Moving AP's to a controller with 4.2.207.0 on it.

da.beaver · ‎10-13-2009

I am in the process of upgrading my controllers from 4.2.130.0 to 4.2.207.0 and am moving access points from an old controller to a new one. I have a situation where several of the older access points (1231's, and 1242's) will not move to the new controller. They are associating to the secondary old controller instead of downloading new code and moving. I looked through the release notes for 4.2.207.0 to see if there was a caveat for this and found nothing. Does anyone know why this would be a problem or has experienced the same issue?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Robert.N.Barrett_2 · ‎10-13-2009

Have you consoled in to the AP's to see what kind of messages are showing up?

Does setting the 4.2.207.0 controller as the "primary controller" for the AP fix the problem?

If you are trying to move all AP's over, you might want to check if enabling the "Master Controller" setting on the 4.2.207.0 controller might help (enable the setting and then reboot each AP).

From the 4.2 Config Guide:

Note Lightweight access points without a primary, secondary, and tertiary controller assigned always search

for a master controller first upon reboot. After adding lightweight access points through the master

controller, assign primary, secondary, and tertiary controllers to each access point. Cisco recommends

that you disable the master setting on all controllers after initial configuration.

palthainon · ‎10-13-2009

What happens when you remove the old controller entirely?

da.beaver · ‎10-13-2009

I have a primary, secondary, and tertiary controller configured on every access point I have. When I try to move the access point to the new controller, it reboots, then joins the secondary controller with the older code on it. You can even watch to see it continue to try and join the new controller, then come right back to the old controller.

It is interesting because about 70% of the access points I move, move right over with no issue. It is just a hand full of access points that will not move.

I haven't consoled into one of the access points yet to see what messages it may be logging, but I will try that next. I thought it may have something to do with the type of AP it is, but I know that 4.2.207.0 does support 1230's, 1231's, and 1242's.

I am trying to minimize downtime by moving several access points at a time to the new controller and that way I can do the move during normal business hours. If I remove the old controller completely, they will just join one of the other old controllers.

palthainon · ‎10-13-2009

Use the Cisco Upgrade Tool to update the firmware on the AP's having trouble. This will save you some time and likely fix your issue.

If you can't do this then post a config of the controllers and access points.

Leo Laohoo · ‎10-13-2009

I have a primary, secondary, and tertiary controller configured on every access point I have.

How did you do this? The reason why I asked is because there is a very known (or popular) bug on the 4.X regarding assigning of the primary, secondary and tertiary controller to the AP using the GUI. THe assignment of the primary, secondary and tertiary controller to the AP will only work if using CLI.

Gary Smith · ‎10-14-2009

Regarding the AP's which will not join the new controller - On the old controller/s have you got the said AP's MAC info and SSC hash added into the AP policies page? It may be that these old AP's need to be added here.