F5 Failover active/active, fallback when configuration is not loaded.

Hello,

We have some issues with our F5's. We have an Active/Active HA failover over two DC's. Two traffic groups are created one for each DC. We use multiple partitions linked to the traffic group of DC the servers are active in. Works like a charm for the last 2 years. We have auto fall back enabled after 300 seconds for both traffic groups. Both F5 nodes are configured for Tacacs+ because of the number of people able to change the base F5 config, with limited access.

The problem we had was the following, we had some node x type y error messages while trying to sync both F5's. We know how to solve them and for good measure we rebooted one of the F5 nodes after an failover of that traffic group. No problems there all traffic keeps flowing.

After the F5 node management is available again, we see that we can't login with our normal credentials. Quickly logging in with an local account we see that there is an problem with the configuration, it is not loaded, an issue in one of the not imported test partitions. Bigger problem is that after 300 seconds the traffic group that is primary on that F5 node is going from standby to active without any of partition configuration loaded!!!!!! Resulting in downtime for around 15 min because our terminal server for management is in the affected DC.

My question is is this auto fallback when config not loaded a bug or by design????

Extra Info: F5 4000 series OS 11.5.2 HF1

With kind regards,

Axel Boersma