I have a new iPhone Air, which uses the new Apple N1 WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6 wireless chip.

This connects to a TP-Link mesh network using WiFi 7 provided by a Deco BE-85 (main) and a Deco BE-25 (remote), connected by a 2.5Gbit wired ethernet link. Both access points are on their latest firmware versions (BE-85 is 1.2.0, BE-25 is 1.1.0). The BE-85 has a 2.5Gbit uplink to the internet.

After some time (say 24 hours), the iPhone Air becomes only able to connect to the BE-25 and will not roam between the APs. Manually forcing it to use the BE-85 in the device options in the TP-Link app causes it to revert to 5G connectivity. When trying to connect from the WiFi settings in iOS, it simply says 'Cannot connect to this network'. Enabling roaming to the BE-25 or setting the roaming to automatic results in it working again.

Restarting the phone doesn't help, but changing the phone's MAC does (by setting a rotating MAC in iOS). Once the phone has a new MAC, it can connect to the BE-85 and BE-25 APs. Setting the MAC back to the original (device MAC) causes it to only connect to the BE-25 again.

Restarting the BE-85 resolves the problem and the phone roams as expected, for a while. It seems like once the BE-85 has taken a dislike to that MAC, it won't allow it connect anymore until a reboot. I can't see anything interesting the BE-85's logs.

All other 25 wired and wireless network devices are fine. The APs show that the 5Ghz and 6Ghz bands are in use when the phone is connected to the BE-85, and the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands are in use when connected to the BE-25.

Any ideas? I could set a rotating MAC but it continually adds new unknown devices to the Decos that way.