1522 Mesh - Using the ethernet port - FIXED

When I got my 1522 to finally associate to the 1242 that I converted into Enterprise Wireless Mesh, I was no longer able to use the Ethernet port for network access. Basically, the device knew it was a Mesh AP and not a Root AP and apparently turned its network port off...

Long story short, the fix was actually more simple than I expected.

By taking down the 1242 Mesh, my 1522 no longer had a Mesh path to the network. After rebooting the 1522 with the 1242 down, the network port finally came active as the 1522 searched for the network. Of course there was no network path back to the controller so the AP really didn't do anything.

Anyhow, after turning my 1242 back on (and several reboots later) the 1522 finally registered back to the Enterprise Mesh Network with a functional network port for bridging.

Upon further research, I learned where I went wrong:

The recommended installation for a 1522 is to always attach it to the network to find the controller first. Once attached to the network, the 1522 then can be converted to MeshAP (instead of RootAP) and will attempt to associate to another Mesh AP. By doing this, the MeshAP 1522 keeps the network port active and therefor the system never thinks it needs to disable the port.