Unable to join R770 APs to existing Unleashed networks

[sjg72]

I have four R770s that I am running into issue with when trying to join to an existing Unleashed network. I had an existing network with 4 R650s. I was unable to get any of the R770s to join that network, so what I initially did was rebuild all of the network settings on one of the new R770s. At that point, I was able to joint the remaining R770s to the network.

This worked fine for a couple of weeks, until I had an Internet outage. At that point, two of the R770s began a reboot cycle and would no longer re-join the network. As before, I ended up resetting one of the APs and reconfiguring the Unleashed network. However, this time I could still not get any of the R770s to join the network without going into a reboot cycle. At this point I reset the R650s I was previously using, and all of them immediately joined the Unleashed network and worked as expected.

I have tried multiple factory resets on the R770s, including flashing back to standalone firmware and then back to Unleashed firmware again. This definitely seems specific to the R770s since I had no issues with the R650 APs. I have also tried to set up a new Unleashed network on an isolated LAN and still cannot get more than a single R770 into an Unleashed network.

I see this in the event log for the R770s that try to join:

AP[xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx] joins with uptime [58] s and last disconnected reason [AP Restart : application reboot]

AP[xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx] reset to disable mesh function

AP[xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx] reset due to IP address change

After that, they join the network, briefly show as working, and then reboot.

I also see this in the logs: 

XXX-WLAN stamgr: M00141aS0De stamgr_handle_add_del_vap_reply():APxx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx is restarted because VAP config is out of sync= 

I am wondering if this has something to do with how the R770s handle mesh, which I did have configured on the initial R650 network, and also enabled after I created a new one with the R770s. All of the R770s were root nodes, I just needed mesh for an Ethernet bridge to one of the rooms in my house.

In any case, I'm assuming there is something with the R770 Unleashed firmware that is causing this behavior but wanted to see if anyone had any ideas.

[louis]

Yesterday I replaced two R850s with R770s in an existing Unleashed network and ran into a similar boot loop issue with the R770s. All APs have the latest Unleashed firmware version 200.17.7.0.152. I figured out what was causing the problem in my case, skip to "Solution" at the bottom of my post, but the logs are a bit different than what was originally posted here. What I have observed might be a different bug in the R770 Unleashed firmware, and my solution might not work for everyone.

Troubleshooting

After connecting the R770s, they joined the Unleashed network on their own, but quickly disconnected. They would periodically reconnect for a few second to a minute before disconnecting again. Following is a timeline of my troubleshooting.

• Tried a factory reset, no effect.
• Checked the logs on the R770s. Only note worthy log I found was the reason for the reboot.
  • daemon.warning Eved: Last Reboot Reason: user reboot
• Since the Unleashed system was actively trying to restart the AP, I checked the Unleashed master logs and saw the following same reason for why Unleashed was rebooting both of the R770s. 
  • WLAN[redacted] has been deployed on radio [802.11be(5g)] of AP[redacted@xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx] with BSSID[xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx]
  • Failed to deploy WLAN[redacted] on radio [802.11be(2.4g)] of AP[redacted@xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx], try again.
    - message repeats a total of 3 times -
  • AP[redacted@xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx] reset because its configuration is out of sync with Unleashed
• Since the WLAN was failing to deploy only on the 2.4g radio, I tried disabling the 2.4g radio for this WLAN, WiFi Networks -> Edit -> Show advanced options -> Radio Control -> Enable WLAN on -> uncheck 2.4 GHz.
  The R770s stopped rebooting, everything started working without the 2.4g network.
  Clearly there is a bug in Unleashed with 2.4g configs on R770s.
  
• I was curious if some specific setting for 2.4g was causing the problem, so I played with those settings and reenabling the 2.4g network. See "Solution" below for the setting that fixed everything.

Solution

WiFi Networks -> Edit -> Show advanced options -> Radio Control -> OFDM Only -> uncheck Enable OFDM Only

Disabling OFDM only fixed my problem. The R770s joined my existing network and have not been rebooting with all radios enabled after I disabled OFDM only. Clearly a bug in the latest Unleashed firmware 200.17.7.0.152 for R770s.