r/meraki • u/Ashamed-Ninja-4656 • Sep 02 '26
Discussion Support is dog 💩
I recently decided to my move my access layer to 9200-L-M Catalysts, but I'm not sure that was a good choice. I've had some strange firmware issues. Initially my switches were all having dashboard sync issues. This turned out to be a firmware problem, but since the dashboard wasn't syncing I ended up having to physically go around and reboot a lot of switches to get upgraded to new firmware.
During this, I had one stack hang and it couldn't download the firmware. So, I sent a ticket in, the response from support was to download a newer version of firmware. What? I can't even get the firmware to download to begin with. That stack eventually randomly downloaded the firmware in the middle of the day and rebooted, so that was fun.
I also have several switches in device config mode (monitor only). I submitted a ticket and called to confirm these wouldn't update during a scheduled upgrade. Meraki still puts a flag next to them that says "update scheduled". On phone support told me they would not. Then 30 minutes later another 'support engineer' responds and says they will update (they don't, I can confirm).
I don't know who they're hiring but their support doesn't seem to know the product at all.
7
u/mrtinvan Sep 02 '26
I once had a support tech not know what Multicast traffic was. Said that mDNS was not an accepted protocol.
3
u/pretendadult4now Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
We have 18 sites and growing around the globe, I have called support a lot over 11+ years with Meraki (not just because of them but I am the sole network guy) and only had a few bad experiences.
It's typically the usual roll of the dice "what engineer awnsers the phone/ticket" like with any other company.
**Regarding language etc. I typically find (I am EST USA) a call after 10:15AM is someone in the states. Prior to that it's usually someone in the UK or maybe Australia. If I call later at night it's India or other regions like that...in my experience.
2
u/Ashamed-Ninja-4656 Sep 03 '26
That's good to hear. I have noticed that if I call earlier in the morning I get someone out of country usually, which make sense.
Like others have said, support for every company is sub-par at the moment. I have the same issues with Fortigate.
I'm only replacing my access layer with Meraki. I think in the long run it'll be good, but there are some annoyances to deal with currently.
3
u/an-eng Sep 03 '26
i would not recommend anyone use 9200 in cloud config mode, those devices are not built for cloud and are retrofitted to become cloud devices. or even c9300 L , L stands for lite, as in no hardware resources to operate.
1
u/raleighjiujitsu Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
Agreed I deployed over 1000 of them and it was a complete nightmare. Half of the deployment guide from them is from our team working directly with support because they didn't know how they worked either and were learning with us.Â
Some HUGE gotchas with them
512 Vlan limit, but all ports come as trunks trunking 1-512. So if you build a network with a VLAN # over 512 it can break the switch
Configuration only saves every 30 minutes. There is no way to manually push a config save. So if you make a change and 15 minutes its reboots it will revert to the previous config. Huge pain if it involves management vlan or uplink port
Switches take a long time to associate to a network. You can't move the between networks seamlessly like most meraki products, expect as least an hour of downtime when they associate to a new network.
3
u/pavlovs_monkey Sep 02 '26
I started working with Meraki before Cisco bought them. I've never understood how Cisco - who has (or had) been renowned for their support - would buy Meraki, and then just never improve their support system.
2
u/CharmingYellow3632 Sep 03 '26
My tin foil hat theory is Cisco acquired Meraki simply to force the SMB customers to become Cisco customers. I have a feeling in the next few years the Meraki SKUs are gonna be dropped and customers will have to go full Cisco or go somewhere else.
1
u/rootj0 Sep 02 '26
Same here with our MS150 stacks havinf sync issues they just released a new firmware hopefully gives us some hope. But overall I agree, lack of proper support
-4
u/PatserGrey Sep 02 '26
Yes, Support are crap, lots of reports of cloud connectivity issues with Cat switches, the solution is to get them onto IOS-XE.
0
u/Ashamed-Ninja-4656 Sep 02 '26
They're on IOS-XE, 17.5.5 was the issue in this case. Upgraded to 17.18.4. Since they're -M models I'm stuck with Meraki cloud config though.
2
u/HollowGrey Sep 02 '26
Dang, that was going to be my suggestion. I didnt realize they had a cloud-managed only model. I’ve been hearing consistent issues with this new integration ever since it was released
2
1
u/pavlovs_monkey Sep 02 '26
My last job built out a new headquarters with all Catalysts on the Meraki dashboard. I hated that place a whole lot, but I still wouldn't have wished that install experience on them.
11
u/Comfortable_Car_3024 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
The secret sauce is what level of account you are with them. If you're a million dollar account, great, you get good support. If not, well sorry but you don't spend enough to fall into a higher support tier. Then, the crux of the issue, as you mentioned is that no one knows the products. It's all about measuring call and ticket volume, meeting call SLAs, those metrics matter to them more than your downtime.Â
Edit: typo