Deco M4 - becomes a brick

Hi Tp-Link,
Very frustrated and disappointed account here!
I decided to invest in Tapo cameras in February, but it turned out that the cameras are too much for my old router (TL-WR841ND), so I purchased Deco M4 set on March 8, it was working fine till March 19.
Issue Nr1. on March 19: At midnight, suddenly the whole wifi connection has gone away. None of the Deco devices could connect to the internet (they were blinking red, the app was prompting me to doublecheck the PPPoE, although it was set correctly), neither the H200 hub, neither my PC, neither my cell phone, neither the C520WS camera, nothing. Restarting, resetting the Deco units did not help, so after approx one hour unsuccessful attempts I decided to remove the whole network (not allowed by the app) and finally remove and reinstall the app. This took me 2.5 hours to fix (I'm not an IT expert).
Issue Nr2. on May 19: Following a ISP network outage, the Deco was not able to recover. The IPS says this is a typical bug with Tp-Link routers, which is strange, because my old router was able to reconnect any time. The Deco M4 could not! In the app I could not do anything, it fully lost connection with my Deco units. Finally I had to remove, download and install the app three (!) times to fix, taking another three hours from my life!
Issue Nr. 3 on June 2: At midnight the whole system got brick, losing the whole internet connection. The old router is perfectly cooperating with the ISP modem, so the fault is not the service provider side. Again, after removing, downloading and installing the app three (!) times and switching between the main and satellite units, the satellite units was functioning, but the main one gone red for ever. It took 5 hours (!) to reach this point!
Issue Nr 4. on June 3: I decided to return the whole set to the reailer and having it replaced. My today's surprise is that ONLY one of the units is able to connect, the other one is solid red! Took me again 3 hours to solve it, without success.No reaction to soft or hard reset, the solid red comes back every time. Btw, first I picked this unit to setup as the main one, but having seen the solid red, I opted for switching them. As one of the cameras (the most important one) was connected to the satellite deco via ethernet, currently it's offline.
I'm working from home, meaning that a stable and reliable internet connection is key for me, on top of this I've invested in 4 Tapo cameras plus the SD cards to feel safe during night and day, especially, when I'm away. My experience tells me that these objectives cannot be met by Tp-Link devices anymore.
Could you please let me know what is going on with my Deco M4? Should I return tomorrow the replacement set as well? When I faced any issues with my C520ws I've foound a great support here, which I really appreciate. However, these repeated breakdowns make me extremely disappointed, not to speak about my time invested in looking at every corner of the internet and of the Tp-Link Community. I do not know too much about IT technical details (due to internet security concerns, I'm quite reluctant to change things I'm not familiar with), what I actually need is a userfriendly and reliable system.
Thanks for listening and waiting for your feedback asap. Kind regards
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Hi David,
Yesterday it went brick again.
Please open a ticket for me, waiting for someone to contact me by email.
Thanks
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Is all deco blinking red or solid red?
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Hi,
No. The speed was extremely low (300-400 Mbits) in stead of 1 Giga.
The ISP recommended to restart the modem. Done.
From that moment the main deco was not able to reconnect, just blinking yellow, then solid yellow, then blinking blue. It was not accessible in the app via wifi, so I removed the two units via internet.
Added the two units again to the Deco app with the same SSID and password. The Deco app was not able to recognize the "new" units via wifi, sometimes it says that both are offline, sometimes it says that the satellite one offline, sometimes it says that everything is perfect.
This happens after several resets of the satellite unit, despite the fact that
- the units are solid white
- the wifi is working on my smart phone
- my laptop also has wifi access
- as well as the cameras
- my PC via UTP cable has again 1 Giga speed
- the network has been optimized
Sometimes the Deco network can be accessed via internet only, sometimes also via wifi! Takes ages to connect even to http://tplinkdeco.net/!
One of the issues might be that my password includes a #, which is not acceptable, but it was not mentioned during the setup process. The problem is that my 4 cameras in the wifi network cannot connect if you change the password. Finally after some hours of research, I changed the password, but only 3 cameras can connect, the fourth one is offline!
Crazy!
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I think is compatible issue with you ISP router....
After you restart the deco (without messing with the ethernet cable of course), Yes it will blinking yellow, then sometimes blinking red, and if the internet connection is present it should turn solid white. But the stange part is blinking blue (means the deco like not been setup yet).
Next time it happen (you restart the deco's) don't immediately re setup the deco....wait for a while until the deco solid white...
Check your ISP router setting...perhaps there is a setting that confict with the deco (cause i dont think the deco is the problem)
Ive been using deco for quiet sometime.. here i will give you that LED colours mean for you
1. Yellow solid - restarting deco
2. Yellow blinking - deco loading up
3. Blue Blinking - Deco is ready for setup if you are not setup yet. (or if you turn on the WPS feature from deco apps)
4. Blue solid - Deco is been setup
5. Red Blinking - Deco is trying to connect to other deco or main deco (usually satelite deco)
6. Red Solid - No internet present from the ISP or Main deco (but the connection between decos is good/no problem)
7. White Solid - Internet present deco is normal and connected as it should...
here the sequence after you restart deco:
Main Deco : Yellow solid - Yellow blinking (sometimes not) - Red Solid - White Solid
Satelite Deco : Yellow Solid - Yellow blinking - Red Blinking - White solid
Try attention to this...so you know the symptom...
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There is a slid possibilites about you slow speed....
Sometimes the WIFI CHANNEL from the deco is conflicting with the other wifi around you (like your neighbours wifi)
Here what you shoud do (before judging to restart the deco). From the deco apps on you phone go to More option (on bottom right)
then look for "Network Optimization" > Scan > Optimize... it will change the best channel for you....
After channel is changging try the speed again...if still Slow do it again until you got a good speed....
(by the way for @David-TP this is why deco need to have Channel setting manualy, please add this feature in the future firmware update for all deco model)
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Thanks,
As said, I'm not a tech expert.
The modem is owned and provided by the ISP, which I cannot (and do not want) to modify. The Deco is in router mode.
I would like to have a ticket opened and the log files analyzed (900! pages in word documents!)
Regards
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Yes router mode is Right setting....
Try request changing ISP modem to your ISP...i suspect the modem is the problem not the deco....
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