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I do wireless testing and analysis, and something interesting I saw on Wireshark today. An authentication frame an already associated client !. Why will it do that ?

Can you describe the client/AP conversation a little better? 

Did something timeout?  Was the client roaming? Was it the same BSSID?  Any heavy co-channel interference around?

Various scenarios could cause a WLAN client to authenticate to the AP again. Howard hinted at some, including interference causing a loss of connection, roaming attempts or possible connection timeouts depending on the system. The point is that, generally speaking, a currently associated client, should not be sending auth frames to the AP, but if it loses its connection, it may have to. This reconnection can happen quickly. Do you also see assoc frames or just auth frames?