WCS 5.2 and "disassociated from Controller" message

[andreas.eichhorn]

We have a 5.2 WCS Software with 5.2 WISM Modules in 6500 Catalyst. When a new access point registering at the master controller we could see it as AP0001.0002.0003 (for example). When we rename it to AP-70 and setting up the backup controller I could see it as AP-70 configured in the Access Point Configuration List and it is online. But we could see an alerting message:

AP 'AP0001.0002.0003' disassociated from Controller ''.

Any suggestions?

[dennischolmes]

What AP and was it LWAPP or converted? It could be a certificate issue. Also check date and time on the controllers. This can also cause a certificate issue. Last, make sure that there is no interruption in the heartbeat packets on the network. If the AP doesn't get those on a timely manner it will reboot looking for a controller.

[andreas.eichhorn]

Hello Dennis,

first merry x-mass to you and of course all people in the netpro community.

The 1252 APs are LWAPP access points not converted from ios.

All 3 Controllers have ntp enabled and I have just checked the date and time. They are equal on all controller.

I could not see any heartbeat packets missing between controller and access points. We have 62 APs (also 1252 LWAPP) which are running fine. The 7 APs which are making these messages are also running and are not rebooting from time to time. The status of the access points with the right name AP-xx is green but in the alarm central I could see these messages mentioned in my first posting.

The only error message I could see is:

WIPS Alert: Reason "NoProfile" detected on AP MAC: 00:01:00:02:00:03, AP Name: AP-70

But I could not get any detailed information from the cisco web pages for this error message on a WiSM controller.

Thanks for you help.

Andreas

[dennischolmes]

Hey Andreas,

There were some problems with early code on the 1252s. A special version of code was created to fix this. 4.2.130.6. It is not published and can only be gotten from a TAC engineer. I would revert back unless of course you are planning on using 2112, 2125 controllers, or 1140 APs which the 5.2 is the only code to support these new devices. Oh and have you created a AP username and password template on your WCS for all controllers. This sometimes causes an error.

[JEFFREY SESSLER]

I've seen this exact behavior with the 5.2 code. It occurs with any 1252 AP's added after the upgrade to 5.2. I can only guess that this has something to do with the initial conversion to CAPWAP... It doesn't seem to affect the AP's operation as it looks 100% functional after the rename, but for some reason the original AP name sticks around. I've opened many TAC cases on 5.2, and I guess I'm going to add another.

Besides this issue, have you noticed any overly aggressive dynamic channel assignments (DCA)?

[andreas.eichhorn]

After reading a lot of notes about 5.2 and the comment from Dennis we decided to move back to 4.2.xxx

Now with 4.2 everything is working fine and all these error messages are away. Even the status of the access points are more stable and we only get an error mesage when there is a real problem.

It was no problem to degrade from 5.2. to 4.2. and for me it is one of the best solution.

Whish all of you a hapy new year.

Andreas

[dennischolmes · Accepted solution]

Good deal man. 6.0 will be available shortly. I'll let you know how this code works out. It was originally supposed to be called 5.3 but Cisco decided to call it 6.0. Supposedly has all the fixes to 5.0, 5.1, and 5.2. I'll test and let everyone know when I get my prelim copy. Please mark your problem (this post) as solved so that others having the same issue can find a solution.Rate your posts as well. The higher the conversation rating, the more people will see the solution.