Deco M4 - WiFi Instability after recent firmware upgrade
I've had my Deco M4 network set up for what must be at least 2 or 3 years now, in router mode. Never had any issues before, it was perfect...
Since recent updates however, the WiFi constantly drops out, to the point where my wife and I just don't even bother turning WiFi on with our phones anymore - we just use our mobile data instead. That's how bad these updates have ruined WiFi on the M4.
I'm not alone - I have found endless threads on Reddit and this forum complaining of similar issues. Wired Ethernet is still perfect so it's not an ISP-related issue, it's just the WiFi. FYI my current firmware is 1.5.8 Build 20230619 Rel. 48552.
I read some posts with other customers suggesting this is due to the Deco constantly trying to find a suitable WiFi band in congested areas, and how having no ability to set a fixed channel and turn off 'Network optimization' was making the M4 useless for many.
I have also read customer support replies telling customers to turn off mesh features including Fast Roaming, Beamforming etc - I've tried this but no joy - and in all honesty, it's a useless mesh system if you have to turn off the mesh features just to get a basic WiFi connection, so I have no interest in effectively downgrading my router just because TP-Link made a mess of recent updates.
It seems TP-Link are not interested in giving customers the ability to downgrade their firmware back to the earlier, much more reliable versions. I don't know why TP-Link do not allow this, but I have seen them say this many times on this forum.
Please, someone at TP-Link take this seriously. Please allow customers to downgrade their firmware - it'll surely help you find whatever bug the recent updates have produced, and allow you to fix this in a new update? I think many would appreciate the option to switch off 'network optimization' too, just to try fixing a band to see if that resolves the issue - surely this will also help diagnose the firmware issues?
Can someone from TP-Link send me, or link to, previous firmware files so that I can at least try them out to confirm if the issue is in fact the recent firmware updates?