MR70 not upgrading and bring roaming issues...

[NicolasRen]

Hello,

We've been experiencing issues with the MR70 model (although this could apply to any MR device that doesn't support the designated firmware version—you'll see what I mean).

A customer reported roaming issues between indoor and outdoor APs. Their setup includes MR36 and MR70 units. Following a support investigation, we discovered that the MR70s weren’t running the network’s configured firmware version but an older one, which caused compatibility issues.

Normally, when updating a network to a newer firmware version, APs that don’t support it should automatically update to the latest version they do support. However, in this case, that didn’t happen.

We reproduced the issue and upgraded 10 other networks. Then, with the help of support (since you can’t check this via the dashboard—they use backend tools), we confirmed that the MR70s hadn’t upgraded. The next step is to ask support to manually upgrade the MR70s that are not on the correct firmware.

Just wanted to share this with you—let me know if you’ve encountered something similar with this or other models.

[cmr]

@NicolasRen the MR70 is not a WiFi 6 AP so I'm pretty sure will not upgrade to 31.x.  It is stuck on 30.7.1.  Therefore you will either need to replace them or downgrade the others if you are experiencing roaming issues.

Unless of course you are only trying to upgrade to 30.7.1

This is from the r31.1.x.x release notes:

mportant note

• Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2 MRs support - This version and subsequent MR 31.x.x are only supported on 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) and newer MR models. 802.11ac Wave 2 and older products will upgrade to the backup version (MR 30.7.1) if they are in networks configured for MR 31.x.x versions, and thus, the new features will not be available. The bug fixes listed below will also not apply to Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2 and older MRs. (https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Other_Topics/Cisco_Meraki_MR_Firmware_Restrictions_Overview_and_...)

[cmr]

Just realised that MR31.1.1 was released only three months after the MR70 stopped being sold, that's pretty poor to make it a legacy device that quickly 😞 

[NicolasRen]

Exactly! According to the documentation, the MR70s should have upgraded to version 30.7.1 when we updated the network to 31.1.7. But that’s not happening. We don’t know why—it seems the MR70s aren’t upgrading and are stuck on their current firmware version (in this case, 26.x).

[cmr]

Ouch, that sounds like they forgot the identifier for the MR70 in the r31 code...  Have you got a site where you can try 30.7.1 directly?

[NicolasRen]

So there’s a kind of “marker” in the firmware version that identifies older MR models as unsupported and triggers an upgrade to the latest compatible version ?

We've asked support to check if other models that don’t support version 31+ are also affected by this issue and we’re still waiting for their response.

Regarding the test site—we could try it, but we’ll need to ask support to perform the upgrade manually, since we can’t schedule version 30.7 in the dashboard while version 31.1 is in place.

[cmr]

@NicolasRen yes, exactly, if you look at this discussion when MR31.1.1 was released New MR 31.1.1 beta firmware - AP auto placement, RADSec, more 6GHz support ... - The Meraki Communit..., it is specifically mentioned.  Also yes, you would need support to do it ☹️...

[meraki-chris]

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@NicolasRen wrote:

it seems the MR70s aren’t upgrading and are stuck on their current firmware version (in this case, 26.x).

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please have support look into the upgrade logs for those devices to see why they are failing to upgrade

[NicolasRen]

I'm thinking at an other side effect related to this version mismatch. It was only happening on sites affected by this bug, I was not able to see MR70 on roaming timeline in the client details page.

Only MR36 and their events were displayed.