AP 7181 Failure to Boot

[Kendal_Ingraham]

Throwing this out as a last ditch inquiry. Since summer we have had a number of 7181 APs die in the field. We originally thought heat and just reaching the end of life (yes, I realize no support anymore), but now that we are in full swing winter the deaths are not slowing and if anything, seem to be speeding up. I have not been able to find any tell tale signs in the syslog or combing through our VX9000 controller - they just disappear. The switches they are connected to report flapping of the port interface, then nothing. I did bring some back from the field and attempted to console into them, but to no avail. Often I will get nothing, or sometimes just a constant feed of gibberish/static. Looking at the lights, only the one to the far left (1) blinks sporadically. I’ve tried the reset button, but nothing there either.

We have pretty much given up and have deemed these will all fail. The most frustrating part is we can’t tell which ones. Has anyone else experienced this and if so, any trends that you could find that were killing the APs or suggestions on other locations to look for a reason?

[Ron_Galien]

Hello Kendall, 

       Thank you for this inquiry.  The AP7181 went end-of-sale life (EOSL) back in 2014.

At this point the units may be reaching their MTBF - Mean Time Between Failure, or possibly some other environmental / installation issues may be affecting them.

In review of the LED status indicator it appears the units may be stuck in a boot loop... 

Question - have you attempted to reset these units back to factory defaults using the AP Discovery Tool with Reset option?

The AP Discovery Tool with reset option allows you to attempt a full AP reset back to factory defaults.

I have posted the AP Discovery Tool with Reset option along with How to Use Guide here:

https://extremenetworks2com-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rgalien_extremenetworks_com/EsXAsHg-LXh...

Also - have you attempted to connect to one of the problematic units console port access? 

https://gtacknowledge.extremenetworks.com/articles/How_To/How-to-use-the-serial-console-port-on-RFS-...

Here is the AP7181 installation guide for review if needed:

https://documentation.extremenetworks.com/ExtremeWireless/AP7181_IG_MN001375A01_REVB_EN.pdf

If these units have truly failed - the best bet will be to perform a hardware refresh:

The replacement for the AP7181 is the AP8163

Hope this helps