C9117AXI stuck in EWC-AP Recovery mode

[peat]

Hi,

I was given an 9117ax to setup with a SSID to use for a wireless survey.  But I think i got confused about what models were available and I thought i had a lightweight mode AP when in fact it was already the embedded WLC version.

The long story short is I followed the cisco guide on converting a lightweight AP to a standalone AP and even though everything seem to go fine after the tftp upload of the AP image and the WLC bin file on the reboot the AP has gone into EWC-AP recovery mode and keeps saying 

"EWC-AP Recovery Mode",  Run archive download-sw "

So I tried that archive download command and it looked like it went through fine till it got to 72.6% and then it said error .

I tried again and it stopped at 72.6% again.

I did a show flash and it showed  that there was only 187mb left but the wlc.bin is 280mb so im guessing thats my problem?

But after googling how to make space it doesnt look like a switches/routers output and the list of files in the flash doesnt have filesize or are recognisable to me.

I seen somewhere mention show flash cores but that said there was nothing there.

I've tried a factory reset but that didn't change anything.

Can anyone help get this AP back to working ?

The model is C9117AXI-E which after reading up is the EWC version so it looks like I really messed up and have tried to put the WLC image on a WAP that already had it on it.

[Ciphertext87]

Hey Rrudling,

Thanks for your reply!

Currently the 9117AXI and the EWC 9130AXI are on 17.8.0.144 with backup image 17.6.1.13. 

The 9117 was successful downloading the AP image, but always fails on the EWC image.  I've also tried converting it back to CAPWAP, then to EWC again, to no avail.  I've also tried the capwap ap erase all command as well as manually deleting the cores, no luck still. 

[Rich R]

And did you try starting with a CAPWAP image (like 8.10.162.0) in both partitions before trying the EWC upgrade?

[Rich R]

A few things to clarify:

- Like Scott said that is a CAPWAP (lightweight) image.

- The AP boot partitions (which you can't manually delete files from) are part1 and part2.

- The model number you quoted (9117axi-e) is not an actual PID - you probably meant C9117AXI-E which is simply the EU regulatory domain (-E) version of the 9117 AP (CAPWAP).  The equivalent PID for EWC version would have been C9117AXI-EWC-E.

- It's normal for a CAPWAP AP to keep rebooting when it can't find a WLC to join

You're trying to go from a very old deferred 8.9 AireOS CAPWAP version to the very latest 17.7.1 IOS-XE version - that might be a problem (just guessing, never tried it).

I suggest upgrading the AP to the latest 8.10.162.0 AireOS CAPWAP image first https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286322356/type/286288051/release/15.3.3-JK6

Then once it is running that you could try loading the 17.7.1 EWC.

In fact if you read the release notes (which you should ALWAYS do) you'd have seen this:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/ewc/17-7/rel-notes/ewc-rn-17-7-x.html#id_88368

Note Before converting from CAPWAP to embedded wireless controller (EWC), ensure that you upgrade the corresponding AP with the CAPWAP image in Cisco AireOS Release 8.10.105.0. If this upgrade is not performed, the conversion will fail.

So 8.10.162.0 should work just as well in my opinion.  But if it doesn't then use 8.10.105.0 https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286322356/type/286288051/release/15.3.3-JK

[peat]

Thanks that's very helpful.  Yes I think i misunderstood the joint tftp command with the ap1g6 part.   I thought that was the APs firmware being updated unfortunately.

[Rich R]

The TFTP command is upgrading the AP firmware but when you upgrade to EWC you're actually configuring it to run 2 separate components - the IOS-XE WLC (EWC) firmware and the ClickOS (COS) AP image.  So once it is installed it is running both together on the same box and the AP still "talks" CAPWAP to the WLC.

[peat]

I was a bit more optimistic there but unfortunately we dont have a the right entitlement to download the AP updates.

I was able to get the EWC bundle fine so that's a bit strange.

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

If you have the bundle (tar file), you should have the EWC image (.bin) and the AP image ap1g6.  That should get you started.  

If you have Hyper-V or ESXi, you can try to spin up a 9800-CL.  It's free!

[Rich R]

Sometimes if you search you can find the same file elsewhere.

[peat]

I received the firmware update and have just applied it.

The AP rebooted and went into ewc-ap recovery mode which I'm assuming should not happen when its just updating the firmware from 8.9.100.0 to 8.10.162.0.

Even so i tried the archive download-sw ewc-ap tftp://192.168.1.1/C9800-AP-iosxe-wlc.bin command and that just failed again on 72.6% 

[peat · Accepted solution]

Just in case anyone else looks at this thread, I couldnt get any way to get the AP running in standalone.  I had to setup a virtual WLC on my laptop and take that with me to do wifi surveys.

[Scott Fella]

That is too bad, but at least you found a workaround.

[Abu Sina Mowla]

I have encountered the same issue on a C9120 AP model. The fix was to apply the repair specified in - Repair C9120/C9115 Access Points from U-boot (cisco.com). The AP boots up with 8.10 firmware after this and AP conversion to EWC can be started by issuing the command -

<<AP Name>>#ap-type ewc-ap <tftp|sftp>://<<TFTP-Server IP>>/<<AP Image>> tftp://<<TFTP-Server IP>>/<<EWC .bin image>>

Example for 9120 AP: ap-type ewc-ap tftp://192.168.0.25/ap1g7 tftp://192.168.0.25/C9800-AP-iosxe-wlc.bin

-Abu Sina Mowla
*** Please rate helpful posts ***

[Rich R]

Very useful thanks @Abu Sina Mowla - I hadn't seen that.  The link for the web version of that note is: 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9120axi-access-point/217537-repairing-c9120-c9115-access-points-from.html

And it seems there's a related field notice too which I hadn't seen either:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/field-notices/722/fn72278.html