Background:

After adding a third RE700X extender to my home EasyMesh network, the network topology is shown below:

The main router is located on the third floor (attic area) of a three story house.  The satellite router is located on the ground floor with one of the extenders.  Two extenders are located on the second floor between the main and satellite routers.

Problem:

After working OK for several days, late last night the network started to experience intermittent dropouts on various devices.  After rebooting the ISP’s router and then rebooting all the routers and extenders, I managed to finally get the network back up again.  It took several reboots of the main router and I finally discovered that the reboot of the main router was failing as long as the satellite router was using ethernet backhaul.  It was necessary to disconnect the cable to the satellite router to get a successful reboot.

This morning, I noticed that the topology map was not displaying correctly in the GUI of the main router.  I then rebooted only the main router while leaving everything connected to see if that would correct the problem. Here’s what’s happened after the reboot:

1.  All LEDs on the main router and the satellite router were green indicating everything was normal.

2.  All LEDs on the RE700X extenders were blue with the exception of the Signal LED (which was red) on the distant extender which can only connect with the satellite router because it is too far from the main router.

3.  All the LAN ports on the main router seemed to be inoperative.  A PC and a SIP telephone which are both hard wired through an EasySmart switch to the router had no network connection.  A laptop near the router could sometimes connect via Wi-Fi but the connection was intermittent.  When connected, the Windows Wi-Fi icon changed at random indicating different signal strengths (perhaps the laptop was connecting or roaming between access points).  Moving the laptop next to the router and connecting via a patch cable to one of the LAN ports, the laptop connected to the internet and could navigate.

4.  Even though the laptop could navigate on the internet, the GUI of the router was erratic and unstable and essentially useless for trying to determine what was happening.  Under Network Map, clicking the router icon to see the CPU usage did not work.  Under Advanced, EasyMesh, nothing appeared.

5.  To isolate the problem, I disconnected the LAN cable to the satellite router.  Surprisingly, the main router immediately began to reboot itself without any intervention.  After the reboot, the LAN ports were working again. The GUI was also responding except for the router icon under Network Map.

6.  At that point, I decided to revert back to a previous network configuration using EasyMesh but with no ethernet backhaul.  The satellite router was configured to run in AP mode and act as the main EasyMesh controller.  All extenders did initially connect to the AP but later, one of the extenders on the first floor connected to the other extender on the same floor. The AP’s topology map now shows the following:

7.  EasyMesh was disabled in the main router and the router is now transmitting the same SSIDs but on different channels. This does not seem to be a problem as the main router is located in the attic area and there is no device movement.

In conclusion, there is a problem in the AX55 beta firmware.  One should be able to reboot any router or extender in a network without experiencing a complete network failure.  I suspect a loop condition is happening and is taking priority within the firmware which ties up the CPU resources and does not allow the router to perform other functions.  This is one for the engineers to figure out.