Problem with WLC 5520 pair

[sforster123]

Dears,

i've got a strange Problem with a pair of 5520, IOS 8.5.182.0: 

2 Weeks ago i did a reboot of the cluster, Machine 2 failed to boot and is dead. 

We had a spare Machine and installed it today. Update IOS, Configure Interfaces, not the biggest deal. Both see each other by redundancy, if the active boots the standby takes over. Fine so far.   

But then:

The Spare (WLC2, new) is able to manage APs, the old one (WLC1) not - not longer, if he is the active Part.

What i did into the process is change the state of "Redundancy Unit" of WLC1 from secondary to primary - including 2 reboots because of SSO disable/enable, because this machine had the good running configuration. It works, WLC2 Joins as Secondary/Standby and receive the Config. I do not know if this was needed. 

the "show AP summ" in CLI of WLC1 gives a alternating count of APs, 3, 20, 35, 6, ...  On Webinterface nothing is shown. We run 440 APs. 

On WLC2 they all join in a few seconds.  

Any Ideas?

BR

Siggi

[Rich R]

Ok I skipped your last few posts because I think the problem is clear from the earlier posts.  In 5520 SSO secondary (or redundant) unit "borrows" the license from the primary - it only has a HA SKU for itself (no APs).

So your license died with your primary, your old secondary doesn't have any licenses to lend to the new secondary.  Sounds like your new secondary might have some licenses of it's own.

So @Scott Fella's original advice on RMA still applies and TAC can sort out the licenses for you at the same time.  Otherwise if you insist on doing it yourself you must make sure the primary/active WLC in the pair holds the AP licenses.  You can't just interchange primary/secondary without also making sure the licenses get moved.

[Scott Fella]

"When we talk about Primary and Secondary we both mean the "Redundant Unit", right?  Then: no. Primary dies 2 Weeks ago, secondary takes over and runs without Problem."

Like what @Rich R mentioned, most likely your license.  

@sforster123 what was confusing is that it seemed like the secondary unit was the one that dies.  If you look at the SSO guide, the primary unit is suppose to have the licenses, but you're died, so the secondary takes over because it is an ha sku or maybe you have license.  Once you reconfigure the SSO, then you basically restarted without the primary having any licenses.  You then took a spare controller and configured the existing controller as the primary and the spare as the secondary.  Wha you needed to do was to configure the license on the existing, since the 5520 uses RTU license, right to use, you could have just set that under the licensing tab.  Then you would take your spare and make sure it had 50 ap licenses also to make it capable of being a secondary unit in SSO.

So it seems like you need to work out how to get your primary, which is your existing controller back to working.  I think the only way to do that is connect to the serial or service port if configured, disconnect the ethernet port so that there is no connectivity to the network or the other unit and add your license and reboot.  Once that unit comes back up, you can then test again.

If this is too complicated, work with TAC and they can walk you through the steps.  Keep in mind, that doing anything with SSO you will need a downtime, just in case.

[Dustin Anderson]

Licenses are RTU, since you made the secondary the primary, did you add the licenses to it?

Managment/SoftwareActivation/Licenses. do an adder license and that should get shared with the new secondary unit.

This is assuming you never set up smart licensing