mateid wrote

This behavior is unacceptable and - even worse! - cannot be disabled...

 

Is there any way to fix this or the my only option is to completely ditch this time-bomb of an access point?

 

@mateid 

 

I do agree that this might not have been the smartest design decision by TP-Link Deco software development team. Yet, it appears it does not impact everyone equally.

 

I run 3-unit Deco mesh in AP mode, two M9 and one M5. Just other day I had to move ISP gateway in my house. It is router and, obviously, DHCP server for my home network as well. I had to power it off for about 15-20 minutes while I moved it, and of course my network went down during that time. When ISP gateway came back online, my home network was just fine. I didn't have to do anything to recover it.

This will be second time after I deployed Deco mesh that I move my ISP gateway with 15-20 minutes downtime, not counting multiple short power off/power on to troubleshoot Internet connectivity issues I had with ISP, but every time my network stayed just fine.

 

So, what is the difference between our two networks? Do you run yours in a place of business, or is it your home network? For how long your router goes down before network gets impacted and requires manual recovery? What is DHCP lease time of your DHCP server?

 

Whatever we could find, will not be the fix, you correctly said the fix could only be done by TP-Link disabling that feature. Yet, there might be a sufficient workaround for you to keep X20s, and reduce aggravation with Deco mesh, until we have firmware update from TP-Link that addresses this issue.

@Alexandre. 

 

This is my home setup. I noticed this issue the other day, after experiencing a power failure. The Deco came up faster than the edge router and immediately begun dishing out IP addresses from its own subnet, even though it was configured in AP mode. Just then,  I've opened my laptop to check if the connection was back online and it received (by pure bad luck, I guess) from X20's DHCP the exact IP address used by the main router (which was still booting up). This of course generated an IP address conflict and the main router became unavailable, which meant in turn that the Deco could not get it's own address, that would switch it back to bridge mode. In the end, this led to a loop which brought down my entire network...

 

Now, it's true that if no new clients would have attempted to connect to the network while the router was starting up (as was your case) everything could have gone back to normal, but it's still totally unacceptable to have this potentially uncontrollable situation come up, especially if (as ii often happens) I'm not at home and able to correct it.

 

Why is it so hard for TP-Link to simply let the AP configured in AP mode STAY IN AP MODE is beyond my understanding. I'll probably have to change the AP, I cannot take the risk of this happening again...

 

mateid wrote

@Alexandre. 

 

Just then,  I've opened my laptop to check if the connection was back online and it received (by pure bad luck, I guess) from X20's DHCP the exact IP address used by the main router (which was still booting up).

@mateid 

 

This must be really bad luck to get Main Router (original default gateway) IP address assigned to laptop. I tried, but I can't reproduce that. My default gateway is 192.168.0.1, DHCP range on ISP router starts from 192.168.0.10.

 

I powered off my desktop computer. Then, I disconnected ISP router from the network and let Deco take over as default gateway and DHCP server. Powered desktop PC on. The IP address desktop PC got from Deco is 192.168.0.11. 

I don't know if it is a coincidence or Deco somehow tracks ISP gateway DHCP IP range. 

 

In any case, check your default gateway IP address and DHCP range.

 

Also, Deco DHCP lease time is 1 minute. That means, unless someone "stole" default gateway IP address, the network is supposed to recover under one minute after ISP router is up and takes over.

 

Finally, I also wonder, don't X20 have the light to show the status of Internet connection? Deco M9 and M5 do, I don't need to use laptop or smartphone to check Internet status. When light is red on top of my Deco unit, every member of my household knows that Internet is still down.

@mateid 

 

To continue. I have noticed the flaw in my original test: I kept Main Deco up while ISP Router was down. That is not how they will stay during power outages: both will be down.

By the way, I do recall we had power outage for about 40 minutes recently, still didn't mess up my home network.

 

So, for test of power outage, I powered off all Decos. Disconnected ISP router from home network. Powered on Main Deco. 

 

Main Deco forgot my home network settings, declared itself IP gateway with 192.168.68.1 IP address, and gave IP addresses in the range starting at 192.168.68.100 to devices that requested them. 

 

Then, I connected ISP router back to my home network, and everything recovered in under 2-3 minutes by itself, every device went back to original home network IP addresses pool of 192.168.0.* 

 

Is there any way to fix this or the my only option is to completely ditch this time-bomb of an access point?

 

 

Now it is possible to establish workarounds. Here are two, either one should be good:

 

Keep Main Deco on Uninterruptible Power Supply

 

Brief power outages, for up to few hours depending how long UPS can run supporting just Main Deco, will not knock Main Deco down. It will remember network settings and shouldn't give original gateway IP address to network devices. 

 

Ensure home network pool of IP addresses set in ISP router is different from Deco IP addresses

 

In my case, my home network runs on 192.168.0.* pool of IP addresses, while Main Deco uses 192.168.68.* when it is running as DHCP server. There won't be IP address conflicts between them. 

@Alexandre. 

 

In my case the AP assigned addresses from the subnet  to which its own address belonged to (mine was 172.16.10.0/24), so changing it would not solve anything. Also, keeping  the AP on an UPS would also not be a solution, as the AP switches to router mode as soon as it senses that its connection is down.

 

Anyway, regardless of how unlikely this scenario is or what mitigating measures one might take in order to avoid it, the simple fact remains that it is not normal for an AP to switch its operating mode unless the administrator (myself) explicitly instructs it to do so. Or if (for some obscure reason) TP-Link feels like this behavior may be useful under some circumstances they should at least describe it in the manual and allow the user to turn it off.

 

Terribly disappointed by an otherwise decent product in terms of actual performance.

 

@mateid 

 

I guess we won't be able to figure why your network went haywire, yet mine, similarly configured, dealt just fine with two 15-20 minutes router downtimes and one 40 minutes power outage.

Too bad. Could have helped someone with the similar issue.

 

 

 

 

@mateid 

 

I also have this issue.
I have 3 units in a mesh setup running in Access Point mode.

One unit has hardwired Ethernet to my LAN, and the two others serve to extend the network farther.

 

My issues :

1. Every couple of days one or both of the secondary units would start blinking red.  I talked with support on this multiple times and they have me reset the units.. remove and re-add or factory reset fully the whole system. One week later.. bam.. it happens again. Its so bad with this constant disconnect.. that i pulled out both secondary units to get my home network up with just one unit. What happens is if your connected to one of the secondary units, when it starts disconnecting from the primary.. you don't get bumped off and reconnect to the primary.. clients are staying connected to the bad units.  All units have the latest firmware.

 

Oh  it gets better (actually worse)

 

2. The disconnected units give the wrong IP's to devices. They started giving out 172.x.x.x addresses. Of course this means nothing works on the network. Worse than that is I have alot of home automation (a full 5 point system of Sonos for the entertainment, other standalone Sonos speakers, a smart TV remote system, an app for garage door system.. a ring system, and much much more). When these devices get (and hold on to) the wrong IP.. you cannot simply release the IP and renew it. You can try power off / power on. Many of them you have to factory reset, or reconfigure. This means i cant control my tv, my Sonos, my phone app cant open or close the garage door, nothing works. UGH.. but all intermittently .. never knowing when.

 

3. Even when the units are fully connected, the x20 periodically gives the wrong 172.x.x.x. I read something about TPLINK engineers designing this on purpose to assist with setup by enabling DHCP on a unit, automatically, for a short time when they get disconnected, but that is a HORRIBLE idea !! Bad choice DEV people at TPLINK. I've been an IT professional and consultant for 30 years and I know your AP cant and shouldn't temporarily give out DHCP ever!!! Based on the lease time any device that gets, and the fact that either the IP, mask and gateway, dns server etc will be wrong for the real network, and even if it was the same, the conflicts with mutliple, uncoordinated DHCP servers wouldn't work. IT WILL NOT WORK. Dumb dumb and so dumb.. i wish i had the developer in front of me. UGH

 

Well i went online and ordered something else. A different vendor.. mesh.. more expensive.. but hell.. im an IT consultant and a IT professor teaching remotely.. I cant afford this crap. I am going to ask TP link for my $$ back... if they give me my money back.. fine.. that'll be the end of it, but if not.. i will re-sell them online for 1/3 of what i paid.. and then i will tell all of the people in all the clients we work in.. TP link has terrible problem.

An to the TP link people that read this.... dont think i didnt due my work and give you a chance to fix it. I keep getting stupid tier 1 support people who keep repeating the same damn reset, reconfigure... i have spent at least 8 hours over the past 2 weeks troubleshooting this garbage.. bye bye TP Link.. im going to try Netgear Orbi Ultraperformance.

@TimPetro 

 

Hi Tim,

 

I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing the same issues with your AP. Maybe if more of us were to express our displeasure with the product they would do something about it... Unfortunately, I don't think TP-Link cares too much about advanced usage scenarios (like in our cases) and tends to focus on basic setups that can be made to work without any technical knowledge. Since they apparently do not want to even acknowledge this problem your solution is probably the best: find a different brand and deprive them of clients they do not need or want to care for.

 

 

@TimPetro 

 

Not arguing with bad experience you had from using Deco, and with decision to try different mesh brand, but this got my attention:

 

TimPetro wrote

I  have a lot of home automation ... when these devices get (and hold on to) the wrong IP.. you cannot simply release the IP and renew it. You can try power off / power on. Many of them you have to factory reset, or reconfigure.

 

If I understand you correctly, you are saying you have devices on your home network that could cling to IP address they've got from DHCP server, and will stay with that IP even after reboot. That it takes factory reset to force device forget IP address dynamically assigned to it, and request new one.

 

If this is correct understanding, I would appreciate you share names/brands of these devices, because I would definitely not want those on my home network, and will for sure not recommend those to anyone else.

 

i have spent at least 8 hours over the past 2 weeks troubleshooting 

 

In course of troubleshooting, have you checked what is DHCP lease time duration from Deco X20 and have you considered to look in Deco nodes logs? Not that I would have asked this from a regular home user, of course. 

For Deco mesh I run, consisting of M9/M5, DHCP lease time from Deco running in Access Point mode is 1 minute when ISP router becomes unreachable. Deco X20 could be different, but did you check what lease time duration is?

 

Deco DHCP server could create mess on home network configured with advanced setup - but, at least in theory, it should be short lived if clients properly implement Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.

 

I had an issue with my Decos (M9/M5) losing Internet connection and LED going red, for 1-2 minutes per event, multiple times daily, that started about a month after I deployed Deco mesh. I managed to collect enough info from Deco logs and from ISP router extremely limited status page to figure the root cause, and I believe I addressed it. I have already 9 days network connectivity uninterrupted uptime, fingers crossed.

What I figured won't help you, because in my case root cause was not in Deco. It was a coincidence this started to happen after Deco deployment, but Deco logs helped me to assess the scope of the problem.

 

im going to try Netgear Orbi Ultraperformance.

 

I checked these, thanks for providing brand and name, and based on their description: impressive hardware specs, WiFi6 support. All in all: more expensive, but could be good choice. I wish you better experience with Orbi than you had with Deco. 

Thanks Alexandre for your comment... One example is my Logitech Harmony remote. The main reason its a pain to fix is because the Logitech doesn't have the ability to "forget" and reconfigure the wifi. Many of the IOS and home automation dont. My chamberlain Garage door opener doesnt either. For logitech, You have to hold the pair button, set it up as new, and restore the configuration from the cloud. So im not sure they hold onto the DHCP after reboot or the x20 keeps giving it out. The reading i heard is that DHCP on TPLINK will run 1 minute, just like you said.. but i had this same issue happen on a laptop.. i didnt capture the packets with wireshark, but i did release and renew several times and kept getting the same IP over and over.... left it.. came back several times over the hour.. still same thing. So even if the DHCP is 1 minute... the Win10 laptop issue proves that my X20's DHCP stayed up and running and didn't have it 'temporarily' running as TPLINK mentioned. I also had both of my secondary units doing exactly what you describe.. going blinky red for no reason.. after a day, or a couple hours.. there was no rhyme or reason for it. The devices were moved closer.. the last test i had the primary and the secondary 25 feet from each other with line of site. 7 hours later.. blinking red.. This time reboot of the X20 would not reconnect it. Two reboots .. would not reconnect it...a reset (15 seconds with the reset pin).. no luck. i finally unplugged it and left it offline. One thing that is funny.. i 'removed' my two X20 secondary units from my app while they were on. So my app showed 1 X20.. the primary one. If i power one of the secondaries up.. it goes properly into setup (eventually pulsing blue).. but if i dont set it up and just leave it.... i find its re-joined my setup in my app.. using its default name DECO_##### ?? WOW.. that is weird. My orbi units (3) should be in by the 9th. granted they cost alot more.. but i'll give it a shot.