What's the meaning of black port with a green lightning bolt Summary of Switch?

[HectorLaya]

Good evening,

I have some switch ports showed in black with a green lightning bolt in the sumarry tab when I'm in the Switch page.

I searched the Meraki documentation but only make reference to a black port. Nothing about the icon that I have (ref port 16 in image attached).

Thanks in advance for your attention.

[Roska]

Nothing connected to port 16? Haven´t seen this before, what happens if you update your switch view screen?

[HectorLaya]

There is an MR30H AP connected to that port (16). Also, have other switch with the same icon.

AP is not coming online, is like nothing is connected. I did a cable test and all pairs show Ok.

I see a 2.1 W on power usage.

Weird that I couldn't find any documentation from Meraki with that icon...

[Roska]

Sounds peculiar. Have you checked your port schedules? Personally I always forget if I deploy them on switch or specific ports.

[MichelPrevost]

Hi, From experience, it's a bad cable/connector/connection. The switch sense that the device at the other end need power, so it's sending power to it (That for the lightning). But when it's come to establish Layer 1 connectivity, it's fail. The switch is not able to detect the speed of that the other end is able to handle. Replace patch cable at the switch, the one at the AP first. Change connector at both end of the inwall cable if changing the patch panel didn't help. Test the cable with a proper cable tester (Fluke DTX1800 or that kind of testset) before gooing further (or do it right from the begining, I may also be wrong) and replacing the complete inwall cable. keep us posted.

[Ben]

@HectorLaya 

I think this is most probably a bug in the dashboard? Is it always there? 

Can u try and cycle the port or open the dashboard in an incognito session (or equivalent private browsing in other browers than chrome)

[Roska]

@Ben  is probably right. I´ve seen few bugs with icons myself.

[SoCalRacer]

Are you on current firmware? Have you rebooted the switch to see if that resolves the issue?

[MMoss]

That port is supplying power, but not data. I see this when we have bad pairs or a defective port on the connected device from time to time with some of our older equipment when it goes bad. It may be an error and you can try cycling the port or running a line test to check the cable. I've had one switch take a power surge and the ports were not reading correctly. I did a factory reset and let it download the config again and it was back to it's old self.

[HectorLaya]

Thank to all of you for your attention and time to reply me.

I thought about the bad pair for tx/rx but the cable test shows ok in all pairs.

Firmware is updated. Also, had tried recycling the power of the port, resetting the switch, etc. It seems a bug, but i'm not really sure.

Will continue researching and trying and will post the results.

Regards

[AlexC]

Hello @HectorLaya,

I agree with @MMoss here that this is very likely a layer 1, where power is supplied but not data.

Though the behavior is commonly seen with bad cabling, it can also be a port issue on either the switch or AP itself.
The way I usually isolate this is by moving the AP to another switchport, or testing a known-good AP on that same port. This combination will help you isolate if it's a switchport, AP, or cabling issue.

Cheers,

-Alex

[MMoss]

Factory reset it, that fixed the problem on the one we had that took a surge from a lightning strike several years back. Rebooting it didn't do the trick for us, so maybe that'll solve the issue. Don't forget that ports do go bad from time to time either. I wouldn't beat my head against the wall once you get through the common issues before calling Meraki.

To test I'd take the cable out of 16 and move it to 14 which is empty and see what you get. If it's the same I'd take something and put it on the other end of the cable to see if it's the device on the other end. I've never tried disabling the port and leaving PoE on, but make sure it's enabled in the switch in case PoE works even when the port is disabled.

[HectorLaya]

Thanks to all for your attention.

It was a Bad AP. I changed the AP and port went up without issues.

But Meraki should be aware of this icon and put the information in the documents...

Thanks again.

[AlexC]

@HectorLaya

Thanks for closing the loop on this one!
I'll see what I can do about adding a suggestion for that KB regarding this port state.

Cheers,

-Alex

[hockeydude]

Means switch is providing PoE without a network connectivity. 

[degarris]

For documentation purposes, this describes each switch port color and icon including the black port with or without the bolt.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Switch_Port_View