@Bfassler 

Using connection preference feature force Roku to use 5GHz band only. It is under "Preferred WiFi Band."

Only very old Roku models do not support 5 GHz (WiFi5). See if it helps.

I am not familiar with Sonos, but if it does support WiFi5, try the same for it.

  @Alexandre. Thanks for the suggestion. I forced the Roku to go to 5 ghz (it was connected to 5 ghz before, just the wrong deco). It did finally change to the closer deco again. But it went back to the farther away one shortly thereafter. 

One odd thing I noticed.... these two devices seem to be going together. When one moves to the "basement deco" (the further away one), the other one also moves to that deco. I am trying to get them both to go to the "office" deco. It's very weird. 

Maybe I should try to re-add them to the network as if they were fresh devices.

Interestingly, I just went into the Roku to reset the network and it says it has an EXCELLENT connection to my wifi. But the deco still says otherwise. It's almost like the Deco app is giving me bad info.

Bfassler wrote

  @Alexandre. 

 

One odd thing I noticed.... these two devices seem to be going together. When one moves to the "basement deco" (the further away one), the other one also moves to that deco. I am trying to get them both to go to the "office" deco. It's very weird. 

  @Bfassler 

This is good observation. It also has one logical explanation: "office" Deco goes offline, even if briefly. When that happens, devices connected to it wirelessly will switch to another Deco. That's how WiFi mesh supposed to work.

When "office" Deco comes back, these devices will not necessarily connect back to it instantly. 

"Deco node going offline" could mean different things: it could be that "office" Deco loses WiFi connection to the rest of your Deco mesh, or could be that electrical power goes off/on for that Deco and it reboots itself.

Look at this possibility. If the event of "office" Deco going offline is brief it may be had to catch it, but I can't explain otherwise why would two devices from two different brands will decide simultaneously switch from nearby Deco node to one further away.

Bfassler wrote

Interestingly, I just went into the Roku to reset the network and it says it has an EXCELLENT connection to my wifi. But the deco still says otherwise. It's almost like the Deco app is giving me bad info.

  @Bfassler 

It may be giving you stale info. Deco app does not update it in real time. It is supposed to update that info fast, but not in real time and occasinally with (quite annoying) delays.

  @Alexandre. currently there are 12 devices connected to the office deco. I don't see this with any of the others (including another Sonos speaker). Is there any way to view a log or anything that would give further information on office deco going offline?

I also work from home and my work laptop (which is very sensitive to wifi connection) is connected to office deco and has no issues.

  @Bfassler 

Device such as Roku, when it has strong link to WiFi mesh node, will not switch to a different WiFi mesh node without a reason. Especially, if that another WiFi node has weaker WiFi signal. 

There must be a trigger. Either WiFi mesh node goes offline, or WiFi interference suddenly appears (such as microwave), or Roku itself got restarted. Check if there is anything common between Roku and Sonos which switch to a different Deco, are they both on the same power bar for example?

You can get Satellite Deco logs by logging to its IP address, but these are developer logs (not very user friendly) and also they get overwritten every few hours.

If you have Windows PC or laptop you can hardwire to "office" Deco and let it run for few hours undisturbed, I can give you simple script which checks Internet connectivity and alerts on loss of it.

I used that script when I troubleshooted my Internet link which was going down at random times for a very brief moment each time, and needed stats to present to ISP Tech Support.

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Also, if you'd like to, you can go further with Deco mesh and just disable 2.4GHz for its Main Network:

This will give no choice for Roku but always use 5GHz. Connection Preference feature is recommendation (can be ignored by device), this Deco mesh configuration setting is absolute.

  @Alexandre. Thanks, these are some good suggestions. Oddly, these two devices are on different floors, one in the basement directly below the office deco and one on the other side of the wall from it on the same floor. I have never seen either device connect (either to the basement or the office deco) with 2.4 ghz. They are always connected with 5 ghz, just to the wrong deco. I would be interested in the script you mentioned. Thank you for all your help.

  @Bfassler 

The script and how to run it:

1. Hardwire Windows PC/laptop to "office" Deco;

2. Disable WiFi adapter on PC/laptop - to make sure it won't switch to WiFi when losing Internet through wired link;

3. Verify PC/laptop has Internet access, unplug Ethernet cable and verify PC/laptop lost Internet access. After verifications, plug Ethernet cable back;

4. Disable Sleep (set it to Never) under System/Power. It is OK to allow monitor to turn off;

5. Open powershell window - you'll be running script in it. 

Script:

ping -t www.tp-link.com | Foreach {"{0} - {1}" -f (Get-Date),$_} | Select-String -Pattern 'bytes=' -NotMatch

When link is up, the script will be silent. When link to Internet is lost, it'll produce output similar to the following:

7/25/2024 3:35:35 PM - Request timed out.
7/25/2024 3:35:36 PM - General failure.
7/25/2024 3:35:37 PM - General failure.
7/25/2024 3:35:38 PM - General failure.
7/25/2024 3:35:39 PM - General failure.
7/25/2024 3:35:44 PM - Request timed out.

When connection restored, the script will go silent again. In this example, the link to Internet was down between approximately 03:35:35 PM and 03:35:44 PM

To test the script: when it is running, unplug Ethernet cable from PC/laptop, wait few moments - you should start to see script output in powershell window. Plug Ethernet cable back - output should stop, script should go silent again.

If "office" Deco does go down, even briefly, that should interrupt Internet access on PC/laptop hardwired to it, and most likely got noticed by the script.

  @Alexandre. Thank you. I haven't tried this yet. I did reboot JUST the basement deco (the "far away one") last night, and so far, I haven't seen the two devices jump again. Prior to the reboot, they were spending about 80% of their time on the basement deco instead of the office deco. Who knows.