Unifi Pro AP problems

[Jobos]

Decided to take my schools down the Unifi route and one school has given me nothing but problems.

 

Both schools are using the AC pro AP, the controller has a fixed IP, no firewall and DNS has the unifi record setup.

 

First school everything is great and I'm very impressed how it's working.

 

At the second school the APs adopted ok and started working. When the upgrade button appeared I upgraded them to 3.7.29.5446 then the next time I started the controller the AP said adoption failed. I reset the APs and again they appear in the controller ready for adoption but fail repeatedly and I can't ping the AP either. My first thoughts were a faulty unit so tried one at the working school and it adopted fine and ping worked as expected too. I reset it and bought the AP back to the to the second school and again it shows in the controller but no ping and fails to adopt.

 

I'm thinking it must be the network but don't know where to look.

[Blue_Cookeh]

Do you have any firewalls between the Unifi controller and your access point? Can the subnets talk to each other if they're different? If it's a brand new install and you have nothing to lose, have you tried reinstalling the controller software?

[XiJ]

Does the AP have an IP - you could try to ssh into it to reset and /or manually set the controller IP it

Needs to connect to.

[dry]

When you say "the next time I started the controller...", does that mean you haven't got the controller running constantly on a server? If you can, get the controller installed on a server (if it's not already) so that it's up as much time as possible.

 

The only thing I can think of is that there's a firewall blocking port 22 (used for adoption) somewhere along the line between the controller and the AP. What switches have you got?

[TronXP]

What about VLANs? Does the site that does not work use them?

[sted]

When you say "the next time I started the controller...", does that mean you haven't got the controller running constantly on a server? If you can, get the controller installed on a server (if it's not already) so that it's up as much time as possible.

 

The only thing I can think of is that there's a firewall blocking port 22 (used for adoption) somewhere along the line between the controller and the AP. What switches have you got?

id be tempted to create a vm for it so its easy to move if needed. Then make it unifi run as a service on that vm (requiresa little fiddling alst time i did it but iirc its basically a few commands and making sure java is installed and pathed

[Jobos]

@Blue_Cookeh Both schools are using a flat network but the problem school is using /23 whereas the working school is /24. After the problem started I installed the controller on a win7 VM but still the same. The working school had a 2012r2 VM running the controller.

 

@XiJ Yes the AP gets an IP from DHCP and the address is confirmed on the controller. Trying the shh using PuTTY gives a network timeout error.

 

@dry The switches are a mix of HP 1800s and 1900s and a Netgear 7224. I've now got the controller and AP connected in a small 8 port switch and still no ping.

 

I'm starting to think I should swap the APs with the working school as they still have some in the boxes and not upgrade them. Seemed the problem only started after the upgrade anyway.

[sted]

id make sure its NOT in any way going through the netgear 7224 if those are the switches i think they are they have caused me no end of issues in the past to do with dhcp being incredibly slow/unable to be picked up

[Blue_Cookeh]

Is the subnet mask between your controller and the AP the same, since you're on a /23?

 

Have you setup a "unifi" DNS record that points to your controller IP?

[gh5000]

Sounds like a subnet problem as said above.

 

Places to check

1. Server running the controller. Is the subnet there correct.

-also can recommend running on a small linux vm. Runs all the time without service tinkering and is apparently more reliable

2. In the controller config there is a Networks setting. It puts in a default subnet and gateway. May not be related.

 

Do the aps before adoption show an ip. Is it on the first 254 ips or the second set?

 

Just some late night ideas

[Jobos]

I remoted in over the weekend and restarted all the switches in the cab that feeds my office and this seems to have solved the problem. I have yet to mount the APs in their final location but things are looking a lot better than Friday. I'm not going to say it's fixed yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks for the help and I'll post an update when the task is complete.

[AlanD]

Will be interested to know how well Unifi works out for you. Seems to be a much cost effective solution than many of high annual cost competitors.

[mikeprice]

We have Unifi and it been wonderful (he says touching wood)

 

only problem I have had was when I updated Java on the server and it all when a bit pete tong

 

but it all got sorted out in the end - especially if you have backups configured (which isn't as clear as it could be)

[Jobos]

@AlanD I've only done a few APs so far but everything seems ok but I'll wait till half term to fully roll the other APs.

@mikeprice How did you fix the Java problem as I ended up reinstalling the old Java?

[Blue_Cookeh]

@AlanD I've only done a few APs so far but everything seems ok but I'll wait till half term to fully roll the other APs.

@mikeprice How did you fix the Java problem as I ended up reinstalling the old Java?

 

Update to the latest UniFi controller

[mikeprice]

yup - had to install the lastest version of java and then re-install the latest version of Unifi - then reset the config from latest backup

 

In my case in was a new installation so I didn't have a backup of the config and didn't know where it all went so I could recover it. So I ended up completely resetting everything - but that was because I didn't realise there was a backup option in the software (it was installed by a company - who didn't configure the backup!!)