@David-TP The extender was not bought recently and cannot be exchanged for another. From what you are saying the only way to correct the situation would be through firmware update which wont happen...

I have a TL-WA850RE configured as a repeater from a main router. The main router uses WPA2/WPA3. When I connect to it directly it defaults to WPA2. All is fine. When I connect through the repeater...