EAP225 V3x - FW bug confirmed
I have had issues to identify an internet radio / multi-room audio system connected to the EAP's 2.4GHz network. After 10-12 hrs of operation it all in a sudden "disappears" and it cannot be reached and pinged anymore - like as if SSID isolation was switched on. Although it was still in the EAP's client list and active incl. internet access, but not manageable via another client's app. A hard reboot of the EAP resolved the issue but after the same period trouble starts again.
Even the replacement of the EAP by another EAP225 hardware didn't change the issue.
As a matter of blank despair I connected the multi-room audio system to the 5GHz network. And now I observe 2 interessting effects:
1) the multi-room audio system works now since several days .... no problem, no interruption, always visible and can be pinged
2) the host name is now properly visible (wasn't on 2.4GHz) together with my home network domain name (both on EAP client list and DHCP router)
I think this is the ultimative evidence that the Firmware 2.40 at least for 2.4 GHz network is buggy !
Hopefully TP will resovle this very soon !!! Don't know how you guys are testing....
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Today I can report that the root cause of the incompatibility between the EAP and my audio system on the 2.4GHz was identified:
It was the wireless feature "Airtime Fairness"
By default it is activated but in my case it brought the WiFi module of my audio system to crash after couple of hours.
More information about this feature can be found here:
So it is not a bug, it's a feature
Thanks to TP for technical support.
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Hi,
From your description, I got that you have an EAP225 v3 and there is something wrong with the 2.4G network. When the client devices connect to the 2.4G network, the client device can't be reached and pinged successfully by other client devices connected to the same network. Even you use another EAP225v3 to have a test and you get the same result, but when you connect to the 5G network, everything goes well. So you think it is related with the firmware, yes?
For your issue, I have some questions to confirm with you; please reply to me the following questions, thank you.
1. What's the version of the firmware? We recommend you to upgrade it to the latest version to have a try. Do you manage the EAP in standalone mode or by Omada Controller?
2. Please delete the 2.4G SSID and config it again, to check if the problem still exists.
3. Could you please do a factory reset for the EAP225?
4. If possible, could you please send us the backup file of the configuration, we want to check it in our lab. Please note that if you manage the EAP in standalone mode, please also tell us the username and password, or we can't log in to the management page after we restore the backup file.
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forrest wrote
Hi,
From your description, I got that you have an EAP225 v3 and there is something wrong with the 2.4G network. When the client devices connect to the 2.4G network, the client device can't be reached and pinged successfully by other client devices connected to the same network. Even you use another EAP225v3 to have a test and you get the same result, but when you connect to the 5G network, everything goes well. So you think it is related with the firmware, yes?
For your issue, I have some questions to confirm with you; please reply to me the following questions, thank you.
forrest wrote
Hi,
From your description, I got that you have an EAP225 v3 and there is something wrong with the 2.4G network. When the client devices connect to the 2.4G network, the client device can't be reached and pinged successfully by other client devices connected to the same network. Even you use another EAP225v3 to have a test and you get the same result, but when you connect to the 5G network, everything goes well. So you think it is related with the firmware, yes?
For your issue, I have some questions to confirm with you; please reply to me the following questions, thank you.
1. What's the version of the firmware? We recommend you to upgrade it to the latest version to have a try. Do you manage the EAP in standalone mode or by Omada Controller?
2. Please delete the 2.4G SSID and config it again, to check if the problem still exists.
3. Could you please do a factory reset for the EAP225?
4. If possible, could you please send us the backup file of the configuration, we want to check it in our lab. Please note that if you manage the EAP in standalone mode, please also tell us the username and password, or we can't log in to the management page after we restore the backup file.
ad 1)
- yes, I am using the latest firmware 2.4.0 Build 20181121 Rel. 55897(4555) - (which I believe is the main problem - maybe because of moving SSID isolation to Guest option)
- true, EAP is used in stand-alone mode
ad 2)
done twice now (configured from scratch) and on two different EAPs (one V3.0 and one V3.1)
ad 3)
both EAPs where brand-new, so on factory settings, so why should I do it again ... it's a hell of a work to configure everything in stand-alone
ad 4)
why should I as a customer do all the work for you? It is your job to provide a fully operational system which currently isn't. In case you need certain settings from the 2,4GHz SSID please ask.
Here are some details:
2 SSIDs on 2,4GHZ (one regular and one Guest)
Wireless mode: 802.11b//g/n mixed
Channel: 20/40 MHz
Channel: 4
Tx Power: 20 dBm
Load Balance: enabled
Max. clients: 30
Airtime fairness: enabled
Portal for Guest network: enabled
MAC Filtering for regular SSID: enabled
Scheduler: active
Management access with active MAC filter
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Hi,
1. You mentioned, "I have had issues to identify an internet radio / multi-room audio system connected to the EAP's 2.4GHz network." So does only the internet radio / multi-room audio system have the problem when it is connected to the 2.4G SSID? Do other client devices have this issue?
2. The latest firmware 2.4.0 Build 20181121 Rel. 55897(4555) replaces SSID Isolation with Guest Network, with Guest network enabled, the client devices connected to the same SSID can not communicate with each other, and they will be blocked to access the private IP subnet. Do you enable the Guest Network? By the way, do you have the problem when you use the old version of firmware?
3. You said the client device couldn't be reached after 10-12 hrs, so when the issue occurs, it will always exist or it just happens sometimes?
4. We didn't receive such feedback before, so we still hope you can have a factory reset for the EAP to have a try, if the problem still exists, please tell us.
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forrest wrote
Hi,
1. You mentioned, "I have had issues to identify an internet radio / multi-room audio system connected to the EAP's 2.4GHz network." So does only the internet radio / multi-room audio system have the problem when it is connected to the 2.4G SSID? Do other client devices have this issue?
2. The latest firmware 2.4.0 Build 20181121 Rel. 55897(4555) replaces SSID Isolation with Guest Network, with Guest network enabled, the client devices connected to the same SSID can not communicate with each other, and they will be blocked to access the private IP subnet. Do you enable the Guest Network? By the way, do you have the problem when you use the old version of firmware?
3. You said the client device couldn't be reached after 10-12 hrs, so when the issue occurs, it will always exist or it just happens sometimes?
4. We didn't receive such feedback before, so we still hope you can have a factory reset for the EAP to have a try, if the problem still exists, please tell us.
ad 1)
yes, only my internet radio / multi-room audio system does have this reported issue because it is the only device which is managed by an other device's app (based on Frontier Silicon Tec. Chip) via same network. Same applies for Bose, Sonos and other internet radio or multi-room audio systems. Other clients like mobiles, laptops of course don't have the issue because they don't have to interact (!) with other clients in the network but just need internet access.
ad 2)
I never tried FW 2.30 because at the beginning of an installation I always use the latest FW right from the beginning.
On the 2.4GHz network I have 2 SSIDs: one with "Guest" disabled for internal purposes (which I tried to use for the multi-room audio system and use for my own other devices) and another separate SSID with "Guest" enabled + Portal. So I am aware about the new "Guest" function (similar to SSID isolation)
ad 3)
to be precise: it happens everytime after a fresh reboot of the EAP. So after 10-12 hours the device becomes "invisible", no matter whether you want to search/ping for it from an other WiFi client or even on LAN connected device (laptop). Error msg I get from the Apps is "device not found".
ad 4)
I do not agree that you havn't received such feedback before... Just look into another post in this community who reports exactely the same issue. Will look it up and post it here...
In addition what I have observered is the following:
- Connected to 2.4GHz network the Host names for the multi-room audio system and for a Windows based mobile phone are left blank or just a * in the active client list
- Sometimes in the EAP's client list the multi-room audio system is reported with a 169.254.x.x IP which means DHCP didn't provide a proper IP 192.168.x.x
- Even though the multi-room audio system "disappears" after some hours as discribed above it remains operational because IP is still there (according to DHCP router's client list). But you cannot access it anymore apart from the hard buttons on the device itself (on/off, station switch).
All of those 3 additional issues did disappear switching to 5GHz network.
So there must be an essential difference between functionalities of the 2.4 in comparison the 5GHz network.
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There is another customer reporting the same issue: please refer to the post from @bjh_101 in this forum just a few days ago (also with EAP225 FW 2.4)
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I don't think this is something you can blame on tp-link
it completely depend on host to implement how it wants to respond to ICMP request
i.e. I observed that my Sony WIFI speak will stop reponding to ICMP once go into stamina mode in order to save power
below is a test I do when I ping my Ipad (beware that this ipad is running on my 5G network but not 2.4G, and you can still observe the same behavior)
when the Ipad has the screen turned off, it will stop responding to ICMP in about 3 seconds.
when the Ipad has the screen turned on, it will start responding to ICMP immediately
I turned on my screen 2 times, thus the pattern
but just to be sure to try to reproduce your issue
I connected my spare thinkpad onto my 2.4G wifi (running manjaro Linux and set power to no suspend) and will report back tomorrow
but honestly I will be suprised if it fails
1 day passed, my manjaro box responds to ping properly
I do discover that some device on LAN have weird TTL 255, need to dig a bit more to figure out why
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Manfred wrote
In addition what I have observered is the following:
- Connected to 2.4GHz network the Host names for the multi-room audio system and for a Windows based mobile phone are left blank or just a * in the active client list
- Sometimes in the EAP's client list the multi-room audio system is reported with a 169.254.x.x IP which means DHCP didn't provide a proper IP 192.168.x.x
- Even though the multi-room audio system "disappears" after some hours as discribed above it remains operational because IP is still there (according to DHCP router's client list). But you cannot access it anymore apart from the hard buttons on the device itself (on/off, station switch).
All of those 3 additional issues did disappear switching to 5GHz network.
So there must be an essential difference between functionalities of the 2.4 in comparison the 5GHz network.
Your conclusion is wrong.
I told you already that you might have a DHCP problem in your network installation, either in the DHCP server or the audio system. The fall-back to an 169.254/16 IP is clearly a proof that either the audio system or your DHCP server doesn't renew the lease correctly, for whatever reason. Set a fixed IP if possible and check again. Not a fault of the EAP.
Re 1) Your audio system and Windows phone most certainly don't communicate their hostnames in DHCP requests back to the DHCP server. Not a fault of the EAP either.
Re 3) Once a DHCP lease has been reserved for a device its IP will remain assigned to it even if the lease did expire. It will be re-used for other devices only if the DHCP pool gets exhausted. If the audio system would send a renew request, it would receive a lease with exactly the same IP again even if the lease had been expired in the DHCP server, too.
When switching networks, devices request a new DHCP lease. Thus, switching networks will force the device to renew its lease. This is further proof of the cause of the problem in the audio system's DHCP handling, but no proof for a faulty EAP firmware. Just reboot the audio system instead of the EAP to proof this.
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Sorry guys but I am not in agreement with you. Your recommendation and conclusions are wrong in my eyes and not very helpful.
I am just a customer not a wifi network specialist and simply expecting from a market leader like TP that they sell products which can cope will all kinds of average devices based on the 802.11 wireless standards.
Let TP figure out whats wrong with their firmware because they have to tell me
- why is the audio system working on 5GHz but doesn't on 2.4GHz ?
- why is the same audio system working perfectly fine once connected to my (spare) NetGear WAC120 wifi AP on the 2.4GHz network?
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Today I can report that the root cause of the incompatibility between the EAP and my audio system on the 2.4GHz was identified:
It was the wireless feature "Airtime Fairness"
By default it is activated but in my case it brought the WiFi module of my audio system to crash after couple of hours.
More information about this feature can be found here:
So it is not a bug, it's a feature
Thanks to TP for technical support.
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