When a switch loses it's uplink, how does a connected AP determine when connectivity is lost and when to switch to mesh mode?

unknown

Saw some good but unexpected AP behavior today.


I've only got one meshed AP on my entire campus (on a normal day) but a switch lost it's uplink this morning.



The monitoring application showed that the switch and connected APs went down but before service could be restored to the switch, I got an alert saying that the APs were up again.



The ZoneDirector's link history showed that the affected APs meshed to other APs that still had connectivity.



The affected AP still had a link to the local (isolated) switch.


How did it determine when to go to meshed mode?


Do meshed APs attempt to back-feed traffic into the switches they're connected to?


If so, how do you prevent network loops when multiple APs are connected to the same switch?