@benmott Thanks for sharing. It’s very possible that you’re seeing the issue in that app as that would affect visibility on the printer list (as well as functionality).
Do any other devices use that printer via AirPrint? If so, do you know if they experience issues at the same time as the iPhones? Or not? Have you noticed if the phones are always on the same band and/or AP during the time of issue? Or no?
Did you try the Bypass Filter option as @rutman286 suggested? If so, has there been any change in reliability (positive, negative, or otherwise)?
@Techout oh, sorry, it was a few posts after his first post in this topic (he’s not the OP, if that matters). If you’d like to check it, please see HERE.
Thanks everyone for the tips!
I think I’ve narrowed it down a little but not entirely.
The SSID I was using and having intermittent issues is on an enterprise radius network. That means that there are no settings available like bypass hotspot, bypass filter, or ignore schedule. Those are currently only available on the regular network types. Maybe a nice addition for the future? My guess is these features are essentially always bypassed or not even processed for the enterprise network type based on my findings below.
I was testing on another regular SSID with similar specs (VLAN1, same AP group, same iPhone) and noticed something. When my iPhone first connected it used the Apple Private WiFi Address feature. Instantly all the items listed under Bonjour Browser were gone. The only thing that eventually came up were my other Apple devices. No Google Home Speakers, no printer, etc. I turned off the Apple Private WiFi Address feature and boom! All the devices were back to how it looked under my enterprise SSID. I then went in and enabled the bypass filter under the regular SSID I was testing with and then with or without the Apple Private WiFi Address feature the items in Bonjour Browser remained like normal now. It seems like it’s blocking that feature or something. Is this an Alta issue or an Apple issue? I don’t have any filters setup at all, so I’m not sure why bypassing it makes a difference.
Yeah if your connecting device to device like this (Printer, AirPlay, Chromecast, IoT, etc) use the standard network type. IoT is fine for those but anything to do with local network discovery you need to use standard (no large network, no enterprise settings, no guest network) all those have certain firewall rules and have been blocking traffic like this.
It should work on a regular Enterprise SSID as by default those are also configured as Standard network type. Network types can be set like under advanced settings, but not the settings like bypass hotspot, filter or ignore schedule (those likely don’t apply to Enterprise networks, but I’ll have to confirm that).
Good to know it works with Bypass Filter enabled, regardless of the Private Wi-Fi Address setting. I will do some testing here to investigate this further, and follow up.
I just had this issue as well. Airplay would not work as well as a wifi room light I had would not be accessible even though they were getting an IP on the correct vlan. As soon as I turned on the bypass filter option, it started working. Network is setup as Standard with specific vLan assigned.
The “Filter” seems to be blocking this traffic even if nothing has been added to the filter to be blocked. @Alta-MattH@Alta-MikeD can you give insight into this? What if we want to use airprint but then also want to block something like say TikToK, seems like you cant have both and turning on bypass filter is a workaround but no real reason why this is filtered by default.
Even having bypass filter doesn’t work reliably for me. This multicast problem is keeping me from using and deploying Alta right now.
I am currently trying an experiment with all advanced settings left to default, except enabling IGMP Proxy. I should not have to enable this, and I don’t think it is the right answer, but it’s the only thing I still haven’t tried.
No good for me. multicast devices only stay connected for almost exactly 2 hours, then they disappear one by one. I have not found any combination of settings that make it stable.
I guess I spoke too soon, it worked for 10 minutes… @Alta-MikeD@Alta-MattH whats the deal here? I’m also now receiving complaints that people can’t connect to Roku devices via the mobile app any more either.
What management vlan do you have set for the AP’s?
When I originally added them they were on vlan1. I just deleted them and re-added them to the site and they added with vlan0 and things seem to be working (for the last 10 minutes that is. I’ll let you know how this goes after a few hours.
Deleted SSID, recreated same SSID with only setting a password and standard for network type. It worked for 4 minutes. Something is kicking in after 4 minutes and blocking the traffic.
I had lots of issues with IoT devices, AirPlay and AirPrint. Since I set my SSIDs to Large and enabled Fast Roaming, IGMP Proxy and BSS Transition in the advanced settings, I have been issue free for about two weeks now.
