WLC - control and data path down

mbhnt · ‎03-10-2010

Right here goes...

At site A we have 1 WCS server and 3 WLC 4404's

At site B we have 2 WLC 4404's

At site C we have 3 WLC 4404's

Site A and B are fine but site C has a problem where clients will lose connectivity after approx 90 days, and then fail to re-connect.

They will connnect to the WLAN but not get a DHCP address, and get put in the excluded list.

The config looks almost the same on all 4404's and the version is the same.

Of the 3 WLCs at site C I get "control and data path down" between 2 of them. If I mping and eping them they will return to an "up" status but then back down after 30-60secs

Here's the odd bit - I have a laptop and travel between all the sites and never had a problem at site C. I took one of the failing PCs from site C to site A yesterday and it connected fine.

I brought it back today and it suddenly worked again! It's like it needs to roam to keep it "alive"

DHCP lease time is set to 8 days.

I've rebooted the WCS and all 3 WLCs on site C with no difference.

Any ideas?

Scott Fella · ‎03-10-2010

So your issue is only with site 'C'? Or is this issue on all three sites?

-Scott
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Leo Laohoo · ‎03-10-2010

Hmmmm ... smells like credentials or certificate issue. While I'm at it, can you let us know what firmware are you using on the WLC? Did you upgrade the firmware of the wireless clients?

mbhnt · ‎03-11-2010

yes only site C has the problem.

all the WLC's are running 4.1.171.0.

the clients are all using D-Link cards (same model across all 3 sites - we've tried upgrading and downgrading the firmware).

We're using certificate based authentication with PEAP, and there is an ACS server to do some authentication in the mix as well (but that's common between all 3 sites).

I'm sure it's something very simple, but I can't work it out.

Scott Fella · ‎03-11-2010

Well if it is your mobility that is bouncing on site 'C', do you know if it is due to one WLC that is dropping off... We had an issue similar to yours and we knew which one was dropping so we reloaded the code and configured it from scratch and that seemed to fix the issue. Since you have 3 WLC's, what you can try is to move all the AP's to WLC 1 & 2 and see if the issue goes away, then you can determine which WLC is causing the issue.... unless it is two of them... doubt it but you never know. Again... this will only work if you have enough room to move the AP's over to the other WLC's. I don't think it is a radius issue since you nitice this when the mobility group bounces... correct?

-Scott
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mbhnt · ‎03-11-2010

thanks, i think we will end up having to rebuild them. I tried associating one of the APs with a controller on the other site, but that didn't work. Although i've rebooted the WLC's I haven't tried downing one to see what happens.

We've only got 50 APs on each WLC so I'll try downing one at a time at the weekend. ughh more overtime.

Scott Fella · ‎03-12-2010

You will have to unless someone knows of a bug id for this. Again... revie the logs and see if mobility goes down for a particular WLC.... you have enough room on the others to split the load. I would then test for a couple days or how long it usually takes before you see the problem. Then if you don't see the issue then put that WLC back in and remove another one untill either don't see the problem or you do find the bad WLC. If you really wanted to, I guess you can spend the weekend rebuilding all three as long as you don't upload the backup config:)

-Scott
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