Remote Adoption (Layer 3) – Ubiquiti Help Center<\/a><\/p>\nThe topic says “adoption” but the title is misleading as its really providing a means for your Unifi devices to locate the controller so they can report \\ phone home. for example the DNS method provides an A record that your offline switches will query on boot and use to locate the controller.<\/p>\n
Usually when a unifi device is offline it is because it doesn’t know how to locate the controller to communicate with it. the Layer 3 adoption solves this issue. This is also essential if your Unifi controller is on a different subnet than the Unifi devices<\/p>\n
I would setup one of the methods (DNS is my preference) then reboot the switches again<\/p>","upvoteCount":2,"datePublished":"2025-05-22T16:06:47.766Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/unifi-network-web-portal-switches-showing-offline/1208351/2","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"molan","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/molan"}},"suggestedAnswer":[{"@type":"Answer","text":"
About a month ago, we updated our UniFi systems but when everything came back online, three switches show offline in the web portal…they’re not offline. They ping, traffic is passing as normal, you can even see clients in the very same portal online connected to those supposedly offline switches. I’ve emailed “support” but received no answer. As the switches are clearly still working and I’m hesitant to make a non-issue into an issue, I’ve not rebooted them (also, because that would require being on-site on a Sunday for various reasons…). Has anyone here had such an experience with Ubiquiti networking hardware? If so, is there a less invasive solution?<\/p>\n
FWIW - I have not attempted to console into these devices as from what I’ve read elsewhere there’s not a lot I can do anyway, and SSH is turned off on all devices. I’ll have to see if we even HAVE a console cable.<\/p>","upvoteCount":3,"datePublished":"2025-05-22T13:50:42.514Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/unifi-network-web-portal-switches-showing-offline/1208351/1","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Nonya","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/Nonya"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":"\n\n
<\/div>\n
J-Nonya:<\/div>\n
\nI’ve not rebooted them because that would require being on-site on a Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/aside>\n
A reboot is the first/easiest thing to try. If you can’t send a command through UniFi Network app and SSH isn’t enabled, your only option is by removing mains power.<\/p>\n
Ninja’d by Molan on the rest!<\/p>","upvoteCount":2,"datePublished":"2025-05-22T16:08:18.524Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/unifi-network-web-portal-switches-showing-offline/1208351/3","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"jarmbrister","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/jarmbrister"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":"
I believe this is where my problem lies…I inherited the network and for whatever reason, DNS is all handled at the DC level but DHCP is split between the DC for two networks (neither one hosting the UniFi hardware) and the firewall level. No real documentation on why that is or what the plan was…<\/p>","upvoteCount":0,"datePublished":"2025-05-22T16:30:12.314Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/unifi-network-web-portal-switches-showing-offline/1208351/4","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Nonya","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/Nonya"}}]}}
Nonya
May 22, 2025, 1:50pm
1
About a month ago, we updated our UniFi systems but when everything came back online, three switches show offline in the web portal…they’re not offline. They ping, traffic is passing as normal, you can even see clients in the very same portal online connected to those supposedly offline switches. I’ve emailed “support” but received no answer. As the switches are clearly still working and I’m hesitant to make a non-issue into an issue, I’ve not rebooted them (also, because that would require being on-site on a Sunday for various reasons…). Has anyone here had such an experience with Ubiquiti networking hardware? If so, is there a less invasive solution?
FWIW - I have not attempted to console into these devices as from what I’ve read elsewhere there’s not a lot I can do anyway, and SSH is turned off on all devices. I’ll have to see if we even HAVE a console cable.
3 Spice ups
molan
May 22, 2025, 4:06pm
2
if SSH is off there isn’t much you can do. If you had SSH on you could connect and issue the set-inform command to tell them to report home to the controller.
Do you have Layer 3 adoption setup? If you don’t that would be my next step. My Preference is for the DNS method.
Remote Adoption (Layer 3) – Ubiquiti Help Center
The topic says “adoption” but the title is misleading as its really providing a means for your Unifi devices to locate the controller so they can report \ phone home. for example the DNS method provides an A record that your offline switches will query on boot and use to locate the controller.
Usually when a unifi device is offline it is because it doesn’t know how to locate the controller to communicate with it. the Layer 3 adoption solves this issue. This is also essential if your Unifi controller is on a different subnet than the Unifi devices
I would setup one of the methods (DNS is my preference) then reboot the switches again
2 Spice ups
A reboot is the first/easiest thing to try. If you can’t send a command through UniFi Network app and SSH isn’t enabled, your only option is by removing mains power.
Ninja’d by Molan on the rest!
2 Spice ups
Nonya
May 22, 2025, 4:30pm
4
I believe this is where my problem lies…I inherited the network and for whatever reason, DNS is all handled at the DC level but DHCP is split between the DC for two networks (neither one hosting the UniFi hardware) and the firewall level. No real documentation on why that is or what the plan was…
