Apple router misbehaving. Networky thoughts?

[Stu R]

Having the occasional drop out of wireless connectivity on my Time Capsule. It doesn't happen very often, but it's annoying me, a quick google suggests it's happened to quite a few people.

The logs are fairly consistent each time it happens and typically say this at the time of the drop out....

Mar 01 19:48:47 Severity:5 Disassociated with station cc:08:e0:0f:cf:bc (that's my iPhone 4 it seems)
Mar 01 19:48:47 Severity:5 Rotated CCMP group key.
Mar 01 19:50:28 Severity:5 Associated with station cc:08:e0:0f:cf:bc

It seems to be the iPhone every time it drops. I'll keep an eye on it but that appears to be the link. My only thought is my iPhone is causing the whole network to drop from wireless N, and for some reason it's killing the network. normally it's very short lived, just a quick on and off totalling a few seconds. I suppose easiest way to troubleshoot would be to set up a guest network for the iPhone and any other non N-rated devices.

The Airport Extreme / TC are dual band, could it be the iPhone dropping the network performance so the other devices need to changeover from the 5GHz network?

Any thoughts?

Edited by Stu R on Tuesday 1st March 20:14

[PJ S]

Can you nominate IP addresses for specific MACs?
I'm wondering if the dropout is linked to DHCP lease renewal.
Giving it/all devices connected regularly a static IP would rule that out.
Beyond that, another iPhone 4 connected & monitored would suggest if it's the Airport or your iPhone.
Is the time of day connected or duration logged on? I.e does it happen at say 8:45pm or 35 mins after connecting?
Not sure quite what that would indicate other than there being a regular pattern, rather than it being completely random occurrences.
I presume you've had no trouble up until now - how long's that been?
Have you had the iPhone 4 since then, or is it a recent addition?

[Stu R]

PJ S said:

Can you nominate IP addresses for specific MACs?
I'm wondering if the dropout is linked to DHCP lease renewal.
Giving it/all devices connected regularly a static IP would rule that out.
Beyond that, another iPhone 4 connected & monitored would suggest if it's the Airport or your iPhone.
Is the time of day connected or duration logged on? I.e does it happen at say 8:45pm or 35 mins after connecting?
Not sure quite what that would indicate other than there being a regular pattern, rather than it being completely random occurrences.
I presume you've had no trouble up until now - how long's that been?
Have you had the iPhone 4 since then, or is it a recent addition?

I'm not sure about assigning IPs to specific MACs, I'll have to have a poke about for that, I typically know what device has what IP on my network though, and the logs are real time so I can see what's doing what.

It's fairly random in when it does it from what I can tell, the only common links are I'll be in Skype calls (I'm typically on skype 24 hours a day on the computer, and in calls for 10-12 hours of them most work days, so that's a given). The only giveaway that there's a wifi problem is the skype call will drop, or sometimes if I've a webpage loading it'll hang for 5 seconds or so before the wifi reconnects.
Worth pointing out to avoid confusion that I'm not using the iPhone when the wifi blips out, but I do check it pretty frequently for texts and the like, so there's a very real possibility it could well be connected to the wifi still (not sure how long it is before locking the iphone and disconnecting from the wifi, but I can find out from the logs if needs be).

As far as the TC's logs go, the only common thing is the iPhone as mentioned.

My iPhone 4 I've had since last year, the Time Capsule is only a few months old and has been utterly faultless otherwise, superb aside of this little problem.

From what I can tell it's running the latest firmware and my settings are spot on. DHCP Renewal I guess is a possibility, I've tried force renewing it a few times from the iphone itself but it's not caused it to drop, hence dual band / 5ghz / N-related drop outs being my first thought.

Thanks for the reply

[Emeye]

I've got an Airport Extreme a couple of Airport Express, an iPhone 3G, a couple of iPod Touches and a combination of Windows laptops running G and N and the only time I've experience Wifi issues is when using the Remote app to stream choons to the expresses - it did it just recently and it turns out that the problem seemed to be related to one of the Airport Express not being on the latest firmware.

May be worth checking they are def on the latest firmware - the apple software should do it for you.

[Stu R]

Definitely on the latest firmware (7.4.2 is current for AE and TC)

Quick update - I've created a guest network and chucked the iPhone on there. It's made naff all difference Just did it again though I believe the log is slightly different.

Mar 02 02:16:48 Severity:5 Associated with station cc:08:e0:0f:cf:bc
Mar 02 02:16:48 Severity:5 Installed unicast CCMP key for supplicant cc:08:e0:0f:cf:bc
Mar 02 02:17:09 Severity:5 Disassociated with station cc:08:e0:0f:cf:bc
Mar 02 02:17:09 Severity:5 Rotated TKIP group key.
Mar 02 02:18:27 Severity:5 Connection accepted from [fe80::7aca:39ff:febb:3dfe%bridge0]:58329.
Mar 02 02:18:28 Severity:5 Connection accepted from [fe80::7aca:39ff:febb:3dfe%bridge0]:58331.
Mar 02 02:18:28 Severity:5 Connection accepted from [fe80::7aca:39ff:febb:3dfe%bridge0]:58332.
Mar 02 02:19:36 Severity:5 AFP login OK from Stu R@10.0.1.3.

Everything seems tickety boo, so I'm genuinely bamboozled by it. It's not a big deal, just a minor niggle I suppose.

Edited by Stu R on Wednesday 2nd March 02:30

[Emeye]

Could it be something interfering? Another wifi in the area, portable phones or even a microwave oven.