Unifi AP 4.0.80 firmware - Constant Disconnects for Macs/Apple Devices

Networking & Firewalls
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Just posting this here for anyone who may be Googling for answers or anyone on the forum that has noticed connection issues with Macs/iOS devices getting disconnected on Unifi APs running the latest firmware (4.0.80). Rollback the firmware to 4.0.69 and your problems will disappear.

I’ve had no issues for years with my AP-AC-PRO and for some reason this latest update clashes hard with Apple’s wireless cards. I updated firmware just over a week ago and it’s been a week of issues. In the controller dashboard I’m seeing 336 WPA Authentication/Timeout Failures for the last 7 days, compared to 352 looking at the entire last 30 days.

So if you’re having the same issues or clients are reporting it, that’s the first place I’d start.

And for those, like me, who have never needed to rollback firmware before - it’s really easy. Select the AP in the controller, click on the ‘config’ tab -> ‘manage device’ section -> ‘custom upgrade’ - paste in the correct previous firmware download link from the Ubiquiti downloads site and hit the upgrade button.

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Thank you! I am going to be installing 5 AC AP Pros this weekend. I am wondering if I should even give the new firmware a shot. I know most of their phones are iPhones. Anyways thanks a ton for this!

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I found this while looking around the other day and it seemed at least a couple other folks were having the same exact issue with Apple devices and downgrading to .69 was the fix: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/eqxrp6/wifi_problems_since_updating_to_408010875/ff6zr2l/

I would avoid moving to the latest for the time being unless you really want to manually re-flash all of them later if the issue pops up :joy:

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Good morning,

Well past Unifi 4.0.80 firmware. We have one AP AC LR with firmware 6.0.19. I find the conditions that Apple devices disconnect for me to be unusual. I’ve got a Ring door bell and Echo. Quite awhile ago watched Tom’s video on IoT devices. Also running pfSense. Created a vlan for what Tom called “crapwifi”. So the Ring and Echo are on vlan 10 for crapwifi. All computers are Ethernet except an old laptop that has wifi analyzer software. The other wifi lan without a tag provides the internet access for ipads and iphones. Left most settings factory except for changes implemented to create the vlan network.

I made one change a couple of days ago while troubleshooting Ring problems unrelated to the issue of disconnecting Apple only devices. I changed the 5 ghz radio from auto to channel 36. This caused all apple only devices to disconnect on crapwifi while testing for the Ring problem. They connect and disconnect about once per 3 second interval. But go back to the wifi lan, works normally. No non Apple devices behave this way. Change the radio back to auto and the problem goes away. The echo, ring, and the old laptop no issue while on a fixed radio channel. The channel in auto was 36 and remained 36 when fixed.

I’ve read a few posts on Reddit about similar disconnect problems with Apple only devices. But not by just changing the radio to a fixed channel rather than auto. Have no idea how long this issue has been present since I’ve never adjusted the radio channels. Should note that 2.4ghz radio is disabled. The ring has a TP Link extender that provides 2.4ghz to the ring because of weak radio on the outside wall at the front door. Not the best solution but works fine for one device.