RE450 in AP Mode Drops Internet Connection for Other Devices
This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
Greetings fellow forum mates.
I've recently bought TP-Link RE450 to boost network coverage on a second floor of my house. My plan was to use it in AP mode connected via LAN to the main router to ensure high speeds.
The router is TP-Link Archer C2300 v1.0 with firmware
2.0.4 Build 20210705 Rel. 72893
My home network looks like this. Upstairs is router which takes internet from ISP socket. It is also wired to my main workstation and NAS. RE-450 is downstairs and can be connected to the router via the cable. As normally goes, there are also bunch of other wireless devices - laptops, tablets, phones, etc.
The problem
When RE-450 is set up as Access Point, it causes occasional drop of internet connection for other devices in the network both wireless and wired.
The devices can still access local area network, but not internet.
Problem can be resolved by resetting the router.
This happens quite randomly, but always when a device connects to or leaves network e.g. as a result of a phone switching from router's Wifi to Range Extender's Wifi. It can even happen when the workstation starts up or shuts down.
This issues does not happen when the RE works in range extender mode. Only in AP mode.
Network Settings
C2300 has DHCP server enabled as shown below. It has a number of IP reservations [192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.10] based on MAC address for NAS and it's virtual servers and other clients get IPs from range below.
RE-450 receives it's IP from the router and has DHCP explicitly disabled as follows:
Debug
I've done a fair bit of testing and I have a reason to suspect that the problem is very similar to what someone had in this thread:
https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/155575
Somehow the RE-450 doesn't respect the fact that it should not act as DHCP server and attempts to take over from the router. Which brings the internet connection down for other devices. This also happens only in AP mode.
Any ideas what could be done about this? I really don't want to keep it in Range Extender mode as the speed for the clients is quite low and there's not a very strong WiFi signal between the router and RE-450.
Thanks!
