Wireless-AC 8260 Card unable to connect to Aerohive APs when using Proset created connection profile. Connects fine when not using the profile.

[SEmer]

Hello,

We just purchased 60 laptops to use as student checkouts as part of our university computer lab.

Our campus uses Aerohive AP 230s locked in at 5GHz in our library, running a particular high-density configuration.

If I take one of these laptops over to the library and connect to the wireless by clicking the SSID and typing in the key, they connect without issue.

However, if I make a Proset wireless profile that only contains the SSID, key, and 5GHz band setting, the card will not connect to the wireless.

So my question becomes, what is different about the proset created connection profile that is different from manually connecting?

These are Lenovo Thinkpad 13's running Windows 10 1607 Build 14393.693 with the 19.50.1 drivers.

Stephen in TN

[idata]

Hello Stephen,

We understand that the systems using the Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 and Windows® 10 are not able to connect to network if you use profiles created with http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking/000017246.html Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software for IT administrators.Here are some items for your consideration:- This may be related to problems in the package and profile itself. Please download the most recent https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26657/Intel-PROSet-Wireless-Software-and-Drivers-for-IT-Admins Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software for IT administrators [19.50.1]. Then create a new package, reconfigure the wireless profile and add it to the package.- When creating the profiles, make sure you specify the right settings for security, authentication and encryption. A mismatch may cause the profile not to work.Please check the following advisory for more information: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking/000006222.html Frequently Asked Questions for Enterprise and IT Administrators.It is worth to mention that Windows® 10 manages the wireless connections by itself, in most cases custom PROset profiles are not required.Regards,Jonathan B.

[SEmer]

Hi Jonathan,

I should mention that the machines configured with this profile are able to connect to the same SSIDs in other areas of campus that are not configured with the high density settings on the AP.

So this is not a problem with improper SSIDs, keys or authentication. The fact that these laptops are able to connect manually shows that the problem is not an incompatibility with our APs or driver issues.

In talking with someone knowledgeable in Aerohive's hardware, he thought that the Proset profile might be preventing automatic negotiation of management frame data rates as that is one of the specific settings changes when dealing with an area of high load.

As I stated before, the only three things I am configuring via the ProSet tools are the SSID, TKIP Key and setting the band to 5GHz only.

One of the reasons we chose the Intel hardware is that the ProSet tools make it very easy to manage things like this as we have used it often in the past. Proset makes it easy to package and deploy wireless profiles to lab machines. If we wanted maximum compatibility with our APs and wanted to do all of this via scripting, we could have chosen Broadcom instead of Intel (that is what is in the guts of AeroHive). So in telling me not to use your tools is like telling me not to buy your hardware. ProSet tools should be a selling point, not a hinderance.

We are already using the latest version of everything.

Stephen in TN.

[idata]

Hello Stephen,

We will need additional information about the issue and environment to work on this. Please check your private messages.Regards,Jonathan B.

[SEmer]

OK, in case any other AeroHive users run into this.

Jonathan sent me the following link and after applying those specific settings along with changing encryption from TKIP to AES ( we use both), it started working great!

Before making the changes in the ProSet profile, it would not connect via either encryption scheme. Originally, I was only configuring the SSID, key, and frequency preferences via the profile.

- Apply the configuration from the advisory Recommended Settings for 802.11n Connectivity:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking/000005544.html http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking/000005544.html

Again, in our case, the cards would connect manually via the Windows interface without issue. Only the ProSet created profiles were having problems with our AeroHive high density configuration which is used in only one building.

Thank you Jonathan!

[idata]

Hello Stephen,

We are glad to know our recommendations helped you resolve the issue and that your systems are now working fine.This will be a good reference for other users as well.Regards,Jonathan B.