@Loop1 

 

 

Hey

 

Not sure why you posted it in black   but hopefully should be able to respond to a few things..

 

Just to clarify, mesh isnt a thing.. its just a buzz word for a load of APs working as one network and generally connected via WiFi (likes of Deco, Eero, Google Mesh etc). In business setup MESH is purely AP2 connected to AP1 via a WiFi link.  There is no wired mesh as such, with business its primarily expected that APs would be wired into the LAN connection. 

 

Also dont set RSSI levels on the AP, this defeats the purpose of AI Roaming.    Let the controller decide to roam a device, setting a limit on RSSI force disconnects and therefore roaming wont happen.

 

1. How to force specific devices to use nearer AP, for some reason there is a bunch of devices that will specifically use farrer AP with much less signal quality. For example, the device is 1 meter from the Ap and will insist on using a second AP 8 meters apart with a signal of -77 instead of signal -31 on the nearer AP.

 

This is a proces called Roaming or Fast Roaming, it should happen automatically.. however that is dependant on the device being capable of roaming.   Best way to check this is to turn on the roaming logs on the controller, let it record devices roaming.   You also didnt mention what devices these are.    The latest OC200 firmware (1.24) released a few days ago adds the ability to lock a device to a specific AP if required.    Also bear in mind that signal strength isnt the only thing that causes a roam, its a lot more complicated than that.    

 

We would really need a lot more info from you to help, namely what channels you are on.. what devices, any screenshots you can add and enable logging to see if roaming is attempted.

 

 

As I saw by reading through the forum, nothing seems to work for anyone for a similar thing. I've never seen any post where someone said that this thing is working.

I can't believe that TP-Link is allowing the business class of devices to absolutely not work as they were emphasized it. Is it possible that wired MESh is not working?

 

It does work, have installed hundreds of TP Link APs and rarely have an issue.   Again you havent gave us enough info to claim an issue here..

 

 

I remember when I had Ubiquiti that they didn't have wired mesh and that you could only have fast roaming and force dissociation over WIFI Mesh.

 

Use Ubiquiti daily, this is incorrect.   Fast Roaming and force diss has been over LAN well before MESH even existed.

I have many Tp-link switches, like non omada class but still manageable TL-SG108PE and TL-SG1016DE. Are they breaking protocols for data going over them.

 

Again, would need to know if you have VLANs in place and how you have configured these.   Unlikely is my gut feeling, if it was dropping packets or a VLAN issue it likely just would not work at all.  Did you try with these bypassed?

Why is this Omada working poorly?

 

Sadly need more info, you havent really ruled out anything so far.

 

 

 

2. Is it better that I put each EAP660 HD in a different site? Devices are physically in the same ip range in the same building, can they be used as same-name SSID dribbling clients in the same fashion as under the "one Site".

 

No, a different site definitely wont allow roaming.  These need to be on one site.

Can I physically set a policy to ban specific wifi clients from accessing one site and not blocking on the other two sites which are closer?

 

Not really, that defeats how APs work.  You can however (as mentioned earlier) in the new firmware lock a device to a specific AP. 

I have 30 or more wifi devices like power, light and sensor controllers, lots of light switches, many broadlink hubs and also many amazon devices. Sometimes I will have 50-60 wifi devices.

I observed that 2.4 is oversaturated, peaking at 90-100% with only 13-15 2.4ghz devices.

What's the deal of TP-link emphasizing easy 100 wifi devices for EAP660 HD.

 

The EAP660HD will easily handle over 100 devices and I have personally done so, however that is based on the devices using a mix of 5ghz and 2.4ghz frequencies.    Ideally the majority being on 5ghz.    If you have 2.4ghz devices, the airspace will flood with just 10 devices on there, its not an AP issue but rather the frequency you are using.   Check the forums here or google it, 2.4ghz flooding a common issue that affects nearly everyone.  There are a few things you can do (link below), but ultimately this isnt an issue you will fix easily.  The best thing to do is enable band steering and force as many devices to 5ghz as possible (provided they support it).  IOT devices are inherently poor wifi cards and sometimes are 2.4 only sadly.

 

https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/520924?replyId=1036106

What I observed is when 2.4ghz is utilized at 90-100% with just TX and RX, lots of devices would be unreachable or losing the functions, and vice versa. It's very ,verya bad.

 

Yeah.. thats 2.4ghz for you!   In your SSID settings you could try enabling Airtime Fairness / 20mhz channels (see link above) and see if that helps, but honestly.. you wont fix this!   Move devices to 5ghz if you can, however with IOT devices you may not have an option

Did you conduct a site survey or channel analysis / design before you starting placing the APs?   Are you going for 3x 2mhz channels or 2x 40mhz, single channel architecture may be an option for you, however personally I find single channel to be more problematic and should only be used when avoiding 3rd party non WiFi interference.

Also the thing that's getting on my nerves is the clients list under the OMADA SND controller, is bad, unrelated to the real situation, 90% of the time it's showing wrong info, also every change you make takes a very very long time to take effect.

 

What info is wrong and what are you trying to change?   Again we would need examples or context of what you are seeing.


I have so many questions regarding so many bugs and problems I saw but let's start with these urgent matters. 

 

At the risk of sounding harsh, nothing you have said above indicates any bugs or errors, more misconfiguration or misunderstanding of the technology. 

 

 

 

Crazy I have a dark reader extension for Firefox which is making dark mode for any site I choose, but this is the first time I see that it's affecting the writing mode on the forum, very strange. When the first OP sad writing in black I thought he meant I was black about Omada in general, but when you also said in black then I realized that it's literally in black.

Crazy forum every paste from dark notepad++, or from dark mailbird or dark thunderbird is pasted as black on this forum.

 

  @Philbert 

Regarding "Lock to ap" feature  I updated OC200 to the latest OC200(UN)_V1_1.24.0 Build 20230328, seems EAP660 HD has old firmware which doesnt support "Lock to ap" feature, because in device/ EAP660 HD/config there is no "Lock to ap" option to enable, I will go through all options maybe its hidden somewhere

 

I didsabled RSSI threshold and I started Ai optimization. Lets see will it help.

  @Loop1 

I found where the "Lock to ap" feature is, it's in clients\client\config and not in "devices\device\clients\config" as they wrote it in the notice.

Let's see if will it work because AI roaming didn't help at all.

  @Loop1 

 

Did you enable and check the logs for roaming attempts?  Remember not all clients are capable of roaming, best ensure that the client is capable before starting down the lock route.

  @Philbert 

 

Hey @Philbert, thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

After a few days of experimenting and tests, I can definitely conclude that roaming is not working as it should. And also "AP locking" is not working as it should. The only explanation I can provide is that maybe it is specific to Broadlink devices since they are the ones that I am having trouble with (but I also saw some mobile devices like s21 sticking to one AP while a much better-located AP is disregarded).

 

In any case, let's go step by step.

Here is the example of one Broadlink device (I have the same problem with two more) which is located in the attic (plan attached No.1). He is roaming from 1-Floor to the Ground floor (attached Photo No.2) even though the difference in signal is significantly poorer and more importantly has "AP lock" enabled on the designated AP (EAP660 Potkrovlje attached No.3). The device is sticking to AP with a much worse signal? (reconnecting does not help)

 

Also one additional technical question, on the default start page my EAPs are not sorted by IP ( I know I can sort them via IP  but after a refresh, they are back to default as shown in the photo attached No.4). The question is what are the parameters that he sorted it like this by default (they are not even installed in this order)? I would like them to be sorted by IP value

 

Thanks in advance

 

p.s. sorry I did not use hyperlinks but I am getting the message that links are not allowed

  @Loop1 

Hey

 

No worries, every little helps!

 

After a few days of experimenting and tests, I can definitely conclude that roaming is not working as it should. And also "AP locking" is not working as it should. The only explanation I can provide is that maybe it is specific to Broadlink devices since they are the ones that I am having trouble with (but I also saw some mobile devices like s21 sticking to one AP while a much better-located AP is disregarded).

 

 

How did you test this?   What was your methodolgy for this?    I know you are trying to attach links to photos, save them to your PC and upload them to the chat..  should work better that way

 

Pictures uploaded would help MASSIVELY.   You also need to enable ROAMING LOGS, that will tell you if it is attempting to roam and what is happening.   Also a picture of your advanced features under admin/site.  These need to be enabled.  Did you disable / remove the RSSI threshold you mentioned earlier?  This will break roaming if active.

 

Did you enable Airtime Fairness and do channel selection?

 

 

 

In any case, let's go step by step.

Here is the example of one Broadlink device (I have the same problem with two more) which is located in the attic (plan attached No.1). He is roaming from 1-Floor to the Ground floor (attached Photo No.2) even though the difference in signal is significantly poorer and more importantly has "AP lock" enabled on the designated AP (EAP660 Potkrovlje attached No.3). The device is sticking to AP with a much worse signal? (reconnecting does not help)

 

You need to get out of  the mindset that signal strength is the optimal for roaming, its wrong....   best example I can give you is AP1 has -40db signal...   AP2 has -60db signal..   in theory roam to AP1!   No..   cause AP1 is currently handling 10 other devices while AP2 is doing nothing.     Therefore if you move to AP1, yes signal is better but you get 10% of the time slots... on AP2 you get perhaps half the speed, but 100% of the time.. overall better    100% of 50mbps is better than 10% of 100mbps, that idea

Yes that is VERY basic, but hopefully describes the idea. 

 

Do you know the chipset in these devices?   Broadlink can sometimes be VERY old chipsets used in IOT and that could well be your issue.   

 

 

 

Also one additional technical question, on the default start page my EAPs are not sorted by IP ( I know I can sort them via IP  but after a refresh, they are back to default as shown in the photo attached No.4). The question is what are the parameters that he sorted it like this by default (they are not even installed in this order)? I would like them to be sorted by IP value

 

If you could upload the photo that would help, it should save the setting.. never known it not too! 

 

 

  @Philbert 

As I said roaming logs are enabled but the logs are rudimentarry

You can see Broadlink_tapet Gore outlet is roaming to every point beside the best one which has almoust free radio with only 2 clients connected and from broadlink logs I can see that its very unstable because of low signal values and signal errors sometimes it cant get commands at all when its connected to at ap which is 1-2 meters away from his position it has stellar connection.

 

Maybe there is some other logs but roaming logs are only visable in logs/events/clients, if you know other way to access roamings logs please tell me.

 

Also its a same story for second device "Broadlink produzni"

As you can see Broadlink produzni is conecting and disconecting from every other tAp than to the one which is closest with  almost no 2.4ghz clients. Its very unstable and losing and dropping packets with lots of errors lots unsuscesful attempts of changing commands. I dont like how Omada is working with roaming.

 

As I said I don't like how Omada is working with Roaming it's quite catastrophic for example for IPCams, it's prerogative to connect to the best signal and get the best transfer rate I will get dropped frames, stalling in the video, etc.
Airfairness is enabled. If airfairness is the option that tends to redistribute clients to make less congestion, then its prerogative to disable this option.

 

  @Philbert 

Here are the setup advanced options

You can see that airtime fairnesses is enabled

 

 

Next here are the Radio settings options maybe you have some suggestions for something to change: