Resolve WiFi Connection Problems with Nebula's WiFi Aid Feature

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Feature Introduction

In today's fast-paced digital world, a stable and efficient WiFi connection is crucial. Nebula Access Points (APs) offer a 💎 Nebula Pro feature known as WiFi Aid, designed to enhance the overall WiFi experience by identifying and resolving connection problems. This feature is especially beneficial in environments where consistent and high-quality wireless connectivity is a must.

The WiFi Aid tab, located under Site-wide > Clients in the Nebula Control Center (NCC), provides comprehensive insights into WiFi connection issues. It allows administrators to view and diagnose problems based on various categories such as Wireless connection, DHCP failures, and DNS failures.

Connection Problem Overview

Here you can find the number of devices that are suffering from a connection failure as well as a categorization of the issue type for each station's last failure. Once a station successfully connects to the AP in the selected period, its past failures won't be counted anymore.

Examples of when failures count

If Client 1 (C1) is first typing the wrong password in the first try, then tries again and connects to the AP with the correct password. But now it fails to get an IP address, it tries to connect again, but still fail to get an IP address. This will show as 1 DHCP failure (as shown below).

If Client 2 (C2) connects to the AP with the correct password, but still fail to get an IP address. C2 then tries to connect using a static IP and DNS server and successfully reconnects and gets internet access. This will now show as 0 failures.

In these two examples, you will find the failure overview as shown below:

Connection Problem Explanation

Below you will find a explanation of what these symbols mean and when it will be counted as a failure.

• Wireless Failure – Client fail to associate with the SSID
  This shows when the user has entered the wrong Password / 802.1X Auth. Fail / Client is blocked by functions.
  The wireless connection failure, is any failure which makes the client can’t associate with the SSID. Such as wrong password, WPA-Enterprise authentication fail, and the client is blocked by any functions, such as load-balancing, legacy client, MAC filter, and so on.
  
• DHCP Failure
  This shows after a client sending DHCP-Discover, and there is no DHCP-ACK within 20 seconds.
  The DHCP Failure is if the AP does not receive a DHCP ACK within 20 seconds, it will regard this client fail to get the IP address.
  
• DNS Failure
  This shows after a client sending DNS-Query, but there is no reply within 15 seconds.
  After a client send the DNS Query, but there’s no DNS reply within 15 seconds, this client will regarded having the DNS issues. Please note that if the DNS server replies that the domain can’t be solved successfully, then this case will not be regarded as a failure, because the client and DNS server can negotiate with each other.
• Portal Failure
  This shows when the user has entered the wrong user credential / Auth. Timeout
  For the Portal Failure, which simply identify the cases where clients fail the portal authentication, including that they might type the wrong password, or fail to connect with server, and so on. Please note that this will not identify whether a client is successfully redirected to the portal page. To identify the portal redirect issue, the easiest way is to ask client manually open a browser, and type “neverssl.com”, then they should see the portal login page.

Historical Failure Statistics

Categorize all failure events into different dimensions

• Issued client number per SSID
• Issued client number per AP
• Issued number per client

By simply clicking the hyperlink in the # Failed/total connections / # Failed authentication / # Failed connection column, you will be redirected to Site-wide > Monitor > Connection log screen. Here, all related event logs between APs and clients are displayed.