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Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide

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Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide

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Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-25 14:28:04 - last edited 2021-11-25 14:38:29
Model: ER7206 (TL-ER7206)  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version:

I have 2 ISPs, one is via a 400 mbps ptp wireless link, and another is via a littel cheap mikrotik router and another 400 mbps ptp link. The mikrotik router is required because both sources of internet are the same ISP and therefor both modem/routers by that ISP have the same IP configuration so the load balancer doesnt know what to do ( it thinks they are the same thing, wiht the same IP) and the only way to make it work so that i could access any of my ISP modem/router pages was to make them seem differnet to the tplink, by adding in that intermediate mikrotik router in the path from one of them. I cant configure the ISP routers so this was my only choice.

OK now,
one of the links, the one with the internmediate mikrotik router, the connection is form a 3rd party and is limited to 90 mbps, that is connected via one of the copper ports so we will call that "WAN 90"
the other link, is supplied by a connection which belongs to me and is unlimited and the dealis 300 mbps. this has no intermediate router. it is connnected via a fiber lan and ptp link. lets call that "SFP WAN 300"

if i try to set up the  WAN ports with "bandwidth based laod balancing", the only way it wil work is if the 2 WANs are configured with nearly identical throughputs. the instructons (tooltips on the page in the GUI) clearly say that im supposed to enter the capacty of each connection so that it knows how to balance the load. If i do this as per the instructions, everythign breaks, i wathc the statistics screen and all the traffic ends up gogin through onyl one of the WAN ports, never the one i woud expect it to, always the one with the least capacty entered, I think. The capacity is realy available in real life, ive tested each, its there, and i can test each connection, but this stupid POS router either sais its offline ( under link detection in load balancing menu) or it simple puts no traffic through the fast one and onyl puts traffic thorugh the slow one.

im trying to do this remotely, i work in the city ( for an unrealted ISP incidently) , and this setup is out in the jungle where my wifes family have the brain capacty of a snail, so theyre no help, so right now, this message comes after ive tried to fix it remotely using teamviewr on a computer located at the router site,, and casued the entire thing to fail again and now i cant fix it. 

I want to kno whow on earth this thing is supposed to work in great detail, and it seems there is absoultey no assistance available anywhere. There are simple checkboxes and butons, and im quite sure i  undertstand them all. is this thing jst a fake piece of chinese junk?

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#1
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-26 06:02:44

@NotVeryGood 

 

It does seem wired, one possibility is that you have link backup enabled?

As far as I know, load balance does not work after setting link backup on this router.

 

When the detection screen shows offline, you can try pinging the WAN locally to see if you can get through.

 

You can have a look: https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/505178

Just striving to develop myself while helping others.
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#2
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-26 06:21:27

@Virgo yeh nah link backup is disable, i understand tha makes it use one as a failover.
It just seems like the whole thing is just bug ridden

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#3
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-30 05:44:10

@NotVeryGood 

There are some recommended settings from TPLINK. https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/3147/

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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-30 05:53:18

@John1234 ok so they are recommending turning off the bandwidth based balancing. i wonder what the point of this functionality is then? 
Im trying to use both wans as both extra capacity, performance and failover, because internet suppliers here are totally hopeless and fiber breaks happen so frequently that you cant just have one connection if you need internet. Once i even lost the backup during an 8 dya outage of the big primary one. Just hopeless.
So ill try this, but I dont want to hammer my backup ISP guy because im not like that, i dont want to inundate his connection if my 300 mbps is perfectly capable, but I pay him so much more for his 90 mbps than i do for the other 300 mbps that i want to gain somethings from it always.
It seems kinda counterintuitive to tell the router to treat them both equally. 
Does turning off this bandwidth based thing cause the router to do some kind of speedtest to work out how to balance? how does it work?

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#5
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-30 06:51:24 - last edited 2021-11-30 06:51:47

@NotVeryGood 

From the guide: 

To enable all WANs to participate in the testing process, please go to the router page – Transmission – Load Balancing, make sure “Enable Load Balancing” is checked, and “Enable Application Optimized Routing” (which will cause all speed test traffic forwarded via the same WAN port)

and “Enable Bandwidth Based Balance Routing on port(s)” (which will cause only part of the WAN ports used during the test) are unchecked.

By this config, you will use both WAN ports at the same time. Randomly forward traffics. So, you can use the 90Mbps and 300Mbps at the same time. Traffic will be randomly forwarded to two ISPs(WANs).

Somehow, you will get aggregated bandwidth when doing speedtest. That's what I heard when they release this FAQ. 

 

https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/2079/

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#6
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-30 13:04:22 - last edited 2021-11-30 13:07:10

ok so its either: random, failover, or distributed according to my manualy entered capacity figures.
ill try the random one, (bandwidth balanced disabled) and see how many complaints I get.
Howeer, the problem has been that, when I edit the figures in the bandidth for each WAN, it jsut shits itself and fails one of the WANs and sends all traffic thorugh the other till the start align and the moon phase checks out, so im not sure how this is related, or what is going on, but im encouraged to at least learn something. Honestly i didnt have much hope that anyone out there woudl understand this router. Ive read the manuals, but nothing really made any sense.

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#7
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-11-30 13:21:48

I'd really love to understand what each of the 3 load balancing checkboxes actually mean, honestly theyre pretty confusing to me, im not a netowrk engineer, i work for the field engineering division in my role for an ISP. :/

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#8
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-12-02 06:27:14

@NotVeryGood 

Three boxes: 

"Enable Load Balance", literal meaning. Google has more explanation for this. 

“Enable Application Optimized Routing” means (which will cause all speed test traffic forwarded via the same WAN port)

“Enable Bandwidth Based Balance Routing on port(s)” means (which will cause only part of the WAN ports used during the test)

 

To understand load balance, you have to know about sessions. Load balance is about session balance. You access the network by creating sessions to communicate, to back and forth data. You download a file, that may create multiple sessions or only one(very few cases in real network). A session can be established and back and forth the data for 1GB or 2GB or 100MB or 10MB. That will be calculated in the WAN stats. 

 

You can post your entire network diagram and settings. WAN config, WAN stats. People will help check and find out if this is a mis-config. 

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#9
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Re:Why does attempting load balancing on ER7206 cause me to want to commit suicide
2021-12-02 09:07:20

thanks john thats exactly the guidance i needed. I have been taught about sessions from my IT friends and i geuss i never really connected the dots in my head. 

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