Planning Center Check-Ins & Disconnecting iPads

Has anyone experienced connection issues with iPads running Planning Center Check-Ins? We are starting to see consistent issues on Sundays with our iPads losing connection. On the same access point we have dozens of clients connecting just fine, it seems to only be limited to the iPads running the Check-Ins app.

So far we’ve done the following to troubleshoot:

  • Replaced the closet switch
  • Added a better access point (Unifi AP-HD from AP-LR)
  • Removed the guest network from the AP-HD, leaving only the private network
  • Set static IPs for all iPads and Check-Ins printers
  • Ensured iPads iOS and Check-Ins app are up to date

Grasping at straws at this point! Any ideas?

There are quite a few things here left unclear…

  • Are you actually being disconnected from WiFi during this period or does the WiFi just not work?
  • Are the devices connected on 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz WiFi?
  • How far is the AP from the iPads?
  • Are all the iPads running Checkins in a common area? Or are they all over the campus?
  • How/Where are you runnign a UniFi controller. Is it fully up to date?

To answer your question directly, no… I have 5 iPads all over our mobile church campus on WiFi with printers also on WiFi and we have zero issues with them. Start with the questions above and we can go from there.

To add some color, older versions of the UniFi Hardware/Software had
non-disable able proprietary power saving options that tended to cause
mobile devices to totally disconnect from wifi when idle. Generally
speaking, the symptom we’d see is between services the devices would
disconnect completely and would require a tad bit of fiddling to get
them going again.

These days, as long as you don’t have any odd configuration settings and
reasonable signal quality I wouldn’t expect too much trouble from that
combination.

Thanks, Alex. The equipment is all new within the last year. I’ll double check the various hardware settings just to be thorough.

One odd thing that I need to verify fully, though, is that it appears all other devices are connecting to the Internet just fine. All observation shows it to be localized to the iPads running Check-Ins. Again, need to verify that more.

Thanks, Chris, for your response

Answers to your questions -

  • Are you actually being disconnected from WiFi during this period or does the WiFi just not work?
    Wifi is connected but does not work
  • Are the devices connected on 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz WiFi?
    Good call out. I checked this on Sunday and they’re connecting to 2.4Ghz to my surprise.
  • How far is the AP from the iPads?
    ~50 feet with line of sight.
  • Are all the iPads running Checkins in a common area? Or are they all over the campus?
    All in one area
  • How/Where are you runnign a UniFi controller. Is it fully up to date?
    We are running a fully up to date controller on a cloud key gen1

I want to add a clarifying point here that changes things. I was just told that Internet works, but not Check-Ins. Sorry, I’m diagnosing the issue from another campus so information is coming in over time.

Hi Jon, we had similar check-in issues, specifically with our Zebra printers disconnecting since they needed to be on a 2.4ghz channel. We moved all our iPads and printers onto a separate VLAN and have resolved all our issues.