Joined APs reporting old version after WLC upgraded to 8.5.151.0

[pinglis]

I have just upgrade our controller to 8.5.151.0 and some APs are joined but appear to be reporting the older version as the running image. Looking on the AP I see the following:
show ver
...
AP Running Image : 8.3.140.0
Primary Boot Image : 8.5.151.0
Backup Boot Image : 8.3.140.0
...

But according to the book parameters it should be usng the primary (8.5.151.0)
show boot
BOOT path-list: part1
Console Baudrate: 9600
Enable Break: yes
Manual Boot: no
Memory Debug: no

more flash part1_info.ver
image_family: ap1g4
ws_management_version: 8.5.151.0
info_end:
more flash part2_info.ver
image_family: ap1g4
ws_management_version: 8.3.140.0
info_end:

It appear to be only affecting 1800/2800/3800 models (and not all of them).
Is this normal behaviour? I was under the impression it was not possible for an AP to join with a different version.

[marce1000]

 -  Try rebooting the affected AP's >from the controller< ; check if the problem persists afterwards.

     M.

[patoberli]

You did wait some ~15 minutes after rebooting the WLC? It sometimes takes a little time for the APs and interfaces to show the correct information.

[Scott Fella]

Look at what the controller shows you. You are right that an ap will not be functional unless it matches the firmware that the controller is on. From the cli, issue: show ap image all

[Leo Laohoo]

Wait ... Where is the "sh version" output?
According to the information above, the AP is meant to boot "part1" and this points to "8.5.151.0".
The only time this is different is when the AP hasn't rebooted yet.
How many controllers are in this network?

[pinglis]

Thanks for all the feedback. To answer some of the questions/provide feedback.

• This was not a timing issue as the upgrade was the day before I noticed the issues.
• The AP were joined to the controller and servicing clients.
• Via the controller GUI the Primary version showed as the correct version but the IOS version was the old version matching what I saw in CLI output.
• The sh version outout is at the top of my original post.
• Rebooting the APs have changed the running version shown on the APto the the new version. I can only guess the APs didn't reboot automatically after the upgrade.

II'm not sure if this is just a cosmetic issue but other APs seem to switch over without issue and I only noticed it by chance while looking into a another problem with 2800/3800's not authenitcating clients.

[Scott Fella]

You would be able to tell by the show ap uptime if the ap did reboot or not. I know that will at least tell you if the ap rebooted or not. On another note, that is not normal. I typically see the ap joint then reboot again before coming online and servicing clients.

[Rich R · Accepted solution]

You're not imagining it - we saw the same on the 8.5.144.49 pre-release code (and realised they had been like that since the previous upgrade lol).
- The AP keeps working fine on the old code (yes even though WLC is running a different version) and services clients 'as normal'!
- The AP never reboots when the WLC code is upgraded and that's why it keeps running the old code.
- This is a bug https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCve14291
Once you get it running 8.5.151.0 the bug is resolved so it shouldn't happen again :)

Regards
Rich