Latest questions from the community.
Four HP A5500-HI switches in an IRF stack logged unsupported transceiver messages for six rear-module (JD368B) ports that were cabled with HP J9281B SFP+ DACs to ProLiant Gen8 servers with 530SFP+ NICs. display transceiver interface showed Transceiver Type STACKSFPPLUS, Connector COPPER, Vendor…
Across about forty ProCurve/Aruba switches the poster had used J4858C and J4858D 1G SX SFPs without issues, but eight newly purchased J4858D units logged Unsupported Transceiver on 2530-8G (J9774A, YA.15.16.0006), 2530-8G (J9777A, YA.15.12.0007) and 2530-24G (J9776A, YA.15.10.0003). show tech…
A FlexFabric 5900AF running Comware 7.1.035 R2208P01 reported a third-party transceiver as not supported when inserted, while the same class of modules worked in a FlexFabric 7904 on 7.1.045. The poster asked whether support could be enabled by command and whether the Comware version mattered…
An Aruba/HPE 2530-48G-2SFP+ on firmware 16.01.0012 logged Port contains a transceiver not made by Hewlett Packard Enterprise with the advice to use only genuine transceivers, and refused the modules; ironically one of the rejected transceivers was HP-branded. The poster asked whether a command…
Four HP ProCurve 6120XG blade switches (516733-B21) refused J9150A 10G SR SFP+ transceivers that the datasheet lists as supported; show tech transceivers reported them as unsupported. The switches ran Z.14.56. The poster asked whether a firmware upgrade or a configuration setting was needed…
The poster wanted to connect Aruba 2540 switches (JL357A, firmware YC.16.09.0001) to Cisco Catalyst 9300 switches using Cisco SFP-H10GB-CU3M DACs. After enabling allow-unsupported-transceiver the cables were still not recognised: show tech transceivers listed the port as unsupported, the LED…
H3C-SFP-10G-T-SO 10GBASE-T copper modules (from FS or Solid Optics) worked out of the box in a FlexFabric 5940 (JH398A) with the JH181A 24-port SFP+ card, but in a FlexFabric 5945 (JQ076A) with the same card the ports only came up after manually running port up-mode on the interface. The poster…
The poster operated old HP/H3C A5800 switches (JC100A, JC103A) with many SFP modules of mixed coding. Modules with H3C in A0h bytes 60h-62h worked but logged This is not a supported transceiver for this platform, and DDM plus serial/date information were unavailable. Copying the full data from a…
Even with allow-unsupported-transceiver enabled, HPE Aruba 3810M and 2930M switches showed an amber fault for generic SFP+ modules, including ones recoded to masquerade as a J9151A. The author traced the behaviour to HPE's HPIDv2 challenge-response authentication: the module EEPROM carries a flag…
The poster tried to link an HPE FlexFabric 5900AF and a Dell S5212F-ON at 10 Gbps with DAC cables that had been custom-made with an HPE-coded end and a Dell-coded end. Both ports were forced to 10G full duplex, but no link came up. On the HPE side the interface reported Media type is stack wire…
A customer saw errors on a fibre link and suspected a speed mismatch with a 1G far end. The poster asked whether 10G SFP+ transceivers are backward compatible with 1G, or whether the modules had to be swapped for 1G SFPs to talk to the gigabit device on the other side. Hardware involved: Aruba…
Two Aruba 2930F switches (JL256A, firmware 16.05.0003) were to be stacked with VSF over an HPE DAC. With allow-unsupported-transceiver enabled the DAC passed traffic on normal ports, but as soon as the ports were made VSF member links the stack would not form. Replacing the DAC with supported 10G…
An HPE 2920 (J9729A, firmware WB.15.17.0009) with the J9731A 10G expansion module was connected to a DL380 Gen8 with a 560SFP+ NIC using a genuine HPE X242 3 m SFP+ DAC (J9283B). Port A1 with a J9150A SR module worked, but port A2 with the DAC logged Transceiver type not supported in this port and…
The poster needed to connect stacked Aruba 6300F (JL665A) switches to a 6300M core (JL658A) at 10 Gbps over more than 3 m. J9283D 3 m DACs worked for short runs and the older 3810/2930 platforms supported a 7 m J9285D cable, but that cable is not listed for the 6300. The question was whether the 5…
The poster had an Integra Optics tunable DWDM SFP+ (1528.77-1566.72 nm, 96 channels, 80 km, 10G, sold as Calix/Arista compatible) in an Arista switch. Changing the frequency and configuring the ITU channel through the Arista CLI had no effect: the module kept reporting the same wavelength. The…
An operator asked how to use non-Intel SFP+ modules for 10G fibre on Intel adapters under Linux. The replies summarised the practical rules: for 82599/X520 class NICs the ixgbe module parameter allowunsupportedsfp must be set, and on dual-port cards it must be given per port…
On Aruba 2930F switches (JL255A) the poster installed new J9151E 10G SFP+ transceivers (part 1990-4727) that the transceiver guide lists as supported, but every unit was reported as Unsupported Transceiver (SelfTest Err#128000) and show tech transceivers showed ?? for type and serial. J9281D DACs…
Two service providers shared a fibre with CWDM multiplexers. The existing 1310 nm channel worked, but after adding a 1471 nm channel the transmitting side saw frames leave (confirmed with packet captures) while the far end received nothing, even though light levels looked normal. The provider had…
With an Aruba 2930F connected to a server through a Stornet-branded J9283D-SN passive 3 m SFP+ DAC, port 50 dropped the link immediately after it came up and port 52 flapped with the log message FFI : Port: 52 Excessive link state transitions. The same cable worked on ports 49 and 51, and fibre…
The poster bought eight J9150D 10G SR SFP+ transceivers for an Aruba 5406R zl2 chassis with a J9993A module. Every module lit the orange LED and logged Unsupported Transceiver. (SelftTest Err#098000), even though the compatibility documents list this combination and the chassis had already been…
An operator asked about the practical behaviour of Brocade equipment with third-party SFP/SFP+ optics. Experience shared on NANOG: Foundry-heritage platforms (FastIron, NetIron, ICX including ICX7750) generally bring up any MSA-coded module, but the optical-monitor (DDM) function may be unavailable…
On a Juniper EX4600 running Junos 14.1X53-D27.3 the poster inserted a non-certified 1G single-mode WDM (BiDi) SFP, 20 km, TX 1550 / RX 1310 nm with DDM, into ge-0/0/1. The interface never appeared: show interfaces returned error: device ge-0/0/1 not found, and the log recorded XCVR: Unit 1, Fibre…
A network operator received QFX3500 switches that would not bring up third-party SFP+ transceivers even though a Juniper sales engineer had said they would work. JTAC stated that non-Juniper SFP+ optics would never be supported on the platform. The switch detected the presence of the module but…
On an Arista 7050QX running EOS 4.14 the poster tried to use third-party QSFP+ DAC cables; the ports went to errdisable as unqualified transceivers. They patched the XcvrAgent.py agent under /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages to skip the manufacturer check, which cleared the errdisable state but left…
In a NANOG discussion about vendor lock-in, an operator described two concrete failures. First, a third-party optic answered I2C reads too slowly; the switch vendor's polling code did not handle the timeout and crashed the linecard control plane, and the vendor refused to treat it as a bug because…
While staging an EX2300-48P and an EX2300-24P (both Junos 18.2R3-S5.3) with non-Juniper SFP+/SFP modules, the 48-port switch recognised the transceivers and created interfaces, but the 24-port switch showed nothing in any of its four uplink ports; show chassis hardware listed PIC 1 as 4x10G…
Juniper-branded SFP modules were intermittently reported as unsupported or not supported in the chassis hardware output right after an EX or MX device booted. Rebooting the device or reseating the SFP made the module recognised again, which was frustrating in production. The poster wanted to know…
The poster needed to connect a MikroTik CRS328-4C-20S-4S+RM to an HP 1820-24G-PoE+ over 200-500 m of outdoor aerial fibre and asked which SFP modules to buy and how to verify compatibility before purchase. The HP compatibility table listed only J4859C as a single-mode SFP, while MikroTik offered…
The poster had an existing multimode fibre run of about 200 m that could not be replaced and only single-mode SFP modules available. The question was whether a 1G single-mode SFP pair would establish a stable link over multimode fibre, and what the practical limits were. The thread also raised the…
The poster wanted to verify whether an HPE StorageWorks 81B 8 Gb Fibre Channel HBA (AP769-60001) fitted with an AJ716B SFP could be used in an HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 server (P02464-B21) and asked for a tool where part numbers can be entered to get a compatibility verdict. No error had occurred…