3802i access point stuck "waiting for uplink IP address and reachable default gateway"

[Justin Kistler]

I have several 3802 WAPs getting stuck spamming "waiting for uplink IP address and reachable default gateway" over console. LED is flashing red, green, pause. I am trying to install these 3802s in an existing wireless environment. We use DHCP option 43.

Now the really odd part is that out of a batch of 100+ 3802s, it seems about half of them have this problem. All are new from the vendor. Some of them come right up, get an IP, go into CAPWAP discovery, etc... The other half gets stuck at this point, where it doesn't get an IP, any gateway info, etc. To clarify, on the same switchport, some of them work, some of them don't. This switchport works fine with every 3702 and 3602 I have put on it.

On the switch, the AP shows in the mac address table but not in the arp table. Interface shows up/up.

I cannot see any difference between the WAPs that work and those that don't. Same model number, same IOS code. I tried factory reset by holding mode button during boot for 20+ seconds. Still nothing. I am running out of ideas here. I am hoping some of you can get me pointed in the right direction. I have attached the boot log as well as a few additional commands in a text file.

Thank you much all.

[Brastax001]

Hi Ajurekic, mind my typo with double config...

Basically when you deploy Access Points to a site having a Wireless LAN Controller you need to have an AP management VLAN then create a DHCP Scope for your Access Points. Once you assign the management Access Point (Native VLAN X) to a Swithport then the AP will get an IP address from your DHCP Scope.

In my case I applied a negate statement for my DHCP Scope as the APs I had for the Warehouse to deploy were about 90 but only about 68 access point could join the WLAN Controller. So the DHCP scope stopped assigning the IP addresses to new APs. Removing the DHCP scope and adding it again resolved the issue. My core switch was the Cisco 3850.

 DHCP Scope example:

ip dhcp pool AP_POOL_VLAN120
 network 10.4.16.0 255.255.255.0
 default-router 10.4.16.254
 dns-server 10.1.0.50 10.1.0.51
 option 43 hex f104.a553.2563

Oh I use Option 43 hex "mac address" for my configs

I hope this helps..