Client Page PC Description showing GUID / UUID

[jdavis721]

I manage several different networks and have been noticing the last couple weeks that my client list is no longer using the PC name in the description field for some of the clients. It's a very small number of clients (maybe 5/100) that use GUID/UUID for "Description", but the number is definitely growing. 

I can't find anything about this using Google. When I open the Client for the in-depth stats, it shows the MAC, IP, OU/CN, all of the good stuff - but for some un-explainable reason it reverts to using this GUID for the Description field. Has anyone else seen this? Is there a way to keep this from happening? Thanks!

[BrandonS]

I've noticed this too.  I have not investigated much, but a couple I saw on one of my networks seemed related to VM's possibly.

[PhilipDAth]

What type of client does it say it is?  Windows 10?  Apple?

[jdavis721]

That's the thing, there seems to be no correlation as to why the clients start ID'ing this way. I have a few windows 10, 1-2 windows 7. Some wireless, mostly wired. They all have been on Active Directory the whole time and have previously appeared on the client list with their Computer Name, or at least MAC, as the "Description". But one day they switched to using GUID. 

It's a very small number of clients that have switched to GUID to this point, but I'm watching more closely and will keep you posted if I start seeing more. and thanks for the reply!! 

[DaveG]

I've noticed the same thing on my network today as well. It is affecting 13 of 141 clients.

[matt-ca]

noticed the same on our network to, both windows and mac clients.

[CPSKA]

Well, it turns out we are not the only company experiencing this exact same problem!

I have opened a case with Meraki Support on June 27 describing a problem where a growing number of systems had Client Descriptions switch from Device Names to GUID numbers. The original suggestion was that it was caused by mDNS traffic. I disabled mDNS protocol on clients using Group Policy and looked with Wireshark for mDNS queries but that was a dead end while the problem continues.
This happens on AD clients with a mix of Windows 10 versions (1803, 1809, 1903) , Windows 7 and even one Vizio TV. It affects now 9 out of 61 clients and growing every few days.
Clearly, the bug is with Meraki software and Meraki programmers should trace it ASAP and escalate if necessary. We cannot have portals listing systems which are basically "unidentifiable" by humans.

Lets keep this thread open and share any information / updates Meraki provides regarding resolution.

[svacs]

FYI when submitting a case for this:

Thank you for contacting Cisco Meraki Support.

This problem has been reported. The development team is actively working on it.
I will update you as soon as possible after the development update.

[CMJ]

I opened a case with support on August 12 and there was no acknowledgment of a known issue.  I was pointed to documentation and provided a review of how the description is populated.  This morning I passed along this thread and asked for an update.  

Oddly enough, it's only impacting some of our clients despite their use of a base image.

From what I can see, there is no rhyme or reason as to why the description shows properly or improperly.

[jdavis721]

yeah I'm continuing to see the amount of users affected by this grow. I've resorted to changing them back to the client name manually when I have downtime and feeling motivated. The silence from Meraki is odd

[svacs]

Hey, this is the response I received back for my support case:

The development team got back and indicated that the clients names were supposedly superseded by mDNS names if they are not manually assigned a name.  For your clients that appearing as UUID/GUIDs, have you manually assigned names to them? If not, then it is expected.

Cisco Meraki Technical Support

^ This isn't good news, looks like i'll be needing to write an API/Script to manually update GUIDs and monitor for host name changes 😞

[Dennis_S]

I'm not quite sure I accept the Tech Support answer. I am seeing the UUID on machines I know for fact have manually added names. My machine name was changed from a previously manual name to a new name. My machine is now identified by the UUID.

It's clear Meraki is not going to adjust anything, which is sad.

[MatthewL]

Has anyone determined a fix to this as of yet?  We are seeing more an more GUID/UUID replace machine names in our environment which is starting to cause help desk havoc.  Perhaps I will also open a ticket as it is quick obvious its growing.  We are on 11.22 and see the issue corporate wide.

[svacs]

We only have a workaround which is to run an API based script that looks for UUIDs and matches the IP with the hostname in DHCP then updates the Description in Meraki for that client.

Meraki were quite firm that unless you manually set your clients (>1000 for us) it'll be in the UUID format...

Doesn't hurt to try though!

[JakeBD1]

Hello!

Any chance of you sharing that script? Sounds like a good workaround.

[svacs]

Happy to, I'll just need to add comments / remove specific info to us and will figure out where to share it 🙂

[svacs]

I modified / pasted the code here -> https://pastebin.com/iU2ssCVD

It looks like pasting to pastebin changes the formatting somewhat. If you're unsure of anything let me know.

The script is written in Powershell so some adaptation would be required if not using Windows.

Just noticed a mistake here:

function api_get($key, $url) {

$headers = New-Object "System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary[[String],[String]]"

$headers.Add("X-Cisco-Meraki-API-Key", "$apikey")

Just replace ($key, $url) with ($apikey, $url) it'll likely still work without this change

[seroal22]

Hello! Did you get any feedback? Is it still a known issue? 

[Ching023]

We have the same issue.

but I confirmed, the string that shows up in the Client Description isn't the hardware UUID.

the formate is the same as the UUID, but I checked on the MacBook Pro that has this problem, that string doesn't match the Hardware UUID nor the User's UUID.

Don't really know where that string coming from.

[svacs]

Unfortunately Meraki makes use of UUID version 4 which generates a random UUID...

[Ching023]

I noticed another fact.

That Client Description was changed very frequently.

I check in the Client List once a hour today, and got different Description string every time I check.

This needs to be stopped.

according to Meraki support, name was picked by this logic.

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Cross-Platform_Content/Rename_a_Client's_Ho...

We should given an option to prioritize the way to pick the machine's name.

[svacs]

That would be a nice feature. Sign me up!

[CptnCrnch]

---

@svacs wrote:

That would be a nice feature. Sign me up!

---

It works the other way around: „Make a wish“ on the Dashboard page.

[seroal22]

Have opened a ticket aswell, same issue. Some clients show this GUID/UUID type string as hostname. They say, its normal and expected. Also they claim, "This is not a unique identified we've created on our backend to identify clients"

Appears to happen on all kinds of devices (Win10, Iphone, Ipad, Android) for different customers. Makes sense, it must not be a Meraki issue. 

Business as usual... 

[Crocker]

So I started noticing this a couple months ago - or, more specifically, noticing that it was becoming much more prevalent. We've been using Meraki equipment for ~2 years now, slowly replacing EOL Cisco routers with Meraki MX's wherever feasible. Since the start, I would occasionally see "GUID/UUID" type names for clients.

I'm not certain exactly when the GUID/UUID type names became the norm vs. the DHCP names, but it is "recent". I started poking around at this specific issue a couple days ago and like others in this thread, opened a case with Meraki support and got the same response outlining the priority list for client names.

EDIT: The prevalence of this issue coincided with a 2-3 month push to swap to MSEdge vs. Internet Explorer. The handful of GUID/UUID type names prior to this push most likely came from those folks using Chrome as their daily driver.

I then ran a couple packet captures on some LAN interfaces to capture the mDNS traffic, lo-and-behold, I saw workstations responding to mDNS queries with GUID-like names. Did some more poking around and found some info from ~2019 describing how WebRTC was being changed to use/respond to mDNS queries.

mDNS - WebRTC Glossary

PSA: mDNS and .local ICE candidates are coming • BlogGeek.me

I'm no guru on web-dev-speak, but as I understand it...Chrome & Edge will spin up a UDP 5353 (mDNS, Bonjour) listener and respond with a randomly generated ID if it hears a query. You can see evidence of this yourself by viewing listening ports (resource monitor -> Listening Ports) on any Windows 10 workstation running Chrome or Edge.

So...it's not technically a Meraki problem. It's a Chrome/Edge/WebRTC problem (not sure if it affects firefox).

I think the long-term fix is going to be for Meraki to allow us to pick the order/preference for client name resolution. Not sure how realistic that expectation is, but I've submitted some feedback requesting as much.

[Imjin]

Has anyone come up with a good workaround for this issue, I know installing Bonjour Services on the device immediately fixes the issue, but our internal Security team is not in favor of installing unnecessary 3rd party software.