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    Random slow internet on all apple devices only

    General pfSense Questions
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    • ?
      Guest
      last edited by

      Have you tested it on other wireless networks? (friends/McDonalds/Starbucks/Chickfa) How is the performance over the air? How is it slow, as in it starts loading an image and takes a while ("drawing" the image) … or does it take a while to even begin loading, but is fast once it begins? Are they plugged in when you test (something that might trigger a profile/battery-saving change)?

      don't trust anything ookla based (speedtest.net etc..).

      Has your iOS been updated recently? Do you use any applications on the iDevices like a task manager? How many iDevices have you tried and are they all running the same flavor of iOS?

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      • B
        bobber10
        last edited by

        @heavy1metal:

        Have you tested it on other wireless networks? (friends/McDonalds/Starbucks/Chickfa) How is the performance over the air? How is it slow, as in it starts loading an image and takes a while ("drawing" the image) … or does it take a while to even begin loading, but is fast once it begins? Are they plugged in when you test (something that might trigger a profile/battery-saving change)?

        don't trust anything ookla based (speedtest.net etc..).

        Has your iOS been updated recently? Do you use any applications on the iDevices like a task manager? How many iDevices have you tried and are they all running the same flavor of iOS?

        Yes i have tested on friends networks as well as my guest network and the performance is good. It takes a while to even begin loading. They are not plugged in during testing. Why dont you like ookla tests? IOS has not been updated recently and they are all running ios 8. Dont use any task managers.

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        • T
          tim.mcmanus
          last edited by

          You could try backing up your pfSense settings and resetting it to factory defaults.  Quickly get WiFi and the Internet up and running, and see if that improves things.  Then you can revert back to your saved settings to get everything back prior to testing.

          This is a very odd issue.

          Ookla tests are optimized and their testing can be compressed to artificially test bandwidth.  Here is a different bandwidth test tool that may provide alternative results.

          http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ?
            Guest
            last edited by

            @bobber10:

            @heavy1metal:

            Have you tested it on other wireless networks? (friends/McDonalds/Starbucks/Chickfa) How is the performance over the air? How is it slow, as in it starts loading an image and takes a while ("drawing" the image) … or does it take a while to even begin loading, but is fast once it begins? Are they plugged in when you test (something that might trigger a profile/battery-saving change)?

            don't trust anything ookla based (speedtest.net etc..).

            Has your iOS been updated recently? Do you use any applications on the iDevices like a task manager? How many iDevices have you tried and are they all running the same flavor of iOS?

            Yes i have tested on friends networks as well as my guest network and the performance is good. It takes a while to even begin loading. They are not plugged in during testing. Why dont you like ookla tests? IOS has not been updated recently and they are all running ios 8. Dont use any task managers.

            As Tim said regarding ookla, their results are inflated and their test methods aren't accurate.

            After it's slow to begin loading, is it fast loading? Does your guest network bypass pfsense?

            Generally the initial loading would be it trying to resolve DNS names. Are you blocking any ranges of IPs via pfblocker or some other IP list? Have you tried connecting to a website directly via its IP?

            I also would suggest what Tim said, backup your config and give pfsense a clean install, see if the problem persists.

            Sorry for the bombarding of questions, just trying to get a little more on what's happening in the background.

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            • B
              bobber10
              last edited by

              @heavy1metal:

              @bobber10:

              @heavy1metal:

              Have you tested it on other wireless networks? (friends/McDonalds/Starbucks/Chickfa) How is the performance over the air? How is it slow, as in it starts loading an image and takes a while ("drawing" the image) … or does it take a while to even begin loading, but is fast once it begins? Are they plugged in when you test (something that might trigger a profile/battery-saving change)?

              don't trust anything ookla based (speedtest.net etc..).

              Has your iOS been updated recently? Do you use any applications on the iDevices like a task manager? How many iDevices have you tried and are they all running the same flavor of iOS?

              Yes i have tested on friends networks as well as my guest network and the performance is good. It takes a while to even begin loading. They are not plugged in during testing. Why dont you like ookla tests? IOS has not been updated recently and they are all running ios 8. Dont use any task managers.

              As Tim said regarding ookla, their results are inflated and their test methods aren't accurate.

              After it's slow to begin loading, is it fast loading? Does your guest network bypass pfsense?

              Generally the initial loading would be it trying to resolve DNS names. Are you blocking any ranges of IPs via pfblocker or some other IP list? Have you tried connecting to a website directly via its IP?

              I also would suggest what Tim said, backup your config and give pfsense a clean install, see if the problem persists.

              Sorry for the bombarding of questions, just trying to get a little more on what's happening in the background.

              its hard to say, it seems after i click on an image on instagram it shows the loading screen but doesnt move for a couple of seconds and then all of the sudden it loads it fast. I have a dns app on my iphone that is basically equivlant to the dig command from bind so it shows lookup times, it doesnt seem that the lookups are slow by any means, always below 70ms. Not blocking anything besides the bogon networks.

              Just did a complete reinstall of pfsense with a usb stick and then changed the config back to how i had it manually instead of restore because i wanted to make sure that wouldnt cause an issue somehow. Still getting this problem.

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              • DerelictD
                Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                last edited by

                Does it affect macs too?  Run ICSI netalyzr

                Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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                • F
                  firewalluser
                  last edited by

                  Travel time will be the same but you have the browser overhead handling the encryption and the webserver overhead handling the encryption, the fw and everything in between will just route the tcp/ip packets.

                  Capitalism, currently The World's best Entertainment Control System and YOU cant buy it! But you can buy this, or some of this or some of these

                  Asch Conformity, mainly the blind leading the blind.

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                  • P
                    preid
                    last edited by

                    I use a lot of Ubiquiti APs myself, and if you run over to their forums, you'll find mention of Apple devices not playing nice with various wireless hardware (not just Ubiquiti). Certain firmware combinations of Apple devices and wireless hardware will often result in disconnects, slow downs, and other random issues. I've run into it with Ubiquiti, Cisco, SonicWALL, and various consumer-grade APs over the years.

                    Try upgrading the firmware on your Ubiquiti APs (which means upgrading the Ubiquiti controller software, which will then allow you to roll out the new firmware to the APs after). It may well solve the issue, and maybe even speed things up for other devices.

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                    • B
                      bobber10
                      last edited by

                      @preid:

                      I use a lot of Ubiquiti APs myself, and if you run over to their forums, you'll find mention of Apple devices not playing nice with various wireless hardware (not just Ubiquiti). Certain firmware combinations of Apple devices and wireless hardware will often result in disconnects, slow downs, and other random issues. I've run into it with Ubiquiti, Cisco, SonicWALL, and various consumer-grade APs over the years.

                      Try upgrading the firmware on your Ubiquiti APs (which means upgrading the Ubiquiti controller software, which will then allow you to roll out the new firmware to the APs after). It may well solve the issue, and maybe even speed things up for other devices.

                      Whats wierd though is that the ubiquiti was doing fine not long ago. And my firmware is already updated fully, its set to auto update. So im not sure what to do here.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • G
                        grandrivers
                        last edited by

                        i had similar or identical issue and didn't trouble shoot it correctly but removed from my mac book pro the connection to iphone and everything returned to normal was capped at like 5m down and under 1m up this only affected the unifi ap that they were connected to

                        pfsense 2.4 super micro A1SRM-2558F
                        C2558 8gig ECC  60gig SSD
                        tripple Wan dual pppoe

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                        • DerelictD
                          Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                          last edited by

                          @bobber10:

                          Whats wierd though is that the ubiquiti was doing fine not long ago. And my firmware is already updated fully, its set to auto update. So im not sure what to do here.

                          Maybe an automatic update broke it?

                          Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                          A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                          DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                          Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • P
                            preid
                            last edited by

                            @Derelict:

                            @bobber10:

                            Whats wierd though is that the ubiquiti was doing fine not long ago. And my firmware is already updated fully, its set to auto update. So im not sure what to do here.

                            Maybe an automatic update broke it?

                            I'm betting this was the cause. I always turn off automatic updating on everything. I don't like production environments changing on their own because of this kind of mysterious stuff happening and the resulting hours of tracking down what updated itself and broke stuff. I view it as working on your car's engine while you're trying to drive it - it's just bananas.

                            Maybe try rolling back a version on the Ubiquiti controller?

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                            • F
                              firewalluser
                              last edited by

                              Not only that some automatic updates require a reboot and until they get a reboot parts of systems can stop working properly and not all updates force a reboot automatically either.

                              Plus some updates do break stuff which doesnt show up in testing, so with an automatic update who wants to be the first to test the updates in production when its automatically rolled out only to have to roll back the updates having wasted loads of time and money troubleshooting.

                              Updates should be done on your terms when you are satisfied its a good update.

                              I'm remind of one of many MS Windows updates where they changed an API which wasnt ending with an A for Ansi or a W for Unicode, it was one of the early days API, but the update deprecated the existing API and introduced two new API's ending with A or W. That update broke so much code in production as it was a very commonly used API in lots and lots of software they had to scramble fast to resolve it, but if you didnt do your updates when they were released you didnt get hit by it as they fixed the problem after a couple of weeks but it still took their support processes that long to track down the problem and get it elevated upto development to resolve which is why programmers/devs should not be treated as gods. That MS dev god got it horribly wrong.

                              Big IT companies are no better in many ways than small IT companies, sometimes they are actually worse, they just have economies of scale on their side which helps their lobbying and marketing budgets to convince the unquestioning public. Sometimes it pays to be different.  :)

                              Capitalism, currently The World's best Entertainment Control System and YOU cant buy it! But you can buy this, or some of this or some of these

                              Asch Conformity, mainly the blind leading the blind.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • B
                                bobber10
                                last edited by

                                @preid:

                                @Derelict:

                                @bobber10:

                                Whats wierd though is that the ubiquiti was doing fine not long ago. And my firmware is already updated fully, its set to auto update. So im not sure what to do here.

                                Maybe an automatic update broke it?

                                I'm betting this was the cause. I always turn off automatic updating on everything. I don't like production environments changing on their own because of this kind of mysterious stuff happening and the resulting hours of tracking down what updated itself and broke stuff. I view it as working on your car's engine while you're trying to drive it - it's just bananas.

                                Maybe try rolling back a version on the Ubiquiti controller?

                                Went on ubquitis website and found this: http://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Updates-Blog/bg-p/Blog_UniFi

                                No new updates to their software has occured since March 2015.

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                                • P
                                  preid
                                  last edited by

                                  @bobber10:

                                  Went on ubquitis website and found this: http://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Updates-Blog/bg-p/Blog_UniFi

                                  No new updates to their software has occured since March 2015.

                                  It'll be a combination of the Ubiquiti firmware and the Apple firmware. If the latest Apple update was unfriendly to the latest Ubiquiti firmware, then things are suddenly broken. It's typically not an issue with Ubiquiti's firmware - it's usually Apple.

                                  Apple is well known to be a thorn in the side of many wireless AP manufacturers. They all have knowledge base articles related to Apple devices having issues - Ubiquiti, SonicWALL, Cisco, Rukus, HP…the list goes on.

                                  That's not to say that Apple is the antichrist of wireless. Other devices have their problems, too, but Apple seems to have more issues than most for whatever reason. Once issues are identified with the new Apple firmware, the wireless guys all scramble to try and inject a fix to compensate for whatever the issue is. Pretty much every wireless stack has little hacks for certain devices that they use to keep everything happy.

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                                  • T
                                    Trel
                                    last edited by

                                    @fmaxwell:

                                    @bobber10:

                                    (probably because they are apple people so dont understand the underlying technology and cannot be bothered too)

                                    Prejudice and stereotyping, on any basis, is never appropriate.

                                    I switched to Apple products after three decades because I do "understand the underlying technology."  I was using a Network General Sniffer Network Analyzer years before most people even knew such things existed.  I've written real-time, multitasking kernels for embedded systems, including satellite ground support equipment.  I've got more electronic test equipment in my home than I could even name.

                                    Some of us became "Apple people" because we tired of creaky, plastic computers built on the cheap running operating systems that were more pasted together than architected.

                                    Out of curiosity, you're using a Firewall based off of FreeBSD and claim that OSX is architected rather than pasted together.  Isn't basing your OS on another the very definition of pasting together?

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                                    • B
                                      bobber10
                                      last edited by

                                      @preid:

                                      @bobber10:

                                      Went on ubquitis website and found this: http://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Updates-Blog/bg-p/Blog_UniFi

                                      No new updates to their software has occured since March 2015.

                                      It'll be a combination of the Ubiquiti firmware and the Apple firmware. If the latest Apple update was unfriendly to the latest Ubiquiti firmware, then things are suddenly broken. It's typically not an issue with Ubiquiti's firmware - it's usually Apple.

                                      Apple is well known to be a thorn in the side of many wireless AP manufacturers. They all have knowledge base articles related to Apple devices having issues - Ubiquiti, SonicWALL, Cisco, Rukus, HP…the list goes on.

                                      That's not to say that Apple is the antichrist of wireless. Other devices have their problems, too, but Apple seems to have more issues than most for whatever reason. Once issues are identified with the new Apple firmware, the wireless guys all scramble to try and inject a fix to compensate for whatever the issue is. Pretty much every wireless stack has little hacks for certain devices that they use to keep everything happy.

                                      Haven't had any iOS updates on any of my iOS devices and it seemed to happened to all of them at once.

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                                      • P
                                        preid
                                        last edited by

                                        @bobber10:

                                        Haven't had any iOS updates on any of my iOS devices and it seemed to happened to all of them at once.

                                        If there hasn't been any updates on either the Apple devices or the Ubiquiti hardware, then it sounds like it's time to do some sniffing to determine why the Apple devices aren't happy. It doesn't smell like a router issue, though, if other devices are happy.

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                                        • B
                                          bobber10
                                          last edited by

                                          @preid:

                                          @bobber10:

                                          Haven't had any iOS updates on any of my iOS devices and it seemed to happened to all of them at once.

                                          If there hasn't been any updates on either the Apple devices or the Ubiquiti hardware, then it sounds like it's time to do some sniffing to determine why the Apple devices aren't happy. It doesn't smell like a router issue, though, if other devices are happy.

                                          What software should I employ to sniff the traffic?

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                                          • DerelictD
                                            Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                                            last edited by

                                            Did you ever say whether this behaviour was also on wired devices?  If not, then I'd mirror the switch port connected to the access point and use wireshark.

                                            Sniffing the wi-fi itself is tougher.

                                            No counters in the ubiquiti that point at anything?

                                            I have a house full of Apple stuff but no ubiquiti.  I never notice or hear anything about it.  Ranging from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 6 with pretty much everything in between.

                                            Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                                            A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                                            DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                                            Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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