IE-3300 problem with 10M half duplex

Steven Shelton · ‎03-01-2023

We have six gas meters that have worked without issue for over eight years. Four were supported by IE-3000 switches. Recently, we replaced two of the IE-3000 switches with IE-3300 and within hours began having problems with loss of connectivity to the meters. When the meter fails, the mac address has aged out of the mac address table. Resetting the switch interface restores connectivity until the next failure. In one instance after resetting the interface, the meter became unreachable. The meter's mac address was in the mac table. A continuous ping for the meter was running, the interface counters were cleared and shown no outbound packets on the interface facing the meter. The mac table was checked again and the meter's mac address was still present. The mac address eventually aged out.

As a test we reinstalled one of the IE-3000 switches to compare the interface errors with the IE-3300. The IE-3000 switch was left in place for over a month with no problems. The IE-3000 meter does not log CRC erros but does log other errors associated with half duplex. The IE-3300 logs CRC errors along with the other errors.

I understand the IE-3300 ASIC is unique to this platform. Does anyone have information on the ASIC used in the IE-3300 and the IE-3000? My suspicion is the IE-3300 is having issues calculating the Ethernet checksum and that's the source of the CRC errors.

Does anyone else have 10M half duplex devices supported by a IE-3300 switch?

I have an open TAC case for almost a month and TAC can't get past the layer 1 issues. They also ignore the fact that the same cable and meter work without loss of connectivity with the IE-3000.

Leo Laohoo · ‎03-01-2023

If I am not mistaken, IE-3000 is powered by classic IOS while the IE-3300 is IOS-XE.

What firmware is the IE-3300 running on?

Steven Shelton · ‎03-01-2023

Cisco IOS XE Software, Version 17.06.03

Leo Laohoo · ‎03-01-2023

Try upgrading the firmware, for example, to 17.6.5.

Steven Shelton · ‎03-01-2023

Yes, we could definitely try 17.6.5, possibly tomorrow.

Steven Shelton · ‎03-01-2023

found this in the release notes under Resolved Caveats in Cisco IOS XE Bengaluru 17.6.2

We're using 17.06.03, this wouldn't the first time that resolved issue resurfaced.

balaji.bandi · ‎03-01-2023

i have several use case fixes and it re-appears...so suggest testing any new version.

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balaji.bandi · ‎03-01-2023

IE-3300 - most of the models support 10/100/1000 support. have you tried replacing the patch cables ?

Also, make sure Power earthing is ok? if you have spare meter, get nearer to the switch and use new cable and attach for testing, see if other device go offline is the test device also go offline ?

As @Leo Laohoo suggested the latest code, may be you can try the new one 17.10.1

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Steven Shelton · ‎03-01-2023

The cabling between the meter and switch does not terminate in a patch panel due to the switch being mounted in a secured wall mounted cabinet. we haven't replaced the cable since the same cable and meter work well with the older IE-3000 and the cable passes a Cat-5 certification test. This particular meter is no longer made and the spare meters we have are 100M.

Joseph W. Doherty · ‎03-01-2023

Cannot say what follows has any bearing on your issue, but FYI.

About 6 years ago, company I was working for bought some of the latest brand J switches (more or less competitors to the 3650/3850 series).

Turned out, those switches, their 10/100/gig (copper) didn't support 10/half. When we asked, ah, why doesn't 10/half work, their counter question was, you're still using 10/half?!! Our answer, yea, we have some old, (critical) dedicated hardware devices, and that's all that they support (and vendor isn't going to upgrade them).

We gave them the choice of either fix it or we would boot them out the door as a network vendor. They did fix it, took almost half a year for them to do so.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up, perhaps Cisco also believes no one would still be running 10/half, and perhaps their Q and A sort of skimped on testing for that on later IE-3Ks.

Steven Shelton · ‎03-01-2023

That was my response when the problem first appeared after upgrading to the IE-3300. I asked the utilities department to replace their meter and made a similar comment about 10 HD. It's not easy to replace the gas meter and they're resisting because there were no problems for 8 years until a new switch was introduced. Yes, Cisco's return on investment for correcting a 10M HD issue is non existent.

I found this on Reddit. It's a similar issue, this person had a TAC case open for over a year without resolution

https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/uq1cmd/cisco_ie3300_issue_with_10m_half_duplex/

Joseph W. Doherty · ‎03-01-2023

The Reddit thread was an interesting read (brings to mind other L1 issues with equipment I've experienced, as standards evolve).

One of the worthwhile mentions was trying hard coding speed/duplex, have you tried that? (One of the L1 issues, I recall bumping into, full duplex [I believe] was never really incorporated as part of 10 Mbps Ethernet standard, it sprung from FE and was "unofficially" back fitted. [This is one of the reasons, for years, typically speed and duplex were hard coded and auto not used. I also recall an early Cisco chassis hub, with 10 Mbps half/full capable port, that if you connected an auto configured host, Cisco port would error out.])

Possibly an "easy", but ugly, work around would be to place a "cheap/home" 4/8 port unmanaged switch between these gas meters and your IE-3300s.

BTW, in the case I described, we had a huge advantage when dealing with network vendors, lots and lots (and lots) of money involved. Big difference dealing with a network vendor when you may have just a few of their devices, to having thousands, ranging in size from about the smallest branch device to about the largest carrier grade devices that they can provide.

Steven Shelton · ‎03-01-2023

We are working with two IE-3300 installations each with at least one 10M meter. Per TAC recommendations, we had one switch interface configured with speed 10 duplex half. This seemed to help and ran for about 7 days before eventually failing. On the other IE-3300, I used a four 10M hub with a 100M uplink. This test ran about a month without any problems, We have a total of 20 IE-3300 switches at the moment, all the meters are 100M except for a few 10M meters. We only have problems with the 10M meters connected directly to a 3300 switch.

Joseph W. Doherty · ‎03-01-2023

"I used a four 10M hub with a 100M uplink"

Probably an even better solution for a work around, except for, if a real 10M "hub", what attic/basement/etc. did you find them in? ; )

Leo Laohoo · ‎03-01-2023

We had a site where we installed the latest 9300 with mGIG. During the planning stages of the site, we told the people who will occupying the site that 10 Mbps will not be supported. They checked, double-checked and triple-checked and confirm, with confidence, that all of the clients will support 100 Mbps (mostly printers) and 1 Gbps.

Sure enough, we installed new switches with mGIG and we did not received any complaints.

Until two weeks later when some meeting room wired clients would not get an IP address. Plug any devices into the same port and it works. Put this thing in and it would not get an IP address. It took us several hours until someone added a non-mGIG switch to the stack, one that can support 10 Mbps. The machine got an IP address and starts working.