Can interference cause an access point to reboot?

[tdennehy]

I recently configured our WCS to send email notifications.  Monitor > Alarms > Email Notification

I now receive emails from WCS stating that some access points dissassociate from the controller, and then another email stating they are back again.  Not the same APs, not all at the same time, etc.  We have 1200+ access points.  A very small percentage... maybe one or two per day decide to leave the controller and then come back.

Looking at the controller, I see this is a true statement.  I see that the access point's uptime is equivalent to the time is left the controller and came back again.

My question is... does anyone else have this configured, and if so, what was causing the access points to disassociate?  I cannot tell if the access point is actually rebooting or simply wandering away from home.

Is there a way to see what caused the AP to leave and come back again?  With nobody in the building at 7pm, I don't think it was human intervention.  Other access points on the same switch, and they don't wander.  I do wonder if interference or something else can cause an access point to reload.

The APs are AIR-LAP1210 on a 5508 running 7.0.98.0 

Are there any known bugs that you are aware of?

Thanks in advance!

WCS has detected a change in one or more alarms of category AP and severity Critical in Virtual Domain root.

The new severity of the following items is Clear:

'802.11a' interface of AP 'ap02' associated to controller 'WLC-1 (10.10.10.1)' is up. Reason: Radio interface reset.

'802.11b/g' interface of AP 'ap02' associated to controller 'WLC-1 (10.10.10.1)' is up. Reason: Radio interface reset.

AP 'ap02' associated with Controller '10.10.10.1' on Port number '13'.

E-mail will be suppressed up to 30 minutes for these changes.

WCS has detected one or more alarms of category AP and severity Critical in Virtual Domain root for the following items:

802.11a interface of AP ap02 is down: Controller 10.10.10.1

802.11b/g interface of AP ap02 is down: Controller 10.10.10.1

AP 'ap02' disassociated from Controller '10.10.10.1'.

E-mail will be suppressed up to 30 minutes for these alarms.

[George Stefanick · Accepted solution]

You are in luck. Like you we have 4500 radios and we turned on alerts and we got slammed on this as well. I will share with you some of the things that contriubuted to our problem. It just wasnt one issue...

1) We had 200 APs configured as a primary to 1 WLC. Well that WLC could only take 150. So when one AP jumped off there were 50 other aps interested in getting on. And when this happened we got an alert. We only fill 125 per wism today. This cut down on a good portion of our alerts

2) We disbaled ap fall back. Once the aps were where we wanted them we killde ap fall back. (no more bouceing around).

3) We had a few aps with link problems. Not many but a few. These aps would lose data connection but still keep power and not reboot. We either had to replace the patch cable or do a new run.

Take a few and investigate them. You will start to develop your own pattern.

If you find this helpful please kindly rate all helpful post!

[tdennehy]

Thanks George.  I think I will start at layer 1 and go from there...