Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Broadband Hardware => Topic started by: g3uiss on December 10, 2018, 02:47:45 PM
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Really odd issue ! Sometime last night my apple devices stopped getting the location from my WiFi. I proved it’s my location as my WiFi only iPad works at other WiFi locations. Noting has changed, and I’ve tried a reboot of the router but no change.
Also hard wired devices are not getting location data ( google maps on a pc hard wired).
No other issues with WiFi, all my other apple devices exibit the same issue if 4G off, and out of GPS range.
It’s not isp related as I have 2 services no change on either.
Tony
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That is rather odd. I can't think of any reason why that has occurred.
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No I can’t. I’ve proved the WiFi Ipad works ok on a public hotspot. I’ve put my Draytec 2925 on the latest firmware, I’ve even disabled the DSL and tried on 3G using a dongle !
I guess I need to test another router !
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Hi g3uisse
I would restart your apple devices and see if that cures it
We always use draytek and have for many years
The ios12 is causing an issue on Wi-Fi in that it is causing no internet available but this happens about once a month. Ios11 was fine
A reboot of the apple device allows Wi-Fi to work normally until the next time
Apologies if this is not the same issue
Many thanks
John
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John
No it’s not the issue. I can’t get location services over WiFi at my location.
My Dratec 2925 hasn’t had a problem it suddenly stopped providing location.
I’ve tried the devices on other WiFi locations with no issues work as normal.
I’ve just updated my 2925 to the latest firmware, as a last resort, didn’t fix the location issue but,. Now I have a problem with VPN DNS. I had forwarding set to my domain server DNS IP, and could resolve all devices over the vpn by netbios name. The settings are still there after the upgrade, but now I can only resolve by IP. As you use Dratecs perhaps you’ve come across this, although nothing to do with location issue.
UPDATE 2240. Found Draytec changed the settings in FW version. Now have to force router to use DNS server IP and DNS Forwarding no longer required !
Thoughts appreciated, still on location issue because im stumped :(
Tony
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In my limited understanding, there are two mechanisms by which your location is identified, when on WiFi.
Firstly, a guess might be made based on the IP address assigned to your broadband connection. These guesses are usually wildly innacurate
Alternatively, the MAC address of your AP, as sent in WiFi traffic, may have been recorded in a database. Such databases depend upon crowd-sourced data from devices (smartphones) within WiFi earshot of your AP. Such devices know location from GPS, so can “phone home” and add your AP’s location.
So, on the first point... does your ISP allocate fixed or dynamic addresses and if the latter, any chance it got assigned a different address about the time things changed?
On the second, have you changed any hardware items recently?
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In my limited understanding, there are two mechanisms by which your location is identified, when on WiFi.
Firstly, a guess might be made based on the IP address assigned to your broadband connection. These guesses are usually wildly innacurate
Alternatively, the MAC address of your AP, as sent in WiFi traffic, may have been recorded in a database. Such databases depend upon crowd-sourced data from devices (smartphones) within WiFi earshot of your AP. Such devices know location from GPS, so can “phone home” and add your AP’s location.
So, on the first point... does your ISP allocate fixed or dynamic addresses and if the latter, any chance it got assigned a different address about the time things changed?
No I’m on fixed IPs and not changed
On the second, have you changed any hardware items recently?
None
I’ve left my iPhone on overnight in the hope it might ring home, as it’s on 4G and the WiFi ! However it’s the same with Google so for both google and apple to stop is too much of a coincidence. I guess a router fault ?
[Moderator edited to fix the interleaving of queries and responses.]
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Will be interesting to follow, then. :)
But as regards crowd-sourced location data, whilst I don’t think any rules are set in concrete, I have sometimes imagined it may take more than one, as in ‘many’ updates, to be recognised.
Supposing for some reason your database entry were to be omitted, do you live at an address where a significant amount of passing traffic, be it on foot, car, bus, horseback or bicycle would be able to pick up your WiFi on their smartphones and update the databases?
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I don’t live with much passing traffic although I suspect all my neighbours have smart phones. I did think perhaps another neighbour had router problems and hence nothing to triangulate on.
I can’t say for certain if this is new, but I’m sure I used to see other SSID,s but now I don’t.
Also later last night I was for a short time to get a fix but it didn’t last long.
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Hi g3uiss
I have checked all 2925 we have access to, and all appear to be running lovely. Most of these are multi wan and trunked VPN’s
I was thinking last night, that it would be strange for a router/firewall to block location service as I guess it must use port 80 or 443, and that the idevice location service must drop down to cellular comms if Wi-Fi location not available.
I could be wrong with this though sorry. Perhaps 7LM may know better then me.
I would suggest, and apologies if you have already done so, but I would forget the network on the idevice, restart the idevice and make a new network connection.
It’s just a thought
Many thanks
John
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Stress again, 7LM is no expert, just thinking aloud.
D2d4j’s suggestion of restarting the devices is certainly worth a shot.
That said, another idea has occured to me...
I can’t say for certain if this is new, but I’m sure I used to see other SSID,s but now I don’t.
Also later last night I was for a short time to get a fix but it didn’t last long.
Is it possible that your own router has never been known on the location databases, but you previously had a neighbouring WiFi within earshot that was on the database? My understanding is that yield lead to a location somehere close to your neighbour and so by implication, close enough to yourself that it appeared correct.
If however your neigbour’s signal disapeared for any reason, you’d then lose that location. That would maybe explain why things were working and then suddenly stopped. But it would not explain why your own WiFi signal was not being used in the first place. ???
An interesting experiment would be see if ‘find my iphone’ can locate your various Apple devices. You can run that either in the App on an iOS device, or a browser at iCloud.
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Ok. Thanks think you have identified the issue. I took my WiFi only iPad outside in range of my own WiFi and saw some more SSID,s come up. Location worked immediately. Brought back in and although the other routers disappeared it hung on to the location for a little while.
I suspect it has been using one or more other routers around for triangulation, which one I don’t know but suspect they moved it so out of range inside my house.
Find my iPhone reported what I expected, it can find other devices but notes the WiFi only device as being on line but no location. It did work when I was outside.
So either my router is not now, or never was providing location data, or it needed a second which isn’t seen inside now.
I suspect to work it might need more than one router ? I’ve no proof but feel I’ve read somewhere.
Thanks 7LM, I’ve already been through the process John suggested, and the above sort of rues out any issue there I think.
Tony
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I suspect to work it might need more than one router ? I’ve no proof but feel I’ve read somewhere.
I was not aware of that, but the evidence supports your theory. :)
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Hi g3uiss and 7LM
Our iPhones/iPads work lovely through our drayteks, including 2925 as do our clients where they are situated.
So I do not believe you need 2 Wi-Fi points unless it drops to 4g, but we have Wi-Fi only ipads and can see the locations from find my phone
I could be entirely wrong on how it works though, so apologies in advance
@7LM - sorry I did not mean to infer you were extremely knowledgeable over apple, just that you may know more then myself
Many thanks
John
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Thanks John
I’m delighted you use Draytec routers, I’ve put a lot in clients over the years. I thought it was just me ! I never came across anyone using them before in a Comercial sense.
Well I’m still not sure how it works but I went outside with my WiFi only Ipad, with my local WiFi disabled, and could not get a location. It seems it needs to be online, or if my router is contributing to location ( I’m talking maps etc here not find my phone). I guess it’s some strange combination of location sources. I don’t think there is an answer unless someone with geolocation knowledge can shed a light.
Grateful for all the input from all
Tony
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No idea how Apple works this out.
With Google/Android if I connect my Android phone to an ISP router, with default SSID, and enable all the relevant location permissions, Google will pin that SSID you that location.
If I stood in the street some time later with a different phone, with GPS/3G/4G location off, and only WiFi location on, it directs straight to my house.
I've noticed this over the years and changing SSID used to lose the ability to get location from WiFi only.
However now I have so many unique ISP SSID's around me, any device be it Apple or Android, is pretty accurate at working out the location using WiFi only when in my house.
I used to use an SSID of BASE.
WiFi location wasn't as accurate with that.
I imagine that's a common SSID.
You could try changing SSID to something unique if it isn't already, if you want it to be more accurate.
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Can they not use MAC addresses? I know wireless broadcast packets contain them and they should be more unique than SSIDs.
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Well I’m still not sure how it works but I went outside with my WiFi only Ipad, with my local WiFi disabled, and could not get a location. It seems it needs to be online, or if my router is contributing to location ( I’m talking maps etc here not find my phone). I guess it’s some strange combination of location sources. I don’t think there is an answer unless someone with geolocation knowledge can shed a light.
By local wifi disabled you mean the ipad had no internet access? How would it perform the look up using the in range SSID/APs then? Its not like it stores a local database of all the wifi networks in the country to allow geolocation with no internet access.
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Can they not use MAC addresses? I know wireless broadcast packets contain them and they should be more unique than SSIDs.
My understanding is that they do indeed use MAC addresses rather than SSID. Otherwise, by accident or mischief, I think location errors would be so common as to render it all useless.
The SSID may still be examined in addition to MAC, eg I think Google and Microsoft look at the SSID in addition to MAC for certain patterns, such as ‘_nomap’ and ‘_optout’ that indicate an unwillingness to participate in the databases, but I did not think that SSID was used as any actual location identifier.
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By local wifi disabled you mean the ipad had no internet access? How would it perform the look up using the in range SSID/APs then? Its not like it stores a local database of all the wifi networks in the country to allow geolocation with no internet access.
Sorry it was just part of trying to isolate the issue. Obvious when you mentioned it
[Moderator edited to separate the questions and the answer.]
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Hi g3uiss
Sorry it’s a silly thought but if I understand correctly, you have multi wan.
Could it be that the location request is going out on 1 wan but using wan 2 for answer. Thinking load balancer here or lack of load balancer, where requests can use either wan, thereby splitting the requests
I suppose a quick test would be to unplug 1 wan of failover is turned on
It’s just a thought
Many thanks
John
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Hi g3uiss
Sorry it’s a silly thought but if I understand correctly, you have multi wan.
Yes exactly I do, and I’m going to try that and will report. Strange it changed suddenly, although I have forced the WiFi on to each wan, with no change, but will eliminate the possibility
Could it be that the location request is going out on 1 wan but using wan 2 for answer. Thinking load balancer here or lack of load balancer, where requests can use either wan, thereby splitting the requests
I suppose a quick test would be to unplug 1 wan of failover is turned on
It’s just a thought
Many thanks
John
[Moderator edited to separate the answer from the quoted block.]
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I am coming around to the idea that WiFi location would, sensibly, require signals from several APs, not just one.
Reason being firstly, if somebody moves house, when they fire up the router at new address, anybody using it might get the old location. That’s not only broken, it might also raise privacy concerns, as it may allow new neigbours to find the incomer’s previous address, without their knowledge.
There would also be a dillema, where exactly two WiFi signals are detected, but owing to circumstances such as above, are listed on databases as being hundreds of miles apart. Which one do you believe? I would suspect that in those circumstances, “location not known” would probably have to be reported.
It would therefor make sense to me if the rules required that at least two signals, that are already known on the existing databases to be close to one another, must be visible. Just guessing, as I have failed to find any documented evidence as to how it really works. :)
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7LM I’m of the same view, although no Tecnical nowledge to support it. Anyway if I need it to capture a location I just need to walk to front door.
I think your reasoning is spot on, for the reasons you quote.
Thanks Tony