AP doesn't join controller

[hcombee]

I've got 4 AP's out of 7 that didn't join the controller. They get an IP address and should use option 43 to join as the other ones. show cdp neighbors learned me that they run a recovery image (AP3G2-RCVK9W8-M) but I am unable to log in using Cisco/Cisco. RTFM didn't help me, how to fix this?

[Scott Fella]

You can’t ssh into the ap, you can console into the device and look at the output. If these ap’s are local, put them on the same subnet as the wlc management and see if they join. Once the ap joins, then after the ap gets the new image, you can change the vlan to whatever you want.

[Leo Laohoo]

Post the output to the following commands:
1. WLC: sh sysinfo;
2. WLC: sh time;
3. AP: sh version; and
4. AP: sh ip interface brief

[hcombee]

The time is NTP Synced. I triple checked al DHCP scope settings, routing. What puzzles me is I can ping the 3 Ap's that have joined the controller but the 4 that didn't join I can only ping from their default gateway though they are in the same subnet as the other 3.  Problem is they are 100 miles from my current location and the controller is in a remote datacenter.

>show sysinfo

Manufacturer's Name.............................. Cisco Systems Inc.
Product Name..................................... Cisco Controller
Build Info....................................... Engineering Special
Product Version.................................. 8.5.140.0
Bootloader Version............................... 1.0.20
Field Recovery Image Version..................... 7.6.101.1
Firmware Version................................. FPGA 1.7, Env 1.8, USB console 2.2
OUI File Last Update Time........................ Sun Sep 07 10:44:07 IST 2014

Build Type....................................... DATA + WPS

System Name......................................
System Location..................................
System Contact...................................
System ObjectID.................................. 1.3.6.1.4.1.9.1.1069
Redundancy Mode.................................. SSO
IP Address.......................................
IPv6 Address..................................... ::
Last Reset....................................... Software reset
System Up Time................................... 331 days 15 hrs 27 mins 11 secs

--More-- or (q)uit
System Timezone Location......................... (GMT +1:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Vienna
System Stats Realtime Interval................... 5
System Stats Normal Interval..................... 180

Configured Country............................... NL - Netherlands
Operating Environment............................ Commercial (0 to 40 C)
Internal Temp Alarm Limits....................... 0 to 65 C
Internal Temperature............................. +39 C
External Temperature............................. +20 C
Fan Status....................................... OK

State of 802.11b Network......................... Enabled
State of 802.11a Network......................... Enabled
Number of WLANs.................................. 3
Number of Active Clients......................... 29

OUI Classification Failure Count................. 804419

Memory Current Usage............................. 56
Memory Average Usage............................. 56
CPU Current Usage................................ 0
CPU Average Usage................................ 1

--More-- or (q)uit
Flash Type....................................... Compact Flash Card
Flash Size....................................... 1073741824

Burned-in MAC Address............................ E0:2F:6D:7C:36:80
Power Supply 1................................... Present, OK
Power Supply 2................................... Present, OK
Maximum number of APs supported.................. 500
System Nas-Id....................................
WLC MIC Certificate Types........................ SHA1

(ghg3000-nw01-InkpTpb) >show time

Time............................................. Fri Mar 27 10:36:09 2020

Timezone delta................................... 0:0
Timezone location................................ (GMT +1:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Vienna

NTP Servers
NTP Version.................................. 3
NTP Polling Interval......................... 3600

Index NTP Key Index NTP Server Status NTP Msg Auth Status
------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
1 0 x.x.x.x In Sync AUTH DISABLED
2 0 x.x.x.x Not Tried AUTH DISABLED

[hcombee · Accepted solution]

Problem solved, it seems that the configuration of the DHCP scope between two Windows DHCP servers wasn't properly synchronized. The failover server didn't had the router option, so the AP's in the second half of the scope didn't get to the controller. One of the disadvantages of function separation.