topic Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity in Wireless

CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Mats Nilson — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 22:25:11 GMT

Hi WiFi fellows!

I am struggling to make sense in how a CW9176i will be able to obtain its regulatory domain using proximity since its wireless interfaces will be disabled until it has resolved its regulatory domain. A catch 22 moment.

Placing it in a window works fine, but that is not how I need it to work. My idea is to use another CW9176i as seed device for new access points, since that is what the documentation says: "For APs, deep inside a floor, where it cannot have a clear sky view, it can learn its country from a neighboring AP, which could be i) a legacy AP that is already connected to the same WLC or ii) another CW917x AP, which had obtained its location through GPS/GNSS, called the Anchor AP, by listening to the NDP messages that is transmitted over air. This is called Proximity based discovery." How is that possible without the radios being operational???

After the ap joins the controller it clearly states that it cannot enable ANY wireless interface:

”**** Error message after AP join: ****

[*03/13/2026 11:24:21.5778] AP tag  change to my-sitetag

[*03/13/2026 11:25:20.6059] Sending proximity_request payload

[*03/13/2026 11:25:20.6091] SinglePID Regulatory Blob resolution: Country Code not available

[*03/13/2026 11:26:24.6331] Sending proximity_request payload
[*03/13/2026 11:26:24.6353] SinglePID Regulatory Blob resolution: Country Code not available
[*03/13/2026 11:27:19.6556] Sending proximity_request payload
[*03/13/2026 11:27:19.6580] SinglePID Regulatory Blob resolution: Country Code not available
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6252] Radio Administrative state ENABLED  change to DISABLED
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6326] DOT11_DRV[0]: Stop Radio0 - Begin
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6363] DOT11_DRV[0]: Stop Radio0 - End
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6365] wlan: [0:I:CMN_MLME] mlme_ext_vap_down: VAP (mon0) is down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6394] wlan: [0:I:CMN_MLME] mlme_ext_vap_down: VAP (apr0v1) is down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6426] wlan: [0:I:CMN_MLME] mlme_ext_vap_down: VAP (apr0v2) is down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6427] wlan: [0:I:CMN_MLME] mlme_ext_vap_down: VAP (apr0v4) is down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.9458] DOT11_CFG[2]: Country domain mismatch detected Country:SE, Country domain:E Regulatory Class:UN
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.9465] DOT11_CFG[2]: Setting 2 radio down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.9504] DOT11_CFG[1]: Country domain mismatch detected Country:SE, Country domain:E Regulatory Class:UN
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.9708] DOT11_CFG[1]: Setting 1 radio down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.9741] DOT11_CFG[0]: Country domain mismatch detected Country:SE, Country domain:E Regulatory Class:UN
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.9777] DOT11_CFG[0]: Setting 0 radio down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:52.2639] Radio Administrative state DISABLED  change to ENABLED
[*03/13/2026 11:27:52.2647] DOT11_CFG[0]: Country domain mismatch detected Country:SE, Country domain:E Regulatory Class:UN
[*03/13/2026 11:27:52.2648] DOT11_CFG[0]: Setting 0 radio down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:52.2746] DOT11_CFG[0]: Country domain mismatch detected Country:SE, Country domain:E Regulatory Class:UN
[*03/13/2026 11:27:52.2747] DOT11_CFG[0]: Setting 0 radio down
[*03/13/2026 11:27:52.2753] DOT11_CFG[0]: Country domain mismatch detected Country:SE, Country domain:E Regulatory Class:UN
[*03/13/2026 11:28:23.6810] Sending proximity_request payload
[*03/13/2026 11:28:23.6833] SinglePID Regulatory Blob resolution: Country Code not available
[*03/13/2026 11:28:56.2935] Re-Tx Count=1, Max Re-Tx Value=5, SendSeqNum=115, NumofPendingMsgs=2
[*03/13/2026 11:28:56.2935]
[*03/13/2026 11:28:59.2945] Re-Tx Count=2, Max Re-Tx Value=5, SendSeqNum=115, NumofPendingMsgs=2
[*03/13/2026 11:28:59.2945]
[*03/13/2026 11:29:02.2956] Re-Tx Count=3, Max Re-Tx Value=5, SendSeqNum=115, NumofPendingMsgs=2
[*03/13/2026 11:29:02.2956]
[*03/13/2026 11:29:05.2967] Re-Tx Count=4, Max Re-Tx Value=5, SendSeqNum=115, NumofPendingMsgs=2
[*03/13/2026 11:29:05.2967]
[*03/13/2026 11:29:08.2978] Re-Tx Count=5, Max Re-Tx Value=5, SendSeqNum=115, NumofPendingMsgs=2”

Checking controllers dot11 radio 0 shows following:
Radio RC stats:
====================
Last radio RC(70): Total 2 RC_Count:2 FC_Count:0 Start 0
Normal:
Code Reason Count State 
When
70 Radio down due to invalid regulatory domain 2 STOP Fri Mar 13 11:29:30
2026 UTC
Failure:
No radio resets

So what am I doing wrong? There is two working CW9176i connected to the same switch and just a few meters from this access point, but it will not detect these access points either by air or wire.

On the controller, the wireless country is set, the AP joint profile is set with the corresponding country code, but without GPS these access points will not set the wireless regulatory domain.

Any suggestions are appreciated

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Leo Laohoo — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 22:40:19 GMT

Please post the complete output to the following commands:

sh ap geolocation gnss-capable summary 
sh ap geolocation summary

We had the same issue, i. e. I have a brand new site and 9176.

Our solution was to do a Hill-Billy and connect a 9176 and drag it out with a long cable until the AP was able to detect the GPS satellite.

Lucky for us this new site is just a single-story building. Imagine what it would be like for a tall- to very tall building!

I think there was mention somewhere in the documentation of a GPS "assisted" antenna that one can purchase.

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

pieterh — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:33:46 GMT

I have no actual experience with this model, but....
transmission is limited by regulatory domains, but receiving is not.
thus the transmitter can be disabled to avoid sending on frequencies outside the local regulatory domain

then again, some frequencies are allowed on any regulatory domain
-> limited transmission is possible
in all cases the AP can still receive signals (broadcasts?) from other AP's, but it cannot respond

and this could allways be a bug....... https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCwo39523
-> check the logs if the existing access point has successfully set the regulatory domain from GPS/GNSS
if not, it cannot respond to the proximity request.

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Mats Nilson — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:33:05 GMT

Hi all.

I did some more tests and put all access points on another switch also in the ap provisioneing setup I done. I factory reset (command) the ap unable to retrieve proximity from the other aps, but still though I had configured the country code manually the ap wouldn't register the regulatory domain even though it was very near the seed access point. The documentation states that either cdp or lldp must be present but since I only had checked cdp I didn't bother checking lldp. Doing so showed that it was disabled and after enabling lldp run

I restarted the access point, but it wasn't until I did a factory reset by reset button it did discover regulatory domain by proximity!

wlc#sh ap name APCC6E.2A69.CE00 config general | i Country
Country Code                                    : SE
Regulatory Domain Allowed by Country            : 802.11bg:-E   802.11a:-E   802.11 6GHz:-E
AP Country Code                                 : SE  - Sweden
Country Code Resolution Method                  : Proximity

I find this a bit surprising since both cdp and lldp sholdn't transverse the connecting interface/port. Is it the WLC that enables something during the discovery?

Here's the complete output from the diagnostic commands in WLC:

wlc#sh ap geolocation gnss-capable summary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AP Name                      Radio MAC          GPS Coverage    Antenna Type  Last GPS fix
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0             9056.7163.9b20     Yes             Internal      03/16/2026 08:40:21
APCC6E.2A69.CE00             9056.7163.9da0     No              Internal      NA
APCC6E.2A69.CD90             9056.7163.a020     Yes             Internal      03/16/2026 08:39:24

***********************
wlc#sh ap geolocation summary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AP Name                      Radio MAC          Location  Location Longitude   Latitude    Major-axis Minor-axis Orientation Height Height   Height        Height
                                                Type      Source   (degrees)   (degrees)   (meters)   (meters)   (degrees)   Type   (meters) Uncertainty   Source                                                                                                                                       (meters)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0             9056.7163.9b20     Ellipse   GNSS     17.612976   59.204542   41         41         0.000000    NA     NA       NA            NA
APCC6E.2A69.CE00             9056.7163.9da0     Ellipse   Derived  17.612976   59.204542   49         49         0.000000    NA     NA       NA            NA
APCC6E.2A69.CD90             9056.7163.a020     Ellipse   GNSS     17.612723   59.205027   164        30         171.000000  NA     NA       NA            NA

**************************
wlc#sh ap lldp neighbors
Capability Codes:
         (R) Router, (B) Bridge, (T) Telephone, (C) DOCSIS Cable Device
         (W) WLAN Access Point, (P) Repeater, (S) Station, (O) Other
AP Name                          AP Interface                        Neighbor Name                    Neighbor MAC         Port ID                   Mgmt. Address             Capabilities      Last updated time
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0                 GigabitEthernet0                    Staging_AP_switch     0077.8d7c.ea80       Te1/0/46                  None                      B                 03/16/2026 08:57:11
APCC6E.2A69.CE00                 GigabitEthernet0                    Staging_AP_switch     0077.8d7c.ea80       Te1/0/38                  None                      B                 03/16/2026 08:56:13
APCC6E.2A69.CD90                 GigabitEthernet0                    Staging_AP_switch     0077.8d7c.ea80       Te1/0/37                  None                      B                 03/16/2026 08:57:09

********************************
wlc#sh ap cdp neighbors
Number of neighbors: 3
AP Name                          AP IP                                     Neighbor Name                              Neighbor IP        Neighbor Port
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0                 172.16.127.13                             Staging_AP_switch               0.0.0.0            TenGigabitEthernet1/0/46
APCC6E.2A69.CE00                 172.16.127.11                             Staging_AP_switch               0.0.0.0            TenGigabitEthernet1/0/38
APCC6E.2A69.CD90                 172.16.127.12                             Staging_AP_switch               0.0.0.0            TenGigabitEthernet1/0/37

**********************

wlc#sh ap summary
Number of APs: 4
CC = Country Code
RD = Regulatory Domain
AP Name                          Slots AP Model             Ethernet MAC   Radio MAC      CC   RD   IP Address                                State        Location
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0                 3     CW9176I              cc6e.2a69.cdf0 9056.7163.9b20 SE   -E   172.16.127.13                             Registered   default location
APCC6E.2A69.CE00                 3     CW9176I              cc6e.2a69.ce00 9056.7163.9da0 SE   -E   172.16.127.11                             Registered   default location
APCC6E.2A69.CD90                 3     CW9176I              cc6e.2a69.cd90 9056.7163.a020 SE   -E   172.16.127.12                             Registered   default location
APCC6E.2A69.CCF0                 3     CW9176I              cc6e.2a69.ccf0 9056.7163.a660 SE   -E   172.16.127.14                             Registered   default location

*************************
wlc#sh ap name APCC6E.2A69.CCF0 config general | i Country
Country Code                                    : SE
Regulatory Domain Allowed by Country            : 802.11bg:-E   802.11a:-E   802.11 6GHz:-E
AP Country Code                                 : SE  - Sweden
Country Code Resolution Method                  : Proximity

wlc#sh ap name APCC6E.2A69.CD90 config general | i Country
Country Code                                    : SE
Regulatory Domain Allowed by Country            : 802.11bg:-E   802.11a:-E   802.11 6GHz:-E
AP Country Code                                 : SE  - Sweden
Country Code Resolution Method                  : GPS

wlc#sh ap name APCC6E.2A69.CE00 config general | i Country
Country Code                                    : SE
Regulatory Domain Allowed by Country            : 802.11bg:-E   802.11a:-E   802.11 6GHz:-E
AP Country Code                                 : SE  - Sweden
Country Code Resolution Method                  : Proximity

wlc#sh ap name APCC6E.2A69.CDF0 config general | i Country
Country Code                                    : SE
Regulatory Domain Allowed by Country            : 802.11bg:-E   802.11a:-E   802.11 6GHz:-E
AP Country Code                                 : SE  - Sweden
Country Code Resolution Method                  : GPS

******************************
wlc#sh ap geolocation sum
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AP Name                      Radio MAC          Location  Location Longitude   Latitude    Major-axis Minor-axis Orientation Height Height   Height        Height
                                                Type      Source   (degrees)   (degrees)   (meters)   (meters)   (degrees)   Type   (meters) Uncertainty   Source

                                                                                                                                      (meters)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0             9056.7163.9b20     Ellipse   GNSS     17.613746   59.204958   51         13         35.000000   NA     NA       NA            NA
APCC6E.2A69.CD90             9056.7163.a020     Ellipse   GNSS     17.613477   59.205022   72         67         47.000000   NA     NA       NA            NA
APCC6E.2A69.CCF0             9056.7163.a660     Ellipse   GNSS     17.613717   59.204516   64         64         0.000000    NA     NA       NA            NA
***************************
wlc#sh ap geolocation gnss-capable sum
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AP Name                      Radio MAC          GPS Coverage    Antenna Type  Last GPS fix
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0             9056.7163.9b20     Yes             Internal      03/16/2026 11:40:21
APCC6E.2A69.CD90             9056.7163.a020     Yes             Internal      03/16/2026 11:39:24
APCC6E.2A69.CCF0             9056.7163.a660     Yes             Internal      03/16/2026 11:42:30

****************************

I hope this may help other struggling with similar issues.

Sincere Regards /Mats

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Mats Nilson — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:31:20 GMT

See my text below. It seems that both cdp and lldp must be present för the access point to receive proximity information.

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

pieterh — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 19:41:09 GMT

found answer to your question How is that possible without the radios being operational?? in:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/technical-reference/global-use-ap-dg.html
section: Proximity based discovery – Learn from the nearby APs
...
The Wi-Fi 7 APs listen to the RF NDP messages on the 2.4 GHz channels and learn the country code.
=> Note: Proximity based discovery will NOT work, if 2.4 GHz network is disabled. It’s mandatory to turn it

you need not be afraid to be non-compliant when turning the radio on without regulatory domain set.
somewhere else in the document you can find
Till the time, the AP obtains the country code, it will have -UN as the regulatory domain.

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Stefan Mihajlov — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 20:05:33 GMT

@Mats Nilson Manually set country code directly in AP join profile or AP group on wlc, so the AP receives its regulatory domain via CAPWAP before attempting to bring up radios — no GPS or proximity needed....

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Mats Nilson — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:02:31 GMT

Thanks Pieter, but no - before AP has gotten a regulatory domain it WILL keep its radio interfaces shutdown, - Catch 22. Maybe this behavior changes with the code?

It seems Meraki salesforce has had too much influence on engineering...

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Mats Nilson — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:33:14 GMT

That is not how I found it to work; if the WLC has no country set in the default ap-join profile the newly added ap will receive the correct country code from [wireless country XX] in the wlc IF it can obtain the regulatory domain by proximity or GPS.

Even with the correct country code the AP radio interfaces will be shutdown if regulatory domain is unresolved (-UN)

wlc#sh ap geolocation summary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AP Name                      Radio MAC          Location  Location Longitude   Latitude    Major-axis Minor-axis Orientation Height Height   Height        Height
                                                Type      Source   (degrees)   (degrees)   (meters)   (meters)   (degrees)   Type   (meters) Uncertainty   Source                                                                                                                                       (meters)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APCC6E.2A69.CDF0             9056.7163.9b20     Ellipse   GNSS     17.612976   59.204542   41         41         0.000000    NA     NA       NA            NA
APCC6E.2A69.CE00             9056.7163.9da0     Ellipse   Derived  17.612976   59.204542   49         49         0.000000    NA     NA       NA            NA
APCC6E.2A69.CD90             9056.7163.a020     Ellipse   GNSS     17.612723   59.205027   164        30         171.000000  NA     NA       NA            NA

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

pieterh — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 13:53:14 GMT

according to the logs in your original post, the radio is not disabled until the proximity request was not succesfull?

[*03/13/2026 11:26:24.6331] Sending proximity_request payload
[*03/13/2026 11:26:24.6353] SinglePID Regulatory Blob resolution: Country Code not available
[*03/13/2026 11:27:19.6556] Sending proximity_request payload
[*03/13/2026 11:27:19.6580] SinglePID Regulatory Blob resolution: Country Code not available
[*03/13/2026 11:27:51.6252] Radio Administrative state ENABLED  change to DISABLEDd

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Rich R — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:42:32 GMT

I've also wondered about how CDP/LLDP goes an extra hop (contradicts what we were always taught about CDP/LLDP) and been meaning to do more research on it but haven't yet. I suspect the AP is explicitly joining the multicast groups to get the switch to forward the frames.

I used RCF for first AP (much easier than GPS @Leo Laohoo) and the rest discovered from that fine but it does sometimes take a few reloads to work.

@Mats Nilson you did not mention what version of software you're using - always very important?

@Stefan Mihajlov Cisco have been absolutely clear that it is a legal requirement for the AP to set the country authoritatively via the specified methods and not simply trust config on the WLC. That said there is actually a bug open for it allowing the country to be set sometimes simply from WLC config <laugh>
https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCwt22033
If you have seen that happen then it's a bug and it will be "fixed" <smile> - in other words that should not be allowed.

Re: CW9176i fail to determine country by proximity

Mats Nilson — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 08:31:45 GMT

Hi @Rich R

Thanks for your input. Using RCF for large deployments I really want to avoid, hence why we use anchor ap's. But it's strange that additional access points didn't fully discover regulatory domain until LLDP was enabled.

We currently using 17.15.3 due to policy, but I don't see any issues regarding ap regulatory domain resolution.

Sincere Regards.