Catalyst 3650 Stack issue

[thatdudeclay]

I recently started a new networking position. We have been having an issue booting one of our switch stacks. The stack contains two switches. When they reboot switch one loses it's configuration and goes to factory reset. In order to boot the stack properly, we need to apply power to the second switch and wait for it to finish booting and then apply power to switch one. We have two other stacks configured the same way with the same models. The only difference in this problem stack from the other two is that the stack cable is backwards. This stack has the cable going from stack-port 2 on switch 1 to stack-port 1 on switch 2. The other two stacks have the stackwise cable going from switch 1 stack-port 1 to switch 2 stack-port 2. Basically what I am asking is does it sound like the stack cable being backwards is the issue?switch, Other Switching

[paul driver]

Hello

How they are cabled now wont mater sounds like they are cabled correctly.

On the problem stack can you post
show switch
show switch stack-ring speed
show switch stack-port

[thatdudeclay]

sh swi
Switch/Stack Mac Address : 7069.5aef.ff80 - Local Mac Address
Mac persistency wait time: Indefinite
H/W Current
Switch# Role Mac Address Priority Version State
------------------------------------------------------------
1 Standby 7069.5ad1.cf80 1 V05 Ready
*2 Active 7069.5aef.ff80 1 V05 Ready

[thatdudeclay]

sh switch stack-ring speed

Stack Ring Speed : 80G
Stack Ring Configuration: Half
Stack Ring Protocol : StackWise

sh swi stack-port
Switch# Port1 Port2
----------------------------
1 DOWN OK
2 OK DOWN

[paul driver]

Hello

So you dont have full stack ring connectivity, for this you need to close the stack ring for full backplane speed so i would check/re-seat the cabling between these ports.

sw1 - stackport 2 - sw2 stackport 1
sw1 - stackport 1 - sw2 stackport 2

[Reza Sharifi]

This stack has the cable going from stack-port 2 on switch 1 to stack-port 1 on switch 2. 

That is actually the correct way for stacking. This is how you get the full stack ring speed.

see this link for more info:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3650/hardware/installation/guide/Cat3650hig_book/HIGINSTL.html

That said, as Paul noted, stacking should not have anything to do with the boot issue. The commands Paul is asking for may give us good info to work with.

HTH

[thatdudeclay]

I understand that but there is no stackwise going from switch 1 port 1 to switch 2 port 2 so it is still half stack

[Reza Sharifi]

Got it. Can you post "sh run" and "sh ver"?

HTH

[thatdudeclay · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the replies and sorry to leave you hanging. The issue was that the configuration wasn't loading from start to run during boot. It just booted to default. The issue can be shown using:

sh ver | incl reg

which will return:

Configuration register is 0x142 (will be 0x102 at next reload)

The issue is that it doesn't return to 0x102 at next reload and remains 0x142. To remedy follow the commands:

config t

no system ignore startupconfig switch all

copy run start

On the next reload your switch will no longer ignore the startup config.