new APs keep coming online in Mobility Express mode, ignoring the 8540

[mat_rouch]

I am in the middle of deploying 1815i APs in a new building and we're encountering a problem I have not seen before.  Some of the APs find and connect to our 8540 WLC normally, but sometimes one will come up in Mobility Express mode instead.  When that happens no more new APs will find the 8540.  They will sit in limbo until I find the one AP that's using Mobility Express and force it into capwap mode.  Then it and some of the other new APs will connect correctly to the 8540, but likely as not some other AP will come up in Mobility Express mode somewhere down the line and I need to go through the process again.  It's turned into a game of whack-a-mole.  Every time I fix one AP another one pops up somewhere else.  I am fairly new to cisco wireless (I inherited it from an employee who left the company) so it's entirely possible I'm just doing something wrong.  To the best of my knowledge the APs were plugged into the network straight out of the box.  The WLC in question was running 8.5.182.0 (it was upgraded to 8.10.162.0 over the weekend).

Side note: we also have 2802 APs in this building and they do not seem to be having this problem. All of those have come online normally.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

-Mat

[balaji.bandi]

connect the console to AP, and boot and post complete boot process :

some steps to troubleshoot :

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/5500-series-wireless-controllers/119286-lap-notjoin-wlc-tshoot.html

what version AP shipped ? also read the release notes : you can find any information related to 1800AP

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/release/notes/crn85mr6.html

[Leo Laohoo]

Maybe because the APs were ordered with Mobility Express firmware. 

If the APs boot into Mobility Express, the easiest way to stop the other non-ME APs from joining an AP, with ME, in the same site is to shunt the APs into a different VLAN (preferably one that does not hand out IP addresses).  
By doing so, the CAPWAP APs will join the 8540.  Only when these CAPWAP APs have successfully joined the controller then the next step of fixing the ME APs.  

So get one of the ME back on the production VLAN and then remote in to it so the AP can be converted from ME to CAPWAP.

[Arshad Safrulla · Accepted solution]

If you ask me easiest way to mitigate this is let ME accept all the AP's, let it register and then convert all at once rather doing one by one. Use the below command in ME WLC to convert

(Cisco Controller) > config ap unifiedmode WLC_NAME WLC_AP_MANAGER_IP

Speak to your local SE or VAR after verifying the BOQ and check the possibility of RMA. It's difficult to get the approvals, but my local SE's always found a way.

[mat_rouch]

This fixed the problem.  We ordered a large number of 1815i access points a while back and I am guessing some of them were licensed for ME.  I found the one acting as controller by tracing its 00:00:... vrrp MAC address, consoled into it, and changed it to capwap mode.  That caused all the other APs that were talking to it to also switch to capwap mode.  

I used a different command at the console prompt ("ap-type capwap") but the effect was the same.

Thanks everyone for the input.

-Mat

[Rich R]

Just to clarify for anyone reading:

"ap-type capwap" is what you use at the AP command line.

"config ap unifiedmode <WLC_NAME> <WLC_AP_MANAGER_IP>" is what you use at the ME controller command line to convert the APs which are joined to the controller.

If you SSH to the ME AP you get the WLC CLI and have to use "apciscoshell" to attach to the AP CLI.

[Rich R]

Just to further explain - the APs are ordered as standard capwap or ME and it's likely that you have APs that were ordered as ME which means they were shipped from factory loaded with ME image and configuration.

Product	Product Description
AIR-AP1815I-E-K9	Cisco Aironet 1815i Series
AIR-AP1815I-E-K9C	Cisco Aironet Mobility Express 1815i Series