Multiple AP with hidden SSID

[Ender]

Hi,

we have a corporate network with multiple AP and one hidden SSID (the same for all AP's). I can usually connect to one AP, but once connected to that AP the card will not connect to other AP's and transfer images. Once I come back in range of that one AP, it starts to transfer all the images that have been made.

Any suggestions?


Card: Pro X2 8 GB
Camera; Canon 550D
AP's: Cisco (unknown professional model)

Cheers

[jsun]

hi Ender,

Did you add the network as "Out of range" using these instructions? http://support.eye.fi/cards/networks/add-out-of-range/

Supposedly the card can handle hidden SSIDs, as well as environments where multiple APs share the same SSID and authentication. In practice, I've had success with hidden SSIDs but I can't recall any cases where an Eye-Fi owner's card connected to multiple APs with a shared SSID; the card only connected to the original AP as it did for you.

Please feel free to test it out and send us a card log: move to the AP you didn't add manually, take a few photos, leave the camera on for a couple of minutes, and turn it off. Return to the computer and see if any uploads have appeared in Eye-Fi Center at all. Turn the camera back on and wait a minute or two for uploads. Connect the card to your computer, click the Eye-Fi Helper icon, choose "Get Eye-Fi Card log", save the log to your computer, and attach it to this thread or to an email to support@eye.fi so we can take a look. If you know the MAC address of any of the APs, please let us know that too.

Thanks!

[Ender]

Hello,

network was added as being out of range. I followed your instructions:

- went to another AP area, took 2 pictures: connecting on camera, but no transfer
- went back to the original AP, 2 images uploaded to computer immediately!

I asked for more details about the Wifi networks, and we are using a controller based setup with light weight access points. This means it is possible we not only change AP, but also controller when walking around.

Every AP has of course a different MAC-adress and possibly another channel. From the log it seems the card wants to connect to only one MAC and channel ...


The log is as follows:

00:07] Scan for pending photos...
nected from WLAN (reason = 2).
[03:51] Connection timed out (state is 0)
[03:51] Connecting to WLAN "UZ80"...
[03:51] ERP info: non-erp: false, prot: on, preamble short
[03:51] Assoc: UZ80, bp 102, mac d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1, c: 11, auth 1, rssi 26
[03:51] Cap: 0431
[03:52] AssocResp: Error status 0x0002, aid: ffff, error/cap: 0xfffc (Auth response timeout)
[03:52] Disconnected from WLAN (reason = 2).
[03:52] Connection timed out (state is 0)
[03:52] Connecting to WLAN "UZ80"...
[03:52] ERP info: non-erp: false, prot: on, preamble short
[03:52] Assoc: UZ80, bp 102, mac d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1, c: 11, auth 1, rssi 26
[03:52] Cap: 0431
.... Repeats 100+ times
[05:28] Disconnected from WLAN (reason = 2).
[05:28] Connection timed out (state is 0)
[05:28] Connecting to WLAN "UZ80"...
[05:28] ERP info: non-erp: false, prot: on, preamble short
[05:28] Assoc: UZ80, bp 102, mac d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1, c: 11, auth 1, rssi 26
[05:28] Cap: 0431
[05:29] AssocResp: Error status 0x0002, aid: ffff, error/cap: 0xfffc (Auth response timeout)
[05:29] Disconnected from WLAN (reason = 2).
[05:29] Connection timed out (state is 0)
[05:29] Connecting to WLAN "UZ80"...
[05:29] ERP info: non-erp: false, prot: on, preamble short
[05:29] Assoc: UZ80, bp 102, mac d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1, c: 11, auth 1, rssi 26
[05:29] Cap: 0431
[00:00] Eye-Fi firmware 5.0008 Mar 9 2012 17:08:35 started (1), hardware revision 1, CID "AF2G8M", 7596/32 MB, 00-18-56-42-a8-3b
[00:02] Marvell 8786 firmware version 12.57.6.p53 running, xtal offset 20/20.
[00:02] Card is in desktop (0x202) transfer mode (timestamp 1340612482), geo-tagging is disabled, hotspots are disabled.
[00:02] Using sync mode AUTO.
[00:02] BGOPS 1 MaxDiv FastClock 1 3 !skip 0
[00:02] ---------------- SCAN-P -----------------------
[00:03] Scan complete
[00:05] ---------------- SCAN-A -----------------------
[00:06] Done scanning for all photos. Uploads pending.
[00:06] None of the 1 configured wireless networks detected among the 4 within range.
[00:07] Scan complete
[00:07] Starting scan of media directories...
[00:07] Done scanning for new media (detected 1 MB in all media). Uploads pending.
[00:08] Done scanning for all photos. Uploads pending.
[00:08] None of the 1 configured wireless networks detected among the 4 within range.
[00:08] Connecting to WLAN "UZ80"...
[00:08] ERP info: non-erp: false, prot: on, preamble short
[00:08] Assoc: UZ80, bp 102, mac d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1, c: 11, auth 1, rssi 32
[00:08] Cap: 0431
[00:08] AssocResp: chanAgi 0, shortpream 1, cf_pol 0, cf_rqst 0, priv 1, ibss 0, ess 1
[00:08] Install WEP key (13)
[00:08] Start DHCP
[00:10] WEP Setup done.
[00:10] WLAN State: Configured
[00:10] Received DHCP address 172.16.82.145.
[00:10] Scan for pending photos...
[00:11] Listener probe starting...
[00:11] Scan for pending videos...
[00:11] Probing for listener at 172.24.121.9:59278.
[00:11] Probing for listener at 172.16.82.142:59278.
[00:11] Probing for listener at 172.16.82.141:59278.
[00:11] Probing for listener at 172.16.82.139:59278.
[00:11] Probing for listener at 172.16.82.138:59278.
[00:11] Using probed IP address 172.24.121.9:59278 for agent.
[00:13] Fetching card settings from server...
[00:13] Fetched transfer mode 0x202 and geo enable 0 from server
[00:13] Uploaded 1019904 bytes at offset 0 for "/public/DCIM/101D5100/IMG_1940.JPG" as file ID 18 (desktop delivery)...
[00:13] Peer response for IMG_1940.JPG.tar was OK.
[00:14] Uploaded 1038848 bytes at offset 0 for "/public/DCIM/101D5100/IMG_1941.JPG" as file ID 19 (desktop delivery)...
[00:14] Peer response for IMG_1941.JPG.tar was OK.
[00:16] Starting scan of media directories...
[00:16] Done scanning for new media (detected 1 MB in all media). Uploads pending.
[00:16] Scan for pending photos...
[00:16] Scan for pending videos...
[01:08] ---------------- SCAN-P -----------------------
[01:09] Scan complete
[01:16] Starting scan of media directories...
[01:16] Done scanning for new media (detected 1 MB in all media). Uploads not pending.
[01:16] Scan for pending photos...
[01:16] Scan for pending videos...
[01:16] All uploads done, disconnecting from network.
[01:16] Deauthenticate: reason 65535, from d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1
[01:16] Disconnected from WLAN (reason = 3).
[01:16] Connection dropped (previous state is 5)
[00:00] Eye-Fi firmware 5.0008 Mar 9 2012 17:08:35 started (1), hardware revision 1, CID "AF2G8M", 7596/32 MB, 00-18-56-42-a8-3b
[00:02] Marvell 8786 firmware version 12.57.6.p53 running, xtal offset 20/20.
[00:02] Card is in desktop (0x202) transfer mode (timestamp 1340612482), geo-tagging is disabled, hotspots are disabled.
[00:02] Using sync mode AUTO.
[00:02] BGOPS 1 MaxDiv FastClock 1 3 !skip 0
[00:02] ---------------- SCAN-P -----------------------
[00:03] Host control channel received command 'g' (0x67).
[00:03] Scan in progress - skipping scan ()
[00:04] Scan complete
[00:05] ---------------- SCAN-A -----------------------

[Ender]

Anybody?

[Peter Galbavy]

Good luck with that. They've gone very quite on the support side. Too quiet.

[Ender]

Yeah ...
Seems we will have to drop any idea of buying any more Eye-Fi cards (for the whole hospital), and wait how the SD card consortium wireless standard pans out. There is already one vendor out with cards (Toshiba FlashAir). A business idea is only as good as its support ...

[jsun]

Hi, sorry for the delay.

We offer support 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, by phone, email, and/or web chat. Sometimes we aren't able to follow up with every thread in our forums. If you are concerned about responsiveness, I would absolutely always recommend that you contact us using one of those means instead of here in the user forums.

It looks like the Eye-Fi card was still close enough to the main "UZ80" access point (MAC address d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1) so that it kept trying to connect to it.

If you would like to keep troubleshooting, please move further away, where you are near a different "UZ80" access point that uses the same credentials and it's very unlikely that the card can find the first network. (Another building, another floor, etc.) Try some more uploads, and if photos don't transfer, check the card log again. Hopefully it will show the card connecting to the other AP, with a line that looks something like this:
Assoc: UZ80, bp 102, mac d8:24:bd:e9:90:a1, c: 11, auth 1, rssi 26
Ideally there will be a different address after "mac" to show that it connected to a different AP. Also, the RSSI will tell you how strong the signal is. In this example, it's 26, which can be too low and the card may fail to connect; 30-40 or above are best. If you have a laptop running Eye-Fi Helper, you could try adding the AP that's further away to see if anything changes.

As I mentioned, the cards don't always work well in these environments, though the issue here could simply be with the way the card handles multiple in-range networks - usually it reaches out to the last used network first.

If there is any way we can help further, we would be happy to. Please email us at support@eye.fi, attach the new card log, and describe the issue along with a link to this thread.

Thanks!

[Ender]

Okay, contacted support