The WLC has a wealth of debug commands. I ran into image problems in my lab this weekend. If you run into TFTP or IMAGE transfer issues a handy debug is the debug transfer trace / tftp enable.
If you have issues contacting the TFTP server from the WLC or image mounting issues this debug will
alert you as to the issue.
debug transfer trace enable
debug transfer tftp enable
Here is an example of the debug transfer trace:
(Cisco_4402_WLC) >debug transfer trace enable
*Oct 17 21:44:25.925: RESULT_STRING: TFTP Code transfer starting.
*Oct 17 21:44:25.925: RESULT_CODE:1
*Oct 17 21:44:29.928: Locking tftp semaphore, pHost=10.10.53.24 pFilename=/SWISMK9-6-0-199-4.aes
*Oct 17 21:44:29.929: Semaphore locked, now unlocking, pHost=10.10.53.24 pFilename=/SWISMK9-6-0-199-4.aes
*Oct 17 21:44:29.929: Semaphore successfully unlocked, pHost=10.10.53.24 pFilename=/SWISMK9-6-0-199-4.aes
*Oct 17 21:52:01.997: tftp rc=0, pHost=10.10.53.24 pFilename=/SWISMK9-6-0-199-4.ae pLocalFilename=/mnt/download/local.tgz
*Oct 17 21:52:01.998: tftp = 6, file_name=/SWISMK9-6-0-199-4.aes, ip_address=10.10.53.24, msg=Unknown error - refer to log
*Oct 17 21:52:01.998: upd_get_code = 6 (target=268435457 msg=Unknown error - refer to log)
*Oct 17 21:52:01.999: RESULT_STRING: TFTP receive complete... extracting components.
*Oct 17 21:52:01.999: RESULT_CODE:6
*Oct 17 21:52:07.022: RESULT_STRING: Executing Product Check TLV.
*Oct 17 21:52:07.023: RESULT_STRING: Executing init script.
*Oct 17 21:52:07.131: RESULT_STRING: Executing backup script.
*Oct 17 21:53:29.209: RESULT_STRING: Writing new RTOS to flash disk.
*Oct 17 21:53:31.577: RESULT_STRING: Writing new Code to flash disk.
*Oct 17 21:53:56.451: RESULT_STRING: Writing new APIB to flash disk.
*Oct 17 21:55:05.911: RESULT_STRING: Executing install_apib script.
*Oct 17 21:56:52.738: RESULT_STRING: Executing fini script.
*Oct 17 21:56:53.037: RESULT_STRING: TFTP File transfer is successful.
Reboot the controller for update to complete.
Optionally, pre-download the image to APs before rebooting to reduce network downtime.
*Oct 17 21:56:53.037: RESULT_CODE:11
*Oct 17 21:56:57.039: ummounting: <umount /mnt/download/> cwd = /mnt/application
*Oct 17 21:56:57.077: finished umounting
(Cisco_4402_WLC) >