Two APs, same SSID, same network show twice on Windows' network list

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I have two APs (Belkin, Draytek) on the same LAN, different channels (6/11) but same SSID and security. The intent is to allow clients to roam. Strange thing is that Windows (both Windows 7 pro, and Windows Phone 8) lists the two APs as though they were different networks. Furthermore, I need to enter the identical security credentials twice on each client—once for when I join each AP for the first time. When I hover over the two network entries, the descriptions are identical.

What am I doing wrong here?

Ollie2893

Posted 2013-10-23T22:33:26.990

Reputation: 1

1What happens if you don't enter the security credentials twice? Will it not migrate to the other AP? – David Schwartz – 2013-10-23T22:35:13.240

Can you use Wireshark or a similar tool to capture the beacons from both APs and post an example of each beacon (full beacon decode)? I'm wondering if you've got the SSID slightly different (space at the end, non-normalized Unicode, Unicode vs. other encoding, etc.) or if you have the security mode slightly different; maybe one is WPA2-PSK only (where only AES-CCMP is available), and one is WPA2-PSK mixed mode (where both AES-CCMP and TKIP are available). – Spiff – 2013-10-24T00:53:22.580

Thanks for your comments. I learned from them that what I see is not "normal". I don't have an AirPCap thingy so cannot decode the beacons. However, I can confirm that when I disable security on both WAPs, Windows does indeed only show my SSID once. That is, there is no misspelling of the SSID and the problem seems indeed associated with the security settings. The problem seems to be the mixed manufacturers. I set: Belkin: SecMode=WPA/WPA2(PSK),Auth=WPA2-PSK,Enc=AES – Ollie2893 – 2013-10-26T10:10:28.773

Draytak: WPA2/PSK and the GUI simply states "TKIP for WPA/AES for WPA2", ie I have no say in the matter but would infer AES. I can also manually (!) switch between both networks using the same PSK. I tried a number of permutations of the security settings - no joy. – Ollie2893 – 2013-10-26T10:13:12.817

Answers

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The DrayTek Vigor has this inexplicable habit of sometimes reconfiguring itself to turn off all wireless comms. The laptops don't much notice because they fall-over to the Belkin AP. Our old Squeezebox Classics do the same.

However, our Squeezebox Touch refused to play along. Studying the Touch was highly instructive. My SSID is something like "Home LAN". And all laptops always saw "Home LAN, Home LAN, Home, ...". Not the Touch. The Touch saw "Home LAN, Home?LAN, Home, ..." where only "Home?LAN" was available (the other two having gone down with the DrayTek). This made me pause and go into the SSID configuration screen of the Belkin. Sure enough, it said there "Home LAN" but, sod it, I simply re-typed the " ", rebooted and watched in amazement.

I have no idea how I entered the original SSID - probably cut+paste from the Vigor's configuration screen. And it is only the Touch that objected to what was clearly not a space but which appeared on EVERY OTHER DEVICE - including the network sniffer I used the other day - as just a space.

Ollie2893

Posted 2013-10-23T22:33:26.990

Reputation: 1

Asked: 2013-10-23T22:33:26.990

Viewed: 1 545 times

Active: 2013-12-08T16:45:50.340