ProCurve 9300 spanning-tree problems

[Gerard van Bon]

Hi,

I have a custumer with a big ProCurve network has several 9300, 5300xl and other ProCurve switches. The 9300 have firmware 8.0.01cT53 and run 802.1w single spanning tree.
They have two problems in the network.

Some of the 9300's often think that they loose the spanning-tree root: "VLAN 4094 Bridge is RootBridge: 6000000480f15900 (MsgAgeExpiry)"
Does anybody know when this MsgAgeExpiry message does occur ?
The Hello time is 2 seconds. Should we increase that (The install manual talks about increasing to at least 4 seconds).

They also get massive spanning-tree problems if they tag or untag a port on the 9300's.
Does anyone know why this could happen.

Thanks a lot,

Gerard

[Mohieddin Kharnoub]

Hi

First of all, a little explain about their topology will be really helpful.
Second thing, i suggest you to enable Syslog and capture some outputs from the switches so you can get more details from any message generated by the Spanning-Tree.

The MsgAgeExpiry means that the BPDU was not received for (The Max Age)20 seconds (assuming a default value of maximum age.

Maybe they have a Spanning-Tree diameter bigger than 7, like they recently installed some new switches and configured them to be a part of the Spanning Tree process.

Draw a topology, enable Syslog so you can knwo on what switch and on which port it expects the a BPDU and it didn't recieve for more than the Max Age.

Good Luck !!!

[bergonz]

>> They also get massive
>> spanning-tree problems
>> if they tag or untag a port on the 9300's.

Me too! I am using the same firmware with 802.1w and after a lot of unfruitful troubleshooting (even with HP tech support), I am planning to go back to normal 802.1d or change the 9300's with something else.

In my opinion 802.1w on the 9300 is not stable. It is also not visible via SNMP, which is a major drawback for me.

So I cannot help you but I will follow this thread with great interest.

Good luck,
Bergonz

[Gerard van Bon]

Hi,

Thanks for the answers. The spanning-tree diameter of the network is at least 10 switches. So that could cause some problems.

And the 9300's seem to have a problem with the 802.1w Single Spanning-tree. Everytime a port gets tagged or untagged the spanning-tree of vlan 4094 will be recalculated and interfaces can go down and up again.
I think we will migrate to MTSP. This protocol should not have the same problem.

Best regards,

Gerard

[Ibon]

Hi,

We have the same problem with 802-1w. We would like to know if you finally change to MSTP or 802-1d and if this works you properly.
It´s very urgent for us.
Thank you,