Meraki Switches

[ITWil]

So it started with 2 of our Meraki L3 switches showing as alerting in the cloud dashboard. They were alerting but all clients were connected without any issues. Just couldn't see a live config.

 

Get onto Meraki support who suggest a re-boot. Did that and it made no difference. Back to Meraki support. They can see a "backend error and they have applied a change to help clear the config fetch error" and a re-boot is suggested. Another re-boot but the alert still remains. Back to Meraki again and this time they suggest I check the firewall rules as per the firewall info page on the dashboard and ensure our switches can communicate with the Meraki cloud (not sure why this is an issue as the other switches are all configured with the same gateway, DNS, subnet etc.) - so those firewall rules are checked and everything is in place. After that another re-boot is done and all hell breaks loose... I now have 8 switches offline and all in the same stack and no clients can get connectivity and a third of the school is left without network, Wi-Fi etc. So in the morning I'm left re-booting each switch one by one to try and get them up and running. After that I end up with 7 of the switches alerting (but clients can connect) with the error This switch's current stack members differ from the dashboard configuration (I checked the stacking cables and they are all plugged in correctly and configured in the way Meraki suggest) and even stranger is the switch that was alerting originally is still alerting but with that error but now the switch at the top of stack is showing as offline (even though the white LED light is on) in the dashboard and no clients can get any connectivity. So that was fun moving patch cables from that switch to another one that was working!

 

So I now have 7 switches showing alerting with a stacking error. 1 is unreachable (and unusable at present) and on the uplink port on the core I'm getting a LACP has disabled this port. All this from a couple of re-boots.

 

I'd like peoples thoughts on this as Meraki support are now suggesting I completely re-build the stack from scratch which is a no can do during the working week.

Edited January 29, 2024 by ITWil

[Wave9_Matt]

Hi, based on what you say the alert is because the dashboard thinks there should be 8 switches configured in the stack when there are only 7 online.

 

You may wish to:

1. Remove the offline switch from the stack configuration in the dashboard

2. factory reset it with a paperclip, remove the stack cables from the back as it reboots

3. then plug it into a spare switchport in the stack via standard Cat5e/Cat6 cable. Set the native VLAN of the stack switch port to the management vlan (assuming you have a mgmt. VLAN and it has DHCP enabled)

4. In the dashboard look at the connecting switchport for the LLDP / IP as the “faulty” switch boots. Check it reports an IP and watch the booting switch status LED

5. Also check the fw logs to see the outbound comms from the faulty switch IP.

6. It should come back up on the dashboard as a standalone switch with an IP from the mgmt. VLAN.

7. Once it does and all happy:

a. add it to the stack in the dashboard,

b. wait for the config to update and it to alert in the dashboard then

c. power it down and cable it back up the stack

d. power it back up and it should come up ok as a stack member.

 

I assume your core is STP root?

 

Meraki tend to take the start from scratch / by the book approach as it’s a good way to identify if there is a faulty switch and then zone in on the fault. As you point out though – sometimes that’s not practical during the school day.

I hope this helps

[PotNoodleTech]

Hmm rebuilding a stack from scratch is not really a technical support response I would expect. That's absolute last ditch, not the first step surely??

 

That's like saying I am having a strange problem in MS Word? Ok your gonna have to format the C drive and reinstall the whole PC??

 

Seems like lazy support to me.