I'm humbly asking for your help regarding this stubborn problem that I have in a customers network. I've done what I feel I can but it seems like my knowledge just isn't adequate to solve this. I really need your help.
Situation (see attached PDF for more info):
This network is located in a 4 story building with 6 AP's on each level. These AP's are PoE and connected to a 10-port PoE switch, one on each level. From there the switches are connected to a unified management switch in the server room that centrally manages all the AP's and their configs. There are 2 SSID's available, each with it's own VLAN, meaning there are a total of 3 VLANs, counting the untagged network (VLAN1).
To the management switch there's an ESXi host connected, running 4 virtual servers. 1 for each VLAN, 1 router and 1 server for testing purposes. SRV01 is DHCP, DNS and router for VLAN2, and SRV02 is DHCP, DNS and router for VLAN3. They both route to the shared router on VLAN1 to reach the internet.
Problem:
At first the problem was that some wireless clients couldn't get an IP, and hence no network connection. After some testing I concluded that I had mistakenly placed a non-VLAN capable switch in the middle of a VLAN network, so I corrected it by removing it and configured the network to what it is today, according to the network map you see attached. This didn't help at all though. Next I went over the cables and swapped out some old harness for new ones. Still nothing. I then deleted the vSwitch0 in the ESXi host, and added a new one, configuring it the same way, and that worked for half a day or so.
After this I contacted HP support (that now handles all 3Com stuff), and got help from a network tech there. We analysed the logs and saw that the management switch was leaving memory leak errors. He then sent me an upgraded firmware that was suppose to eliminate this bug, but unfortunally that didn't help either. Rebooting the switch helps for half a day or so, same as rebooting the ESXi host.
Due to our switches not being under warranty, the tech couldn't help me more than that, but he left me a few ideas. He said he thinks it's some unit in the network that keeps rebooting, making the spanning tree protocol restart and reindex the network every time, making the switches busy and not available for traffic meanwhile. So next I started checking every physical unit I could find (except computers of course) but no switch seems to be rebooting, unless it's doing so without actually restarting (i.e. bad software).
This is leaving me puzzled and I can't see where the problem lies or what to look for or try next. I'm not even sure that it's not my own fault, that due to my noobness I might have configured something completely wrong. The latter would be the most probable explaination.
I'm attaching both the network map and a print screen of the vSwitch setup. I replaced some of the customer specific names but I changed to other info. Any more info needed just ask.
Anyone willing and able to help?