When you find yourself troubleshooting an AP it can sometimes be made a little easier with a quick glance at the LED light. It might not always be easy especially when an AP has been mounted at some height, but it can give some insight even when you don't have any tools or network access. Summarized here are some useful states you might encounter on a Cisco Access Point.
Blinking Green: AP startup
Solid Blue: Client is associated.
Solid Green: AP is functioning normally, although without any clients associated to it.
Blinking Blue: Firmware upgrade is in occurring.
Cycling Red-Green-Off: WLC Discovery/Join
Cycling through Blue-Red-Green-Off: General warning; insufficient inline power
On a Meraki Access Point these are the status LEDs.
Orange: AP startup
Blinking Blue: Firmware is upgrading
Green, Blue, Purple, Red: Establishing session to the cloud controller
Green: AP in Gateway mode with no clients associated
Blue: AP in Gateway mode with clients associated
Blinking Orange: AP can’t find an uplink and may have an internet connection issue
Two other helpful LED light options are available from the Controller. You can disable the LED completely or if you're trying to identify an Access Point you can send a command to blink the LED. This can be done from the Advanced tab per AP or from the CLI.
(WLC) >config ap led-state ?
disable Disables the LED-State for an AP
enable Enables the LED-State for an AP
flash Configure the LED-flash for an AP
(WLC) >config ap led-state flash ?
<seconds> The duration of LED flashing in seconds <1-3600>
indefinite Indefinite flashing of the LED
disable Stop flashing the LED
Meraki APs also have "dark mode" where the LEDs are disabled. This option is configured under Network Wide- General- LED Lights.
