Connectivity Problems
There are three common Dashboard connectivity warning messages:
• Unreachable
• Unable to find a gateway
• Repeater warning
Unreachable
When a repeater loses connection to the Internet and Dashboard, it will appear as a red icon with a status of “unreachable” on the AP details page.
Unable to Find a Gateway
A repeater can mesh through Meraki APs located outside of its own network/organization if it is unable to find a mesh route to the Internet/Dashboard through
APs within its own Dashboard network. In this state, the AP will appear as a yellow icon with an “Unable to find a gateway to the Internet” status on the AP
details page.
Repeater Warning
A repeater can get into a bad connectivity state where there is one-way communication between itself and the cloud. In this state, the cloud receives
management traffic from the repeater, but when it replies, it does not receive acknowledgement from the repeater. In this state the repeater will alert "bad
connectivity to the controller, possible firewall or NAT issues":
Checking Historical Status of a Repeater
The historical connectivity status of a repeater can be seen by toggling the Connectivity graph on the AP details page. Place the mouse pointer over the colored
lines on the graph, to view the timeframe of mesh connectivity status changes.
Check for Mesh Neighbors
If two APs operate on the same channel and are within range of each other, they can become mesh neighbors. Mesh neighbors exchange mesh route
information allowing repeaters to discover the best metric route to the gateway. If two APs are in the same Dashboard network and mesh neighbors, they may
establish a mesh routing relationship where they send and receive client traffic of the mesh link.
This information can be immensely helpful in narrowing down bad mesh links and determining next steps.
Check the Mesh Neighbors table
APs that are mesh neighbors will appear in each other’s mesh neighbors table (on the AP details page, under
Wireless > Monitor > Access points > The
repeater experiencing issues
). When a repeater is offline, the first step is to confirm whether it shows up in the mesh neighbors table of other APs it should
route through.
Figure 6: A repeater "Repeater 1" is a mesh neighbor of the "Gateway" AP, as it appears in Roof's mesh neighbors table.
Note:
Repeaters that have a mesh route outside the network will not advertise SSIDs configured in Dashboard or forward client traffic.
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