Using 3rd party SFPs with a Cisco switch

When installing some brands of 3rd party SFPs (Small Form Factor Pluggable transceivers) in a Cisco switch, which haven’t been validated by Cisco, the port becomes error-disabled.
The following error messages are logged when this happens.

%PM-4-ERR_DISABLE: gbic-invalid error detected on Gi1/0/1, putting Gi1/0/1 in err-disable state

%GBIC_SECURITY_CRYPT-4-VN_DATA_CRC_ERROR: GBIC in port 65538 has bad crc

To force the switch to enable the 3rd-party SFP
First, you need to enable the undocumented service unsupported-transceiver.

Switch(config)# service unsupported-transceiver

You will receive a message advising you that Cisco TAC will not provide support for any problems related to third-party SFPs.

Then you can prevent the 3rd-party SFP from being disabled.

Switch(config)# no errdisable detect cause gbic-invalid