4 AP not joining the WLC

[Al Ro]

Hello!

I had 16 AP's, but jut noticed that 4 of them are not joining on the Wireless Controller. They are connected to a different switch, but they are all getting the IP from the management VLAN. I can ping them from my computer, switch and even the WLC, but for some reason they are not been able to joing the wireless controller. I tried a few stuff I found online but nothing had work so far. Can it be that the IOS of those 4 AP are too old for the one with the WLC? Any suggestion? Thanks!

[Al Ro]

The WLC is:
Product Version.................................. 7.6.130.0
Bootloader Version............................... 1.0.20
Field Recovery Image Version..................... 1.0.0
Firmware Version................................. PIC 16.0

The APs:
AIR-CAP2702E-A-K9

[Ric Beeching]

Hi Al,

Has anything changed in your environment recently? Are those Access Points new? Have they been connected before?
 

What's the management IP/Subnet of the WLC and what's the subnet that the APs are receiving an IP on? 

Have you configured Option 43 for the APs to 'find' the WLC?

So many questions, sorry!

[Al Ro]

Hello Ric!

Thanks for replying!

Long story short, the AP were configured at the same time as the others, but we had some issues with the cabling, so after a few months later we were able to connect them. 

Both WLC and the AP's are on the same IP/Subnet, Originally I noticed the AP was getting an IP from another VLAN but I fixed that on the switch. Now they are getting the IP from the right subnet and I'm able to ping.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to access the AP, so I can't check that Option 43, but they all were configured at the same time.

Let me know if that help you or if you have any other question. Thanks! 

[Ric Beeching]

If they're on the same subnet then it won't need Option 43.

On the WLC GUI can you go to Monitor -> Statistics (left hand menu) -> AP Join

In the window that loads, you can see your APs joining/not joining for a particualr reason (click on the AP to go into the details). If there are too many APs there use the Change Filter to filter based on an IP Address of one of your APs not joining.

This should give you good idea of whether the APs are even finding the WLC to begin with. If they aren't showing up there then we'd need to look at your switch config probs.

Ric

[Al Ro]

When I check there, it don't show any error, it looks like this:

General
Base MAC Address
AP Name
Ethernet MAC Address
IP Address
Status
Last AP Join
Timestamp	Message
Discovery Phase Statistics
Requests Received
Responses Sent
Unsuccessful Request Processed
Reason For Last Unsuccessful Attempt
Last Successful Attempt Time
Last Unsuccessful Attempt Time
Join Phase Statistics
Requests Received
Responses Sent
Unsuccessful Request Processed
Reason For Last Unsuccessful Attempt
Last Successful Attempt Time
Last Unsuccessful Attempt Time
Configuration Phase Statistics
Requests Received
Responses Sent
Unsuccessful Request Processed
Reason For Last Unsuccessful Attempt
Last Successful Attempt Time
Last Unsuccessful Attempt Time

Last Error Summary
Last AP Message Decryption Failure
Last AP Connection Failure
Last AP Disconnect Reason
Last Error Occurred
Last Error Occurred Reason
Last Join Error Timestamp

But I noticed the Ethernet Mac Address is showing as 00:00:00:00:00:00. Not sure if that's normal is the AP is on the Not Joined status or if that might be the issue.The Base MAC, AP Name and IP were edited for this post. Let me know what else should I try or look for. Thanks again!


**I attached a print-screen as here the data did not showed up. 

[Al Ro]

Hello!

Just to update, seems like the issue was that those 4 APs were connecting to the Back Up WLC, I'm doing some test now to make sure. Will update soon. Thanks!!

[Ric Beeching]

Phew that's a relief.

To move them over from the backup you can hardcode your WLC IPs addresses in the APs so they'll always use that as the primary and the backup as secondary