Upgrade to 4.2 WCS

[ericgarnel]

Has anyone taken the leap yet?

I was going to my WCS today and then do my controllers tomorrow afternoon.

I was going to take Cisco on its' word:

Upgrading to a New Software Release

The Cisco WCS release must be the same or more recent than the controller software release. Upgrade the Cisco WCS first to prevent any unexpected problems. Cisco WCS supports database upgrades only from the following official Cisco WCS releases:

from http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/wcs/release/notes/WCSRN4_2.html#wp44431

but figured I would ask first.

[mladenp]

Hello,

do you use any 1121G APs on your network?

I have tested 4.2 in my lab and I have following problem (copy/paste from other forum):

Hello,

I had working lab with 4402 controller, 1121G AP and 4.1.185.0 sw.

After upgrade to 4.2.61.0 it looks like AP won't load new image, on WLC is a lot of AP Associated / AP Disassociated messages in log. I have tried same thing with 2106 controller and same thing happens. I have looked in Bug tool but there isn't any similar bug. Any ideas?

[ericgarnel]

Nope. We have 1020 APs, but we are looking into replacing all APs with 1252 LAPs in the near future

[cstevens]

Problem installing WCS 4.2.62.0 upgrade.

Has anyone run into a problem installing this version? I downloaded the Windows .exe file from Software Downloads to my server. I un-installed 4.1.83.0 and then ran the installer. It begins the installation and then I get the error file seen in the attached document.

I've deleted the exe file I downloaded from Cisco, thinking maybe it was corrupted, but had the same problem when I downloaded it again. Any suggestions are welcome.

[cstevens]

Issue resolved.

I had to download WCS Navigator 1.1.62.0 in order to get the actual WCS 4.2.62.0 exe file to load properly.

Did anyone else find this documentation confusing?

[Scott Fella]

just make sure you backu the WCS in case you decide to go back. One of my clients upgraded to 4.2 on the WCS and WLC. WCS has some bugs but not as bad as when we upgraded the WLC. AP's were loosing connection to the WLC and users were not able to associate if idle timeout was set to 10000 or higher... TAC told me that they will come out with a newer code.... within 3 months.

[johnruffing]

There are other "unresolved caveats" in 4.2 (a list that is growing significantly faster and larger than the "resolved caveats" list):

WLC 4.2.61 Release notes: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/controller/release/notes/crn4200.html

WCS 4.2.62 Release Notes http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/wcs/release/notes/WCSRN4_2.html

Specifically, the following was of concern to me:

CSCsk16314-Access points start downloading new software before the controller has been rebooted.

Workaround: None.

Since the LWAPs immediately begin downloading code prior to the WLC's reboot as the final stage of its upgrade.

This results in the possible interruption of up to 10 LWAPs in mid-upgrade. According to Cisco, you really do not want to interrupt the LWAP in the middle of an upgrade. If you do, you may have to reload the APs from scratch which could take some time... if you can still communicate with them. If not, you may have to get physical access to them.

If you have multiple controllers, then the potential problem can be quite significant.

It would seem to make sense to isolate the controllers from the LWAPs during the upgrade to the controller(s) and, once the controllers upgrade and reboot, then re-establish connection to the access points.

On the flip side, I had a customer decide to "go for it" on his 300-LWAPP, multi-controller system and he ran the gauntlet successfully without isolating the LWAPs... but as they say, Caveat Emptor (which means, when loosely translated, "we have been sold a bunch of caveats").

- John

[scottwilliamson]

Hi John,

This explains why I saw the APs on one of my controllers dissassociate during the s/w download to the controllers. Fortunately they all came back up without any intervention.

I initially saw the misreporting of the APs' s/w version but that has now gone after doing a few "refresh from controller"s. Also a few other problems have gone since I upgraded to 4.2, the worst of which was that all of the APs on a controller would dissassociate from it for no apparent reason even when AP fallback / mobility groups were correctly configured.

Regards

Scott

[jpeterson6]

Hi all,

I am really concerned about the caveats that fella5 pointed out in the release notes. Problem is I have no idea what half of them mean.

In particular:

• CSCsf29783-The Cisco WiSM reboots after experiencing a failure with the reaperWatcher mmMfpTask.

o Workaround: None.

- What is reaperWatcher mmMfpTask?

• CSCsk85757-The Cisco WiSM reboots after operating for 32 days because the sshpmReceiveTask missed the software watchdog.

o Workaround: None.

• CSCsk01753-The Cisco WiSM might reboot due to a failure in the sshpmReceiveTask.

o Workaround: None.

- What is sshpmReceiveTask?

Thanks.

[jkennedy]

Anyone else seeing a lot of disassociations/reassociations with 4.2.61.0? If so any fix?

[mladenp]

Yes, but only with 1121 APs which were (unsuccessfully) converted to LAP and trying join WLC...

[johnruffing]

Further feedback:

Although not a surpise, running 4.2 WCS and 4.1.185 WiSM code is a very BAD idea. There were a number of very strange behaviors (even for the WCS) that indicated we were having synchornization issues (that is, more than usual) between the WCS and WiSM. Once we upgraded the WiSMs to 4.2 there were many fewer problems.

- John