About BrandonS

BrandonS

I had a problem like that one and was lucky to discover the source was a point to point wireless bridge someone had installed and thought they were being smart by using non standard channels like 5 or 8 or something to avoid interference.. I recognize I was very lucky to discover the source easily. I have heard of people renting or purchasing scanning gear and knocking on doors to try to find interference sources.. Very time and $ intensive. Can you just use channel 11? That looks pretty clean for now.

BrandonS

I just confirmed I can switch between various orgs on different shards. I am using SMS for 2FA though. Following to see what you find out.

BrandonS

Maybe the MR came up as a repeater? I have seen this happen with bad cables. It can get power, but not network.

BrandonS

I didn't notice, but some other services I use reported SMS issues today. Probably an upstream provider they use like Twilio, etc. had a problem.

BrandonS

For how long have you seen this? It sounds like something that if you ignore and look in a couple days may resolve itself the next time scans complete and data refreshes, etc.

BrandonS

Have you seen this? https://meraki.cisco.com/trust I would think if you need more than that you will need to work through a Cisco account rep.

BrandonS

My finger would be pointing at the ASA.. Maybe a simple way to confirm that is to take one phone home or to another network to prove it works fine. Or, maybe you can find a way to bypass the ASA. Then ask the team that manages the ASA to fix it.. Here is everything you should need to know about Ringcentral: https://support.ringcentral.com/article/9233.html Good luck.

BrandonS

Besides loop guard if you still have issues there must be some configuration problem or other issue in that environment. I am both a Cisco and RingCentral reseller and have many working installations with those same phones working fine. There is nothing special to configure for RingCentral in most cases. Exceptions would be if you have a severe security posture in place and may need explicitly allow RingCentral IP blocks as an example. Firewall for this instance is an MX? I have seen people do silly things like setup static NAT and/or port forwards for hosted voice services like this that can cause issues. There is also/always some chance if you have IDS/IPS enabled it can cause odd issues. Is there a single WAN connection? Trying to load balance can be problematic for hosted voice sometimes. What type of internet service and handoff?

BrandonS

I agree and have always learned loop guard is for inter switch links only. It may not be related to the underlying issue, but I would turn it off for IP phone ports. What's the make/model of IP phones and what are they connecting to? And what is the history of the problem? Did they work fine and then stop or they never worked?

BrandonS

Cisco says, no: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/csa/cisco-sa-sudo-privesc-jan2021-qnYQfcM.html

BrandonS

Sure. I have some large full stack Meraki, free public WiFi installs. Thousands of clients and terabytes of data. It works great and the dashboard reports are nice to share with my customer so they can get an idea of how it is being utilized. It is 100% separate infrastructure in my case.

BrandonS

How long has the enterprise license been claimed? You should be able to return it via Meraki's RMA process for a full refund and purchase the correct one. I have been down that road a few times due to mistakes in the order process.

BrandonS

black boxes issue? I think I may have replaced a power supply on one, but years ago and I think was a hot swap. Better knock on wood again, I guess.. EDIT: I Googled the black boxes issue. I actually don't think anyone puts eyes on these. They all serve free, public wifi around some government buildings and no one cares much about them as long as they work..

BrandonS

I haven't had the pleasure, but I do manage an org with three MX400's and they have been chugging along happily with no issue for about six years now. <knocks on wood>

BrandonS

IRL = "in real life", old man.. 😉

BrandonS

Interesting thought about COVID proximity tracking. I was imagining just complying to 25% capacity type regulations and how that could be difficult when one person = more than one device. Anyhow, here is a one minute MV analytics video that you might like to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgqbvIvJHcY

BrandonS

Good point, @PhilipDAth I am not deep into the analytics industry but it seems this may be where the industry is headed for accurate head counts that are important for retail and COVID occupancy and other things I am sure I am not thinking of. Counting bodies is probably better not only because of MAC randomization, but also the fact that many people have multiple devices like smart watches, wearables, etc. that are only going to increase. I think it will just become increasingly difficult to accurately count bodies attached to devices as device counts per person increase and (hopefully) privacy increases as well.

BrandonS

I'm not aware of any 'normal' networking causes for what you describe. It doesn't sound like packet loss from a duplex mismatch, for example. And it is obviously not a wireless issue that could have those symptoms. It seems more like a software bug in the Z3 perhaps. Something like a memory leak or overflowing sessions table over time, etc. I would open a case with Meraki and they may suggest trying new/beta firmware.

BrandonS

You are seeing this behavior with wireless or wired or both?

BrandonS · ‎02-03-2021

This may be helpful? At least to read their extensive disclaimers around the accuracy of analytics due to MAC randomization. https://meraki.cisco.com/product-collateral/location-analytics-whitepaper/?file This part kind of admits it is a difficult problem and so difficult to be accurate: Location data is largely captured per device using that device's media access control (MAC) address as a unique identifier. As part of a privacy technique, some mobile operating systems have added functionality that attempts to randomize the WLAN MAC address a device uses, making it more difficult to track by solutions such as Meraki Location Analytics. As the number of mobile devices that implement randomization increases, solutions to detect and locate devices have changed. Meraki provides additional capabilities such as bluetooth information via the Meraki Scanning API, enabling Meraki customers to anonymously include wearable devices as part of their location analytics dataset. Based on empirical evidence from Meraki's own experiments and those of our analytics partners. This behavior tends to vary greatly based on the operating system and which apps are installed on the phone for example, if a certain app is very active, it could cause a device that is asleep to probe several times a minute.

BrandonS · ‎02-03-2021

This was explained nicely by @Bruce but I think the "licensing problem" message you see may be because of having more devices than licenses. There should be two columns showing licensed vs active gear. EDIT: don't let me lead you astray, I think it may also be as Bruce wrote that is just showing licensing problem if you are within 90 days of co-term expiration date.

BrandonS · ‎01-30-2021

That’s pretty interesting to consider. I suppose any cloud service or internet access could be shut down, disrupted or compromised at any time. A bad actor, attach, political pressure, business decision, etc. I wouldn’t be any more concerned then I would about gmail or Facebook or something like going away. if you have a unique application where you absolutely cannot rely on internet connectivity or even the best in class, redundant data center design then Meraki might not be a good choice. I can imagine some unique business applications whew I would never consider Meraki.

BrandonS · ‎01-29-2021

I have only two Meraki Go installs and both of them are super flaky and intermittent with the 'test connection' feature. I have GX20, GR10 and GS110 and two different customer's sites and sometimes the test connection works and most of the time it doesn't. I guess I just want to vent here because it makes troubleshooting much more difficult when you can't trust the test feature. I have had the same results with cable tests from the switch ports too. I can run the test 10 times and maybe 1 or 2 times it works and the rest say it is having trouble reaching Meraki Go? WTF??

BrandonS · ‎01-29-2021

Did you try plugging a laptop into the MR instead of the switch to see what you can see/do? And you followed this part? By default, a client or device plugged into the Ethernet port of a repeater will gain no network connectivity. Once a bridge SSID has been configured, navigate to Network-wide > Configure > General > Device configuration , find the option to configure Clients wired directly to Meraki APs and set that option to have clients Behave like they are connected to the bridge SSID (as shown below).

BrandonS · ‎01-29-2021

I'm honestly not sure about the switch and if it should works as normal in this setup or not. What does the status light on it look like? Have you tried plugging in the switch at the head office and let it register in the dashboard and update its firmware? Maybe try that and then move it back?

BrandonS

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