Can't connect to Cisco WAP321 while using Cisco SG200-26P Gigabit PoE Smart Switch

[plashford1]

Hi,

I am having an issue having clients connecting to a Cisco WAP321 (access point) while the access point is using PoE connected to the switch. Clients (namely iPhones and other wireless devices) are unable to connect and/or keep a connection.

My setup:

2 Cisco WAP321

1 Cisco SG200-26P Gigabit PoE Smart Switch

What does not work:

Clients are unable to connect to the WAP321 when the access point is plugged directly into the switch and powered by PoE

What does work:

Clients are able to connect to the WAP321 if the access point is plugged into the modem and now powered by PoE

Any help and assistance is much appreciated.

[ghostinthenet]

Does the WAP321 work correctly if plugged into the SG200 and not powered by PoE? Knowing that will isolate the issue to either a data or power problem.

[plashford1]

Great question. No - when the WAP321 is not on PoE and plugged into the SG200 it still doesn't allow connections. This makes me feel there is something on the switch itself that is blocking the WAP.

[ghostinthenet]

Seems logical. Are there any security features configured on that switch that would limit MAC addresses or require authentication?

[plashford1]

There aren't that I can tell. This is the out-of-the-box config so nothing has been configured yet. 

[ghostinthenet]

I've seen some cases where the auto smartport functionality of the switch can cause unexpected behaviour. Can you check the configuration and see how the switch is defining the interface that the WAP321 is connected to? It might be worthwhile to remove the auto smartport functionality from that interface and see what happens.

[plashford1]

I took your advice and disabled SmartPort...which seemed to give me stable connections for about 18 hours. Now today as I write this, I'm unable to connect to any of the WAPs.

[ghostinthenet]

Are all of the switch's configuration settings identical to what they were when you  initially removed the auto SmartPort? Have any of the automated functions of the switch adjusted anything?

[plashford1]

Yeah, they are -- the only thing I did was disable SmartPort.

[ghostinthenet]

Okay... and the switch is seeing all of the associated MACs on the interface?

[plashford1]

Yeah, the switch can see the WAPs just fine...no issue there. Now that the WAP is acting up again, I can't connect to it whatsoever and am forced to enable the wireless on the modem (this is AT&T) just to have wireless in the building.

[plashford1]

As a follow-up: I just unplugged the WAP from the Switch and plugged it directly into the modem powered by AC -- and it's working perfectly. Very frustrating.

[ghostinthenet]

If the switch is sitting at a factory-default configuration except for the disabled SmartPort functionality on the interface, I can't think of any reason why this would be happening. I have WAP321s and WAP371s on SG300 series in a similar configuration and haven't had any trouble.