Trillian (regulart updates. Not
> wireless related), due to problems with the AOL IM network.
>
> I would suggest you try upgrading.
>
> let us know what happens.
> --
> rgrds,
> bernard
> --
> Bernard Tyers * National Centre for Sensor Research * P:353-1-700-5273 *
> E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * W:www.physics.dcu.ie/~bty * L:N117
>
> --
> general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/>
> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
--
general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/>
[un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
