topic Re: Can Unleashed "hallucinate" SSID's, or is something darker going on? in Unleashed

Can Unleashed "hallucinate" SSID's, or is something darker going on?

Woody — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 09:24:53 GMT

This is a re-post, of a message I now realise that I originally put in the wrong forum - sorry.

I have two R510's running Unleashed V 200.15.6.212.20. They run fine, no issues at all.

As AP's they deliver one 2.4Ghz SSID and one 5Ghz SSID - without band steering (so that IOT devices connect to the separately named 2.4Ghz) and all other devices to 5Ghz.

I purchased an R710 on ebay. It was brand new in box and had the original FW. I did a hard factory reset (the one with the paperclip) and installed Unleashed V 200.15.6.212.20. When it booted up, it did the Master election and configured itself from the other two R510's.

Yesterday, I removed one of the R510's from the network and installed this "new" R710 in its place.

All worked perfectly, until approx 8 hours later, when I noticed that ALL the LED's were no longer lit (not even the red one) on the R710. In my confusion, I presumed that the R710 had crashed or, that somehow I had configured a setting to turn off the external LED's. So I did a WiFi scan, and could see that while all the LED's were off, the R710 was still live, but advertising a SSID of "Technical.Support-2331". This is not my SSID or anything like a SSID I have ever set.

Confused, I powered down the R710 and replaced it with the R510 that I had removed earlier.

This is where it gets really spooky..

Once the R510 had booted up, it too only offered (a 2.4GHz and 5Ghz) SSID of Technical.Support-2331 and NOT the previous SSID's that I had programmed and have been used by all the WiFi devices in the house since the year dot.

So I took my Android phone, connected to the Technical.Support-2331 SSID - and using the password for the old SSID that this had replaced, two things happened:

1. My phone connected to the Technical.Support-2331 SSID - but using the password from the previous SSID.

2. At the exact moment of connection (1.) the broadcast SSID changed from Technical.Support-2331 back to the correct legacy SSID.

12 hours later, all is well with the world and Technical.Support-2331 SSID has not re-appeared and just in case that you think I have been drinking, I pulled this out of the logs for the very moment that I successfully connected to the Technical.Support-2331 SSID, - at the point the SSID name changed back to the original:

2025/06/22 23:10:38 Low WLAN[Technical.Support/Technical.Support-2331] with BSSID[60:d0:2c:25:d6:48] has been removed from radio [11b/g/n] of AP[Ruckus-R510-Kitchen@60:d0:2c:25:d6:40]
2025/06/22 23:10:38 Low WLAN[Technical.Support/Technical.Support-2331] with BSSID[60:d0:2c:25:d6:4c] has been removed from radio [11a/n/ac] of AP[Ruckus-R510-Kitchen@60:d0:2c:25:d6:40]

Any bright ideas as to what is going on here?

The only thing that I can think, is a remote controller thinking this device belongs to them - and resetting the SSID, or is maybe, Technical.Support-2331 a kind of engineering default SSID, which gets used as a default if a config fails?

Re: Can Unleashed "hallucinate" SSID's, or is something darker going on?

Chandini — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 09:15:35 GMT

Hi Woody

Thank you for reaching us.

Is the issue still occurring, or has it resolved on its own? Also, could you please let us know how many times the issue has occurred so far?

You may also try creating a new SSID and verify the behavior.

Thank you

Re: Can Unleashed "hallucinate" SSID's, or is something darker going on?

Woody — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 11:52:25 GMT

@Chandini,
Thank you so much for your reply.

Just a re-cap:

Device: 901-R710-WW00
S/N: 37170300387

1. This was a new R710 (not running unleashed).

2. I reset it using the paperclip - so that I could get HTTP access and then upload this specific firmware file: R710_200.15.6.212.20.bl7

3. Connected (what should have been a reset 710 with completely new/different firmware) to the network - and it configured itself from the existing Master.

4. Some time late, I discovered all LED's out and broadcasting the Technical.Support-2331 SSID.

5. I therefore removed this R710 from the network and yesterday booted it up on a completely private sandboxed/air gap network. When it came up, again, it was advertising the Technical.Support-2331 SSID (only) - for both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz AND it was open - no password, no encryption.

Now this proved it was a weird situation - particularly as I don't use this SSID - or anything like it (so it wasn't a mangled special hex char set or anything) bearing in mind, that I had originally done a paperclip reset and new/different firmware.So...

6. I thought that maybe a combination of paperclip/new/different firmware wasn't enough, so I SSH'd into it and hit factory-reset in the CLI - whereupon, it rebooted, but, to a solid red LED.

Nothing will now work I am afraid - paperclips just won't shift it and neither will different power supplies (I even tried a direct 12V 2A supply instead of PoE.

I guess that it has now gone to meet it's maker - and the SSID of Technical.Support-2331 was its last cry for help..

Re: Can Unleashed "hallucinate" SSID's, or is something darker going on?

Chandini — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 10:14:44 GMT

Hi Woody

Thank you for reaching us

Are you able to access the new AP on its default URL https://10.154.231.125:9090/ ?

You can refer the below links and try accessing the AP.

Thank you

Re: Can Unleashed "hallucinate" SSID's, or is something darker going on?

Woody — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 15:38:03 GMT

@Chandini,
Thank you so much for your response.

I did try https://10.154.231.125:9090/ (after first manually setting my local IP to that same range) but nothing I am afraid.

Remember, I have a solid red LED - and as I understand it from your documentation, that means that the device has failed to boot - or has not yet finished booting*. If that's the case, this thing has no OS, so I guess it lacks the ability to respond to any IP address?

*Note: Pressing the physical reset button for greater than 10 secs also fails to work, so I guess it can't reset if it had nothing to reset to.

Thanks,
Woody.

Re: Can Unleashed "hallucinate" SSID's, or is something darker going on?

Chandini — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 08:17:15 GMT

Hi Woody

Ack and Noted. Thank you for reaching us.

Please check if you can log a case with us for assistance. Please find the link below to log a support case with us.

https://support.ruckuswireless.com/contact-us

Thank you