New MX 18.207 beta firmware - many fixes including cellular, DHCP and more

[cmr]

Security appliance firmware versions MX 18.207 changelog

Important notice

• USB modems with MX/Z series devices running firmware MX 18 or newer will be limited to best effort support and will not be receiving any future firmware fixes or improvements.

Bug fixes

Z4(C)

• Resolved an issue that resulted in Z4(C) appliances incorrectly advertising SSIDs that were configured as hidden.

RADIUS

• Corrected a rare issue that could result in RADIUS authentication requests for AnyConnected VPN clients to fail after a long timeout occurs.

PPPoE

• Fixed a data validation issue with PPPoE authentication on the device local status page that could result in devices getting into an invalid config state when invalid data was entered for the PPPoE username.

MX75, 250, 450

• Fixed an MX 18.2 regression that resulted in control traffic generated by MX75, MX250, and MX450 appliances not being routed correctly when the destination was on the MX LAN.
• Resolved an issue that resulted in active-mode FTP connections failing on MX75, MX250, and MX450 appliances.
• Fixed an issue that could result in AnyConnect VPN clients not receiving DNS responses on MX75, MX250, and MX450 appliances when Umbrella integration was configured.
• Resolved an issue that resulted in uplink shaping not limiting traffic speeds on MX250, MX450, and MX75 appliances.
• Corrected an issue that caused mandatory DHCP to not function correctly on MX250, MX450, and MX75 appliances.
• Resolved an issue that resulted in MX250, MX450, and MX75 appliances not relaying DHCP traffic.

VPN

• Fixed an issue that would result in MX appliances indiscriminately responding to DNS requests received over AutoVPN and addressed to its management IP.
• Resolved an issue that resulted in client VPN clients being unable to communicate properly if they were connected to an MX appliance configured to operate in passthrough mode.
• Corrected an issue that prevented MX appliances from sending IPv6 traffic over Non-Meraki VPN tunnels
• Fixed an issue that could result in IP addresses not being freed and returned to the lease pool when IPSec client VPN connections were terminated.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in the AnyConnect VPN and IPSec client VPN services restarting when an MX appliance had a change to IPv6 uplink information, even when these services were not using or providing any IPv6 functionality.
• Corrected an MX 18.2 regression that could result in worse AutoVPN scalability with AutoVPN peers running MX 17 or older firmware versions.
• Corrected a case that could result in the AnyConnect process crashing.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in the AnyConnect VPN client appearing to hang for 2 minutes if the user hit cancel on the login page of the client.

Cellular 

• Fixed a race condition that could result in the integrated cellular modem on Z3C, MX67C, and MX68CW devices getting stuck being unable to detect the SIM card.
• Various cellular fixes to increase the reliability of integrated cellular modems.
• Expanded the range of conditions that Z3C, MX67C, and MX68CW appliances can automatically recover from the integrated modem becoming unresponsive.
• Corrected an issue that could result in MX appliances not failing over to a backup cellular connection after the WAN interfaces had been disabled from Dashboard.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in some MX67(C,W) and MX68(W,CW) appliances experiencing difficulty upgrading to MX 18.2 from their factory default firmware.
• Fixed an issue that could result in pings to fail using the cellular interface when WAN1 was the active uplink.

Stability

• Resolved a rare issue that could result in unexpected VRRP transitions when MX appliances were configured in high availability (HA) and content filtering was enabled.
• Fixed an issue that could result in a device reboot when content filtering was enabled.
• Corrected an MX 18.2 regression that could result in MX appliances running in passthrough mode and configured in high availability (HA) to crash.
• Resolved an MX 18.2 regression that caused MX75, MX85, MX95, and MX105 appliances to have significantly increased device utilization.
• Corrected an issue that could result in devices connected to MX68(W,CW) and MX85 appliances being unable to negotiate 802.3at power levels from PoE.

Legacy products notice

• When configured for this version, Z1 devices will run MX 14.56.
• When configured for this version, MX400 and MX600 devices will run MX 16.16.9.
• When configured for this version, MX64(W), MX65(W), MX84, MX100, and vMX100 devices will run MX 18.107.6.

Known issues status

• This list is being reviewed and updated. Many existing issue reports have not been confirmed to affect MX 18.2XX firmware versions.

Known issues

• Due to an MX 18.2 regression, MX appliances summarize AutoVPN routes advertised through BGP without being configured to do so.
• Due to issues under investigation, MX95 and MX105 appliances may see performance reductions ranging from 10-20% when compared to MX 18.205.
• There is an increased risk of encountering device stability and performance issues on all platforms and across all configurations.

Other

• Added support for configuring 10 Gbps full duplex from the local status page for WAN interfaces on MX85, MX95, and MX105 appliances.

[cmr]

I've tried to sort the list out a bit, hope it makes sense!

[RaphaelL]

I'm getting way higher download speeds ! 850Mbps but lower upload speeds ( 850 -> 750-760Mbps ) on my MX68CW which is still excellent !

I'm getting more performance than ever. 

[CptnCrnch]

Until now, it's looking by far better than the previous beta!

[harmankardon]

Has anyone tried this yet on a MX67C? Curious to know if they've truly fixed all the cellular issues that plagued previous versions of MX 18.xxx

[EBD5820]

Is there a timeline for when 18.207 is supposed to go production?

[RaphaelL]

Already in stable release candidate.

[EBD5820]

Yes, but the customer in question isn't going to go for it if it isn't a full production release. I don't have any drop dead dates, but I'd like to get an idea of when that will come out.

[Pathfinder89]

I upgraded my MX450 HA pair to 18.207 once I saw it in SRC. Immediately, end users started reporting issues getting websites to load. All devices reported online in the dashboard such as my downstream switches and APs. It was very sporadic as some users had no problems, but several others did. After a few hours of troubleshooting with Meraki support, they recommended a rollback. Rolling back to 18.107 resolved those issues for us. It might have been a random fluke for us, but I wanted to let folks know that may experience similar issues. 

[RaphaelL]

Thank you for your feedback ! Do you know if they are investigating the issue ?

[Pathfinder89]

They acted like they were unaware of anyone else that had experienced this issue on this firmware. 

[MlatParl]

Same for me with my MX450.

Upgraded to 18.207 -> two major problems :

- The MX450 restarts randomly (according to the logs, loss of power, even though we have 2 redundant power supplies) or uplink down...
- Some of our users are unable to connect with the basic VPN client (L2TP connection failed because the security layer encountered a processing error during initial negotiations)

Support wasn't aware either.
After 2 hours on the phone with them, we downgraded.

Rolling back to 18.107 resolved all issues...

Be very careful if you install this version with an MX450 !!

Ps : no problem with MX64, MX65, MX68, MX84 or MX100

[cmr]

@MlatParl I hope you are aware, but the MX64, MX65, MX84 and MX100 don't run 18.2xx, if you upgraded networks in them they will be running 18.1xx, I think it will be 18.107.7 as that is the latest patch, despite what is stated below, but I might be wrong:

Legacy products notice

• When configured for this version, Z1 devices will run MX 14.56.
• When configured for this version, MX400 and MX600 devices will run MX 16.16.9.
• When configured for this version, MX64(W), MX65(W), MX84, MX100, and vMX100 devices will run MX 18.107.6.

Therefore the only network(s) you have running 18.207 are those with MX68s in them. 

[MlatParl]

Exactly, thank you for these details.

So, no problem with MX68 😆

All MX64, MX64, MX84 and MX100 are running 18.107.6 on the status page.

On the other hand, I just saw that all these models have the status Config : Out of date (reverted to safe config), even after restarting... 🙄

[carsontl]

hi @cmr , how are you getting this information?  Is there something I can subscribe to that tells us when end of firmware is coming?  Thank you

[jimmyt234]

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Firmware_Upgrades/Product_Firmware_Version_R... 

[carsontl]

Thanks Jimmy, i already have this link - was hoping there was a link out there such as a version update or a blog post that I can subscribe to...

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Firmware_Upgrades/Product_Firmware_Version_R...

...so the only way to know of firmware caps is to constantly go to this page?

[cmr]

I just get it from the release notes, new releases are always posted here:

Firmware Upgrades Feed - The Meraki Community

Other than that, the only page is as @jimmyt234 suggested.

[carsontl]

thank you!! this is it @cmr , are there any others that you would recommend I subscribe to as a newbie?

[jimmyt234]

Another good one to sub to is the new features feed: https://community.meraki.com/t5/Feature-Announcements/bg-p/new-features

Also the global Meraki status page: https://status.meraki.net/ 

[carsontl]

Thanks Jimmy 🙂