WLC 4400 session timeout locked at 120 secs

[mlrtime99]

We are trying to migrate several hundred symbol wireless scanners from a Symbol AP system to our managed Cisco network. The scanners do NOT use any bandwidth while not in use to conserve battery, ergo when the session timeout is reached they are disconnected for an instant while the scanner realizes this and reconnects. The only problem is this causes a loud beep from each scanner as it reconnects. I only seem to be able to edit the value between 1 second and 120. 0 and any value over 120 have no effect even though it saves the value it will still disconnect on 120sec intervals. Anyone know how to disable session timeout? We are using wep on these devices.

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Ben,

It sounds alot like this bug;

CSCsf00634 Bug Details

idle timeout doesn't take effect when changed on controller

Symptom:

when changing the user idle timeout to any non-default value, the client only gets disassociation/deauth after either 300 seconds, the default value, or sometimes 120 seconds for some reason, despite of the configured value

this is causing problem when customer is using this timeout to remove the client entry from controller, thus allow consequent client re-auth

Conditions:

configure user idle timeout to a non-default (300 seconds) value

Workaround:

use session timeout under wlan config to force client re-association

1st Found-In

4.0

Fixed-In

4.1(171.0)

Hope this helps!

Rob

[Kevin Dorrell]

Rob,

Congratulations on reaching the 10000 point gold-star status!

Kevin Dorrell

Luxembourg

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks so much my friend! You are one of the people that I admire the most here, so this coming from you means a great deal :) We will keep on trying to help others but in truth, they really help us much more.

Take care,

Rob

[mlrtime99]

That's not quite my problem, we are already running v. 4.1.185.0

User idle timeout is set at 300 on the controller, Session timeout within the WLAN config is at 0, Client exclusion disabled.

The wireless client losses it's connection and instantly reconnects every 120 seconds.

Even if I adjust user idle timeout to 90 secs the clients will still disconnect at 120 second intervals leading me back to the "Session Timeout" setting within the wlan config. The only value that has any affect is the session timeout, from 1-120 it will respond exactly as expected. 0 however does not disable the session timeout and anything over 120 also seems to have no affect. I'm at a loss besides upgrading, I do remember of hearing of significant bugs with 4.2 however.