Whatsapp performance over wifi

[akio123008]

I have recently set up a new wireless access point to get better coverage (a Ubiquiti bullet M2 outdoor AP).

The thing works pretty well for most things, and I get pretty decent speed and coverage where I need it, so in that sense I got what I was after.

 

But then there's this issue it seems to have mainly when I use whatsapp (and possibly other services alike). In the middle of a conversation there are random moments where communication with the AP appears to stop for no reason and no messages can come in. Then after about 20-30 seconds or so the connection recovers and a few messages will come in, messing up the order of the thread because I sent something during that dead time.

 

The weird thing is it does all this at maximum signal strength without ever disconnecting. Regardless of distance to the AP.

 

I've checked pretty much every setting there is and nothing seems to affect the problem much. When it comes to networking aspects, the AP is set up to be as dumb as possible, no routing, no firewall no nothing, so in theory it should do nothing at all to the packets.

 

It is also difficult to test, because it only occurs when chatting on Whatsapp. Web browsing goes without any issue and every speed test shows ping times well under 20ms.

 

What I'd like to know is if any of you knows an obvious reason why this might be happening, or has had the same experience with this AP. (perhaps I should point out that I didn't have this problem on my old crappy AP.)

[Falcon1986]

5 hours ago, akio123008 said:

What I'd like to know is if any of you knows an obvious reason why this might be happening, or has had the same experience with this AP. (perhaps I should point out that I didn't have this problem on my old crappy AP.)

The exact problem is not "obvious" from what you have described. It might be due to the Rocket M2, but it could also be due to another part of the network, or multi-factorial altogether.

 

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. The Bullet M2 is a wireless radio that can be attached to an omnidirectional or directional (sector or dish) antenna. What are you currently using? If you're using a directional antenna, the signal will easily drop off at the peripheries of the Fresnel zone which can cause clients to disconnect intermittently.
2. If there are other WiFi sources in your home or in your neighbourhood, there might be interference or competition. With the former, you should perform a wireless survey using WiFi Analyzer or WiFiman on your phone to determine what the 2.4GHz spectrum looks like. Tuning your WiFi settings might help. In case of the latter, if there are other APs with stronger signals in your home, your clients might choose to connect to them preferentially as you roam. These will cause the problems you're experiencing.
3. The Bullet M2 is from the WiFi 4 generation, which means no MU-MIMO. The more clients that connect to the AP, the more difficult it is for the AP to keep up with each simultaneously. The only solution, if this is the problem, is to upgrade to a WiFi 5 (wave 2) or 6 alternative with MU-MIMO, or turn off unnecessary client devices.
4. Video and voice clients can consume a lot of bandwidth. If the main router doesn't have any QoS or traffic shaping management built in, clients utilizing the network for other purposes can interrupt voice/video. You'd have to give higher priority to video/voice via QoS or let the router automatically do it for you if it supports more advanced traffic management protocols.

[akio123008]

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

The Bullet M2 is a wireless radio that can be attached to an omnidirectional or directional (sector or dish) antenna.

Omni antenna. Also, the signal never actually drops. The problem persists even when within 1 meter of the AP.

 

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

If there are other WiFi sources in your home or in your neighbourhood, there might be interference or competition. With the former, you should perform a wireless survey using WiFi Analyzer or WiFiman on your phone to determine what the 2.4GHz spectrum looks like.

I've checked that and it's on the least used channel. 

 

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

The Bullet M2 is from the WiFi 4 generation, which means no MU-MIMO. The more clients that connect to the AP, the more difficult it is for the AP to keep up with each simultaneously.

Good point, but the old AP was also WiFi 4 and didn't experience the issue. The amount of clients is low (4 or so) and the problem is still there when my phone is the only client.

 

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

Video and voice clients can consume a lot of bandwidth. If the main router doesn't have any QoS or traffic shaping management built in, clients utilizing the network for other purposes can interrupt voice/video. You'd have to give higher priority to video/voice via QoS or let the router automatically do it for you if it supports more advanced traffic management protocols.

This could in theory be the case, but the router hasn't been swapped and is still the same one from before, with the same settings.

 

[Falcon1986]

36 minutes ago, akio123008 said:

I've checked that and it's on the least used channel. 

Can you post a screenshot of the wireless survey result?

 

40 minutes ago, akio123008 said:

Good point, but the old AP was also WiFi 4 and didn't experience the issue. The amount of clients is low (4 or so) and the problem is still there when my phone is the only client.

Ensure the following in AirOS > Wireless:

• Wireless mode: Access Point
• WDS: Disabled
• 802.11 mode: change to G/N or just N if available
• Channel width: 20Hz (or 40MHz if the spectrum is available and you can use wireless-N)
• Channel shifting: disabled
• Frequency: choose an open channel, ideally without overlap with another WiFi broadcast
• Extension channel: none
• Security: WPA2
• WPA authentication: PSK

Ensure the following in AirOS > airMax:

• airMax: disabled

And finally, the following in Network:

• Network mode: Bridge
• Management IP address: Static, then input your static LAN IP information thereafter

[akio123008]

12 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Ensure the following in AirOS > Wireless:

These are the settings I use, except:

- 802.11 can only be set to b/g/n; b-support can't be disabled (but there are no b-clients anywhere to be found, so in theory it doesn't matter)

 

- 40MHz channels won't let me connect a thing. Narrower than 20 won't work either, perhaps 10 or 8 MHz is a ubiquiti thing that isn't officially part of the wifi standard? Anyway, 20MHz it is.

 

- WDS is enabled, with WDS disabled the coverage and performance was for some reason absolutely awful. Given my knowledge about what WDS is, I don't see why this is the case, but turning it on caused a huge improvement in performance, in both coverage and speed.

 

12 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Ensure the following in AirOS > airMax:

• airMax: disabled

Did that too, I couldn't get anything to connect with airMax on.

 

12 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

And finally, the following in Network:

Done that as well.

 

Finally, here's the site survey:

 

To me it seems like it should be either on a very low channel or a very high one. Currently it's on channel 13, I've tested it on a few others, including ones that don't make sense such as 7. It doesn't seem to affect the issue much if at all.

[Falcon1986]

1 hour ago, akio123008 said:

To me it seems like it should be either on a very low channel or a very high one. Currently it's on channel 13, I've tested it on a few others, including ones that don't make sense such as 7. It doesn't seem to affect the issue much if at all.

Run the survey on a client device using one of the previously mentioned apps.

 

While in some countries you can use channel 13, not all client wireless chipsets can detect that far in the 2.4GHz spectrum. Stay within channels 1-11.

[akio123008]

20 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Run the survey on a client device using one of the previously mentioned apps.

Same sort of results.

 

20 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

While in some countries you can use channel 13, not all client wireless chipsets can detect that far in the 2.4GHz spectrum. Stay within channels 1-11.

All my client devices support 13 just fine.

 

The problem occurs regardless of the channel being used.

[Falcon1986]

7 hours ago, akio123008 said:

Same sort of results.

Can you post this screenshot? Need to see the signal strength of other wireless broadcasts being detected by the client.

 

7 hours ago, akio123008 said:

All my client devices support 13 just fine.

What clients are these? Are these all phones? What makes/models? Have you tried without cellular (airplane mode, WiFi on)?

[akio123008]

23 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

What clients are these? Are these all phones? What makes/models?

Literally every WiFi device I own (laptops, phones, printer, some microcontrollers) All works fine.

 

23 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Have you tried without cellular (airplane mode, WiFi on)?

Yes.

 

23 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Can you post this screenshot?

Mine's the ";)"

 

As you can see, signal strength or interference isn't my problem. This screenshot happens to be quite far away from the AP, otherwise the signal strength is even higher.

 

(No, the wacky SSID isn't causing the problem, I've tried different ones)

[Falcon1986]

@akio123008

 

Are there any other devices that would use the 2.4GHz spectrum? E.g. Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, etc?

 

Any other electronic appliance between the AP and client device? E.g. fridge, freezer, etc?

[akio123008]

On 3/5/2022 at 11:31 PM, Falcon1986 said:

@akio123008

 

Are there any other devices that would use the 2.4GHz spectrum? E.g. Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, etc?

 

Any other electronic appliance between the AP and client device? E.g. fridge, freezer, etc?

Nothing notable. One DECT phone that's always been there. 

 

The site survey from the AP also reveals no significant sources of interference.

[Falcon1986]

22 hours ago, akio123008 said:

Nothing notable. One DECT phone that's always been there. 

 

The site survey from the AP also reveals no significant sources of interference.

Has been a while since I've used airView, but many wireless survey tools can usually only give you an idea about the interference from other WiFi sources. Non-WiFi appliances can also cause interference which survey tools won't be able to pick up on.

 

At this point, I'm not sure the AP is the cause of your issue, since it seems to perform adequately for non-WhatsApp tasks. Maybe this is a problem with the app itself or with the servers to which the app is connecting. Whenever I've used WhatsApp Web or the actual application on my PCs, there is usually a delay. I believe it might be due to some latency from phone synchronization. But some updates came out recently and this has improved a lot.

[akio123008]

4 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

At this point, I'm not sure the AP is the cause of your issue

Well neither am I. The only thing that points to it is the fact that it's the only thing that changed in the network.

[akio123008]

@Falcon1986update:

 

Enabling RTS on the access point appears to have solved the problem. I've set the threshold to 1 to use on every packet and so far it's good.