I've been experiencing this same problem for a year and it has never been solved. I've been working with Cisco tech support for almost a week now and the problem still exists, although the tech swears up and down that it works.
We bought two of these unit. One is setup as a base station, hard-wired into our network allowing wireless devices to connect to it. The other is setup as a repeater, allowing other units to connect to it, then transmit the signal to the base, all while being on the same SSID. Our goal is simple: allow wireless devices to connect to our network through a single SSID. Users can connect to the one SSID no matter which device is in range. The SSID name is not broadcasted and uses WPA AES security. The repeater is setup to use the AP Mode "Wireless Client/Repeater" and allowing it to associate with the SSID and MAC of the base unit. When changing the unit to use the mode "Wireless WDS Repeater," the signal could stay strong for days, but it wireless devices cannot connect to that unit and attempt to connect to the base unit, which is practically out of range in that end of the office.
I've swapped the role of the devices, and the same things happens everytime. The base functions just fine, never dropping its signal. The repeater connects, and pings show that every 4 seconds, the response time is over 300ms, but it holds. Between 1 to 3 hours later, the signal is dropped and the repeater needs to be manually rebooted. The logs show nothing.
I upgraded the firmware, but to no avail. This happens when the unit are 2 feet away to 100 feet away. I've tried different heights, positioning of anteneas, pretty much everything physicially possible without opening the unit, which I refuse to do because it would void warranty.
After contacting Cisco Small Business support, the level 1 tech didn't really help much, but I upgraded my firmware to the latest version anyways, but it did nothing. Level 2 called me back and provided me with the beta version 2.0.4.1, which I upgraded both units. At first, the response time on pinging the repeater greatly improved, which I was please with. After 2 hours, the signal died. Rebooting the repeater didn't help. I found that I had to turn both units off, turn on the base, let it boot up, then turn on the repeater. But the signal eventually dies anyways. In fact, I only find that the signal will stay connected for more than a few minutes if in WDS Repeater mode, not Client/Repeater mode; see above as to why this will not work for us. The tech then said I needed to reset to factory defaults after the firmware upgrade and manually configure the WAPs again, without using a config file. I did all of this and it's still dropping the signal.
This is completely unacceptable. The Level 2 tech is, quite frankly, being rude about the whole thing, saying that he has a side job where he sets these units up and it works fine for him, so pretty much I'm doing something wrong. He also said the one thing I did not want to hear: "why don't you just set them up as 2 separate SSIDs?" Because if I wanted that, I wouldn't have spent this much money on your product. I would have set up cheap routers and configured the network to allow communication between them. I bought WAPs to allow secure, wireless communication between devices using a single SSID. I left a message again for him, but if he still gives me an unprofessional attitude, I'm going to be asked to be bumped up to another technician.
If these devices do not start working, Cisco better replace these products with devices that will work the way they are supposed to. That and they should get their tech. support guys to be both more knowledgable and less rude. These points need to be able to communicate without any droppage in signal. A 75+% downtime for a product? Really? You sent these out into the market knowing this? And then you have a rude technician deal with the customers who are calling in about this problem? From the research I've done, this has been a known problem for well over a year and Cisco has still not yet properlly resolved this.
