Having an issue with stacked MS350-48P-HW with additional power supply

[MerakiJockey505]

I have two MS350-48P-HW switches both with full power supply and stacked accordingly to Meraki specs using the provided cables.  The two switches have been configured and stacked on the dashboard and were successfully running off a single uplink.  After an hour or so one of the switches went amber and became unreachable on the dashboard.  However,  all of the ports were still visible and available to toggle successfully via the dashboard.  A short time later the other switch became unreachable.  I went through standard troubleshooting processes and rebooted, changed uplink, verified VLANs, port tested, switched out stacking cables, removed and added back to the dashboard, factory reset, all of which seem to bring them both up for a while and then drop shortly thereafter.  Currently, both units are white on the appliance LED but down on the dashboard.  Has anyone come across this before?

[MRCUR]

I've seen the latest generation of switches (MS350, MS225, etc.) do this when stacked. Try moving to the latest 9.X firmware beta. I know Support is aware of some stacking oddities. I wish I had a better sense of why this is happening, but all I can say is you're not alone. 

[MerakiJockey505]

Thanks @MRCUR, good to know.  I've given that a try a few days ago and waiting to see if its stays nice and baked in to the appliances.  Fingers crossed.

[MerakiJockey505]

I've been on the latest beta firmware since the last post and still having issues with this stack.  I have put in a ticket with support and hopefully will get some feedback soon to post on here.

[bholmes12]

One of the other things I ran into when first stacking was realizing that all of the Meraki switches in the stack need there own MGT IP. 

Coming from Cisco stacks, I always viewed a stack as 1 logical device with x physical switches. 

Meraki doesn't seem to view it that way. With Meraki it seems to be 5 switches and 5 logical devices, they just happen to have  40Gbps (I think its 40) links between them, they are still 5 managed as 5 different devices. Yes they can share the same SVI's, routing table, etc but you manage each switch in the stack from its MGT IP. 

A cisco stack would have 1 MGT IP for all 5 switches in a stack. In a Meraki stack all 5 switches will need there own MGT IP. The first time I stacked with Meraki this though me off and I had issues with that stack until I realized they all need MGT Ip's. 

[MRCUR]

@bholmes12 Yeah, that’s a Meraki quirk to stacking. I believe it’s because each switch runs its own management stack for Dashboard connectivity.

I use DHCP now for my MS management VLAN’s which really cuts down on the overhead of the stacking IP needs. I know it’s a very different way of thinking coming from traditional switch management, but it’s worked really well for me.

[DarkStar]

@MRCUR I was going to suggest DHCP as the work around for the MGT IP. I have used that and it makes stacking much faster and easier. Just not how I learned it on 3750s or 3850s. -DS 

[bholmes12]

During my initial troubles with stacks I also had that same realization. And you are right, it felt very strange to run switches without static IP's. But I figured it works with dhcp's and because I am not SSH'ing into switches and they just need internet access it doesn't really matter if they are static. So since then I have been deploying all my MS switches stacks or not using DHCP. 

A couple things that have made me nervous with this are DHCP snooping, and if our DHCP server has any issues, but so far so good. 

[DarkStar]

Same issues with the MS350-48LP. Using stacking cables that came with them or ordered other stacking cables. It seems like the Meraki Dashboard does not reflect what is happening at the physical switches. Many times the switches will report ok white LEDs, but the dashboard displays issues. Or the Meraki physical switches display angry orange LEDs and the dashboard is all green. WUWT?

[bholmes12]

Started a separate thread on this and then saw your post, but I think this is relevant here as well. 

Version:1.0 StartHTML:000000234 EndHTML:000018730 StartFragment:000016376 EndFragment:000018569 StartSelection:000016605 EndSelection:000018553 SourceURL:https://community.meraki.com/t5/Switching/MS350-Stacking-Issues/m-p/528MS350 Stacking Issues - The Meraki Community

MS350 Stacking Issues

I have 3 MS350 stacks, 6 switches in each stack, running on 8.10 software. 

 

All stacks have been up and running without issue for the past month or so. No changes have been made on the Meraki switches or the Cisco Nexus 9k's that are upstream. 

 

This morning within an hour all 3 stacks had switches that removed themselves from the stack and stopped forwarding traffic. 

 

Stack 1 - 1 switch disappeared from the stack and stopped forwarding traffic - Did not come online until after a reboot. Uplink port was not on this switch. 

 

Stack 2 - 1 switch disappeared from the stack and stopped forwarding traffic - Did not come online until after a reboot. Uplink port was not on this switch. 

 

Stack 3 - 5 of the switches disappeared from the stack - 1 of the uplinks was on one of the switches that disappeared from the stack. After rebooting the switch with the uplink the 5 switches rejoined the stack. 1 switch in this stack stayed online, that switch has an uplink to the core. 

 

It seems really strange that 3 stacks had the same issue within an hour, Meraki support suggested we hit a bug (8.10) and have requested I upgrade to 9.19. 

 

Has anyone else been having stacking issues? 

 

I typically put in Cisco 4500's or 3850's and these are my first 3 MS350 stack closets. This obviously isn't giving me a very warm and fuzzy feeling to have a failure like this after a month or so. 

 

Curious what other users experiences  have been when using MS350 stacks ???

[#11]

I have 3 MS350 stacks, 6 switches in each stack, running on 8.10 software. 

 

All stacks have been up and running without issue for the past month or so. No changes have been made on the Meraki switches or the Cisco Nexus 9k's that are upstream. 

 

This morning within an hour all 3 stacks had switches that removed themselves from the stack and stopped forwarding traffic. 

 

Stack 1 - 1 switch disappeared from the stack and stopped forwarding traffic - Did not come online until after a reboot. Uplink port was not on this switch. 

 

Stack 2 - 1 switch disappeared from the stack and stopped forwarding traffic - Did not come online until after a reboot. Uplink port was not on this switch. 

 

Stack 3 - 5 of the switches disappeared from the stack - 1 of the uplinks was on one of the switches that disappeared from the stack. After rebooting the switch with the uplink the 5 switches rejoined the stack. 1 switch in this stack stayed online, that switch has an uplink to the core. 

 

It seems really strange that 3 stacks had the same issue within an hour, Meraki support suggested we hit a bug (8.10) and have requested I upgrade to 9.19. 

 

Has anyone else been having stacking issues? 

 

I typically put in Cisco 4500's or 3850's and these are my first 3 MS350 stack closets. This obviously isn't giving me a very warm and fuzzy feeling to have a failure like this after a month or so. 

 

Curious what other users experiences  have been when using MS350 stacks ???