Source
r/Ubiquiti•
TheMadSpring

I’ve given up

Whine / Complaint

I’m at a loss.

A while back, everything was running perfectly for about the first 6 weeks of my Unifi experience. Then my power cut one day & when I got everything back running I made the fatal error of clicking “update” in the web controller...

Fast forward a couple of hours, the dreaded “adoption failed” on all 5 APs, and my US-8-150W. Hours & hours spent running around the house factory resetting them, then trying to adopt them. Nothing.

After another 24hours, they all magically reappeared back in the controller, all still showing “adoption failed” but somehow still working as access points.

I spent another few hours earlier on trying to re-adopt them to give myself some control over them & the same old crap happened again. Rinse, repeat.

I’ve tried putty, doesn’t work. I’m by no means savvy when it comes to the correct terminology but this is some amount of ridiculous shit you have to go through when Ubiquiti’s own updates cause these problems.

WFH I can’t afford to be offline so I can even take the chance of attempting it again until I get a few days off work.

Posted Feb 16, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

51113
LoPanDidNothingWrong•

Adoption by Unifi is just a horror show when it doesn’t work.

And the fact that the reset button isn’t a true reset and you have to ssh into each one and execute shell commands is unforgivable.

46
dmxwidget•

I’ve never had an issue with the reset button. It’s always brought my devices back to factory default if done properly.

22
LoPanDidNothingWrong•

Whereas I have spent many hours with the same results as the OP following the instructions meticulously and still having to SSH in to get them to actually reset.

13
junkzor•

The little reset button tab inside the AP actually broke on my AC-Lite. So when you put something in the hole, there’s just nothing there. I am not a tech guy so I’m dreading the day that AP needs to be reset lol hopefully never.

4
ScottieBoysName•

The same thing happened to me on an ACHD.

1
olliec420Unifi User•

Happened to me to but the SSH fix isn’t that bad.

3
keithcody•

I have

0
lenswipe•

And the fact that the reset button isn’t a true reset

wait, what

2
LoPanDidNothingWrong•

When I would use it, it wasn't set back to factory default.

You can find a lot of posts about having to SSH into them.

3
lenswipe•

Did you hold it in? I've pushed the reset button before and if you don't press and hold it - it doesn't factory the AP

1
LoPanDidNothingWrong•

I was so annoyed that I literally held it for 2 second increments up with a timer since it wouldn’t reset. So 2s, 4s, 6s and so on up to 1 minute. No reset. Pretty mindless while watching tv and just showed me the functionality was crap.

1
daven1985eduitguy.com•

I’ve never minded the SSH to preform a reset. As someone who started working on Cisco AP’s back in the day when you could only Telnet into them to make changes or use serial cables it doesn’t bother me having to use SSH.

1
lenswipe•

or use serial cables

that sounds fun...was there an RS232 socket on the back?

3
daven1985eduitguy.com•

I’ve gotten mistaken. I used telnet, but had to use TFTP to ensure that I could handle firmware updates correctly.

I remembering going around to a large school with Cisco AP’s and updating ~100 AP’s via a cable with a TFTP server hosted on my laptop and sit on the ladder waiting for the update to apply and then run.

4
LoPanDidNothingWrong•

I don't mind it once I knew about it, but it took me a long time to find out that i had to go that way

1
julietscause•

What are you running your controller on? Do you have a cloud key gen 1? (the white cloud key?)

How are your unifi devices reaching out to the controller? via DNS or its IP address?

What firmware are you running on your hardware?

18
TheMadSpringOP•

Hi! Please excuse my ignorance, but it’s running on the Web interface, i don’t have a cloud key. Should I get one?

As far as I can tell they’re communicating via IP address.

My home set up is basically:

ISP>direct to Unifi switch>5 AP lites

Also in the set up is ISP>48 port switch>48 port patch panel > 48 Cat6 ports throughout the house (very few of which are in use or even connected)

Apologies, as the controller is on the web interface & I’m not home, I don’t know exactly what firmware it’s running on.

It should be noted that after the power cut, the controller was telling me that it was getting its connection from my ISP router but the name I had for that router has been changed since, yet it is still showing up as the original name. If that make sense? Sorry!

4
julietscause•

Hi! Please excuse my ignorance, but it’s running on the Web interface, i don’t have a cloud key. Should I get one?

Nope its not necessary, what are you running the controller on?

12
TheMadSpringOP•

Running it on the browser via laptop. Windows 10.

4
the_cainmp•

The problem with running a controller from a laptop (I’m assuming wireless?) is it can move or change IP’s. The controller really needs to be on a device that doesn’t change IP addresses and is not wirelessly connected. A NAS, desktop (wired), or cloud key

28
cyber1kenobi•

You don’t mention how your controller is run... if it’s a cloud key those have some stupid behavior w power loss sometimes

17
[deleted]•

[deleted]

22
derfmcdoogal•

It's a MongDB issue, not necessarily an issue with the UCK. Still, they should have seen it coming.

5
lenswipe•

The real answer here is that Mongo is a horrible choice for this application..................actually Mongo is a horrible choice for any application but I won't get into that rant right now

14
thepackratmachine•

Actually...can you get into that right now? I’m curious about your claims.

8
clear831•

I am with you, fuck Mongo.

4
zorgonsrevenge•

Amen to that. Wrong tool for the job. Wrong tool for most jobs.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

6
gotfondueUbiquiti Enterprise Wireless Admin•

Don't fight with it, just rebuild it.

If the firmware is wrong SSH in and downgrade the firmware on the AP's. Unifi is one of the most simple systems to rebuild on the fly. The key is to never be afraid to default Unifi hardware.

6
ButchWCassidy•

I've been down this road, it's actually pretty fast too.

Lessons I've learned.

  1. Always have a back up config.

  2. Make sure I can SSH into every AP and log into every camera so I don't have to press the reset button. Everyone one of these devices are hard to reach.

​

I honestly don't know what other people are talking about the reset button not being a "real" reset. Always worked for me.

4
gotfondueUbiquiti Enterprise Wireless Admin•

Exactly, I've been with UI for many years. Install them for clients. I've got a system. Make sure you've set your SSH password. As long as you can scan your network you can find all devices. I never fux with the reset button lol.

Also secret to the reset button is it takes 30 seconds thats it.

2
signofzetaUnifi User•

Also, if you have a recent controller version, upload a compatible SSH key, too. The Controller defaults to randomized passwords per site, which is fine unless your Controller takes a dive.

1
thepackratmachine•

My thoughts exactly.

2
enraginangel•

Here are some problems I've come across when re-adopting.

When you hit that reset button, the UniFi AP needs to fully boot up before you hold down that factory reset button. If you do it before it fully boots, it just hangs forever. So power it on, wait til it turns a solid white (or blue) then initiate a factory reset.

If your AP is old, the only way to manage old APs is to use older controller software to readopt.

Do each AP one at a time. Do not attempt to do all of them at the same time.

3
eaglevision93•

Let's not take off the table that this guy's devices are in fact bricked. It has happened to me.... with about 6-8 edgerouters, at least 2 AP AC LRs, and 2 UAP-AC-M-PROs.

3
Praisethecornchips•

Welcome to the adoption failed club. I just posted about the same issue today.

2
MelkieOArda•

I was getting ‘adoption failed’ messages after I factory reset my UDM. I messed with custom firewall rules for a little bit, and kind of gave up, as the AP on the USM was performing just fine. Fast-forward three months, and I realized I should probably fix the issue. My buddy pointed out that I could just use a step ladder to reset the APs around my house, which worked perfectly. Months of avoiding it, and it was fixed in 10 minutes 🤦‍♂️

2
Praisethecornchips•

I’ve factory reset, recycled power, forget and adopt, reset via ssh....I’ve tried it all. It still happens.

2
CompetitiveYou7•

I learned with the UDMP and got a backup UPS...

2
NastyFerret•

Yeeeeeeep. UPS is the way to go, I've learned it the hard way with my CK V3... Now everything works like a charm. 😅

1
mmhordahttps://www.youtube.com/mrhorda•

I am surprised how many if you are talking about crapping things up with power outage.
I have NAS + router + switch + AP in switch all it is wired to a UPS which will hold at least 30 minutes of power loss. NAS holds containerized UniFi controller which will nicely shut down itself (NAS) in 15 minutes after power loss.

2
rynithon•

For most Adoption failed issues we’ve seen, go on each AP in controller and make sure credentials for ssh and user are set within the interface GUI, and the port number is actually added as port 22. For whatever reason this info is not sent with the automatic adoption sometimes or glitches out. Sometimes factory reset works as well if your credentials aren’t working.

1
chili_oil•

If they designed the adoption based on SSH I would puke and faint...

​

But hey, it is UB, so cannot say for sure.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
chili_oil•

...

2
contradudeEdgeRouter User•

What protocol would you suggest instead?

1
amalagg•

It could be an issue with the Windows 10 firewall where the AP's cannot reach the controller. I have a Mac and I run the controller sometimes and I don't have any problem. Have you made sure your firewall is off. I never saw the need to buy a dedicated controller for my home, but I guess that will fix the issue.

1
chili_oil•

I bought a ER-4 and have a custom build VyOS machine configured, just in case my UDM-P gone into smithereens in next update that I have plug-n-play backup.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
nstig8andretali8•

This is where running your controller in a VM shines. My VM (proxmox lxc actually) is backed up weekly so if anything happens where it all goes sideways I can just restore from last week's copy and it's like nothing changed. None of this crap trying to fix Ubiquiti's update bugs.

1
reclaimthis•

Same here! People tend to forget that unifi is business grade gear and some parts of it need to be run in that kind of environment.

Though it's not like ubiquiti isn't at fault here, their marketing is a bit confusing. Some of their design choices are ridiculous too.

1
hashiii1EdgeRouter User•

Get a free vm on oracle cloud, and use a controller there. No money needed

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
GodTierEE•

I feel the annoyance at “adoption failed.” I use my AP to broadcast a couple SSIDs for two different VLANs. Adding it as a trunk port on the switch causes “adoption failed,” but the AP continues working with the last settings applied.

Every time I have to do something to the AP (which isn’t frequently, thankfully) I have to remove all the trunk ports on the switch, add it to one of the VLANs, and restart it.

0
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