Factory reset of a MS120-8P

[francktls]

Hello Community,

Last week one of my customer experienced issues with MS120 units deployed in operating theaters. They cascaded it to a distribution switch MS410-16. But some of them didn't booted properly or got an IP in a different VLAN than the native VLAN.

So we had sometimes to perform factory reset as the device were unable to release the wrong IP they have received.

The procedure is described here but didn't worked : https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Support/Resetting_Cisco_Meraki_Devices_to_F...

Once you push on reset button, all LEDs were supposed to blink together 10 times. It never happened.

Our customer decided to power off the device then power on while still pushing on reset button.

It worked, the device rebooted as expected, took an IP in the appropriate VLAN and was able to show up green in the dashboard.

Is it normal ?

So I would recommend to try that before RMA a device, this is not the first time I notice that behavior with a MS120-8.

Many thanks,

Franck.

[BrechtSchamp]

Where did you read that it needs to blink 10 times? The way I read it is that for an MS, you press the reset button until the power LED goes out and then you immediately let go. I believe while booting indeed all LEDs will go on, but you should've let go of the reset button already by then.

Keeping the reset button pressed while booting should put it in factory test mode, which is not what you want.

I haven't tested this, but I can do it later if you want.

[francktls]

Hello @BrechtSchamp 

My customer did it as it is indicated in the official documentation but nothing changed. We had 3 faulty devices. 2 of them unreachable and one orange in the dashboard getting a wrong DHCP IP.

I was just helping my customer remotely, I was not with him to control what he was doing and I have no choice but believe him.

I don't have MS120-8P to reproduce the operation, I'll be glad if you can do it 🙂

Can you keep me in touch ?

Many thanks to you.

[BrechtSchamp · Accepted solution]

All right, I did some testing. First I should mention I don't have an MS120-8LP to test. I'm using an MS220-8P.

Here's how I setup the test.

1. I had a switch that was connected to the cloud and had the IP address 10.x.x.17/24 configured in dashboard. It responds to that address when pinged.
2. Then I used the local status page to assign it another IP address that was not known to the dashboard: 10.x.x.117/24. I kept the rest of the settings equal to the ones in dashboard (including the VLAN id).
3. After this change I started a continuous ping to 10.x.x.117 (responding succesfully) but also to the old address 10.x.x.17 (not responding).
4. Then I just pressed the reset button for a short time (1-2s). The behavior of the switch was that it just rebooted. Once that was done it was again responding to pings on 10.x.x.117, the locally stored IP address.
5. Then I held the button for longer (the 10 seconds mentioned in the installation guide: https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Installation_Guides/MS_End_of_Sale/MS220-8_Series_(EOS)_Installa...). The behavior of the switch now was indeed that it was blinking all LEDs at about a frequency of once per second. But if you hold the button long enough (about 10s) they all stay off for a longer time. At that point I let go of the reset button. Now the switch went through the regular process of fetching a DHCP address from the MX (and then reaching out to the dashboard). It now started responding on the old address again @ 10.x.x.17, so the static IP assignment that I did locally was indeed gone. Factory reset has been succesful.

I hope that helps!

[redsector]

Factory reset is better done like this:

In the dashboard: remove the switch from the network. This prevents the switch to fetch the old config from the dashboard and then it´s not in an default config any more. Then push the reset button at least 10seconds. I also had MS120-8FP they were not blinking (the older MS225-8FP did).

After this procedure put the switch into the network. This will create a new config for the switch.

[francktls]

Hello,

I agree with that as well.

It was difficult for me because when you're not on site, the local IT may not tells exactly what he is doing ! I'm away, so no choice but trust him.

Next time I'll handle that myself.

Many thanks guys for your help and the time you spend.