Also, I should mention that the MAC addresses of the devices on my ISP modem/router side are displayed as AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF while on the RE650 is the same but with a dash instead of a colon (AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF)

@Solla-topee 

Hello,

I've checked the configuration and it seems to me that my RE650 is getting his IP address (192.168.1.83) from my ISP modem/router (192.168.1.254).

RE650 is getting 192.168.1.83 which is the IP he should get since a reservation for his mac address is in-place on my ISP modem/router.

The DHCP function on my RE650 is indeed set to OFF so it shouldn't give out any IP addresses, correct?

Here's a couple of screenshots of my RE650 network configuration and also access control page:

As you can see, the clients in the red box are getting random IP addresses from the RE650. This should not happen since the RE650 DHCP function is turned OFF and since for the clients' mac addresses there are reservation in-place on my ISP modem/router.

I look forward for your reply.

Thank you very much

Marco

@Murder3D 

84-F3-EB-... should have 192.168.1.110

2C-F4-32-... should have 192.168.1.105

CC-50-E3-... should have 192.168.1.109

these are the reservations that are configured in my ISP modem/router (the only difference is that the MAC ADDRESS is typed as AA:BB:CC: ecc. ecc.

Marco

Hi @Solla-topee,

I've found what's described in these posts to be the exact behavior of what's happening in my case:

https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/174656

https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/199824

It is called "MAC Address Proxy"

Can you please confirm that the first 3 octets of the connected devices MAC Addresses are being overwritten with the first 3 octets of the RE650 MAC Address?

for example:

RE650 MAC Address: 11:22:33:44:55:66

My iPhone real MAC Address: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

My iPhone MAC Address when it is connected to the RE650: 11:22:33:DD:EE:FF

This would explain why my ISP modem/router reservations aren't being applied to the devices that are connected to my RE650.

Is there a way to turn off this feature or to prevent this from happening?

I am willing to install beta/custom firmware if needed since I really need that the reservations that I have on my ISP modem/router are being appliead to all my devices regardless of where they are connected to.

Thank you

Marco

@Murder3D 

I just received the RE650 yesterday to pair with my RE450 that I have in the basement, I've noticed the exact same issue, I have 55 wireless devices all set up with static ip addresses in my router, if i reboot my router all devices that were active will connect to the 450 and keep their assigned ip addresses, if I do the same with the 650 the clients are all assigned random ip addresses, now i know why but I find it hard to fathom that this feature can't be configured as an option in the firmware, MAC Address Proxy is an unnecessary feature. I will hunt around for a way to bypass this without having to mess around with reconfiguring clients otherwise I will return both of these extenders and try something else.

@Solla-topee 

Hi, I've the same issue as the guys above so I've looked into the guide information that you've given. 

I've numerous iOT devices that I've allocated static IP addresses for in my router and the RE650 with this proxy MAC addressing is making a complete mess of my set-up that's taken years to create, is there absolutely no way that this can be turned off as I can't see any reason why it would be useful in my case.  I'm sure that there's a reason behind it, but in my case it's of no use whatsoever and to me needs to be feed-back as something that needs addressing in future firmware upgrades. 

Yes according to the guide I can work out the replacement MAC addresses and fiddle the way my router is set up but to me that's a pain to do especially as some devices can be either connected to the main unit Wifi or the RE650 extender which the fiddle can't fix.  These are basic devices and can't be configured themselves to have a static address so again that part of the guide it not practicle. 

Before finding this article, I'd spent several days banging my head thinking I've done something wrong since supposedly upgrading from the TL-WPA271 that I was previously using only to find that this RE650 is the root of the problem, that there's no fix so nothing I can do about it except return it and go back to my old unit until I've found an equivalent unit that doesn't have such a frustrating limitation.