X55 Pro Guest Network not working when wired
X55 Pro Guest Network not working when wired
Just picked up a set of Deco X55 Pros to replace my 2nd gen eeros. Install went great, immediate discovery via the app, etc.
Wired setup is modem > main X55 > unmanaged Luxul switch > two satellite X55s and a bunch of wired stuff through the house
Main network works flawlessly, but I can only connect to the guest network via the main X55. Moving to an area covered by a satellite node results in the wifi connection dropping. Attempting to connect near a satellite fails. Wired clients off the satellites are fine, and the guest network works as expected when you are close enough to the main X55 that it's connection takes over.
When I unplug the satellites from ethernet/switch, they (as expected) fall over to wireless backhaul after a couple minutes, and then the guest network works perfectly all over the house, connecting to and handing off between any of the three nodes with no issues. Plug the wired back haul back in and everything fails to connect again.
Any ideas? Our main use of the guest network is for when friends/family come to visit and I'd rather not have to remember to unplug my satellite units every time someone stops by.
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Hey @peeple,
Unfortunately this almost certainly a result of your network switch not being able to pass along the VLAN packets for the guest network. You will need to make sure that your switch supports passing tagged packets for VLANS. It is usually a commonly added feature for unmanaged switches, but it would cause the exact behavior that you are seeing.
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I see. That is unfortunate. I had a guest network running on my eero units for years with the exact same switch/setup, so I know it is possible. Is there any chance we will get the option on the Decos to run a guest network without the VLAN tagging setup so I can have the same functionity?
If not, I'd strongly suggest updating the product documentation to indicate buyers that their existing infrastructure may not work. Currently it suggests that the use of unmanaged switches is quite simple and straightforward.
https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/2317/
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Let me talk with my team, and I will get back to you regarding the specific compatibility. It is really rare that we would see an unmanaged switch without the feature for this reason. In fact, across my over two years - this is only the second case of this I have possibly seen. It may be that your Eero setup did not isolate devices or used a different technique to segment the network.
What was the model of your switch so our team can take a look at the specs and confirm that this is in fact the cause.
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Thank you for looking into it! FWIW the eeros definitely isolated the guest clients. They were older - 2nd gen eero pros - if that helps.
The switch is a Luxul XGS-1024S.
Connection is:
Modem > Main Deco (router mode) > Switch > Satellite Decos
All wired connections and same cat6 cables used with the eeros.
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Thanks! Before I go through this with my team, I would recommend going into your switch's interface and disabling the Loopback Detection feature for the port on the Deco. When the Deco switches backhaul methods, it is possible for a short network loop to be detected - which can result in your switch shutting the port down, even though the loop is harmless and only exists for a moment.
Based on the number of ports and its features, we suspect this to have some sort of web configuration interface. Do you know if you are able to manually tag ports or assign VLANS?
How to extend guest network when there is a switch between Decos
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This is an unmanaged switch and I don't believe there is any sort of configuration interface for it at all.
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Hi any update here?
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I am still looking to see if there is another solution or if something else may be happening, but if it is truly unmanaged, then there is a behavior in the switch that is preventing the VLAN tagged packets from being forwarded through the switch. Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done from a Deco's perspective as it simply passes the packets with the correctly tagged VLAN - at which point it sounds like these packets are either blocked at the switch or completely stripped of their vlan data and tossed aside.
Essentially, the Decos just tag the guest network packets with a VLAN ID, which is forwarded around the network.
In your Deco Interface for the Guest Network do you see the option below to configure the VLAN ID? The footnote indicates that this option should only appear if you are using a managed switch. If it does appear, you may consider assigning another VLAN in case this vlan is already in use or reserved for a different purpose on the switch.
From the FAQ: Case 2. If you have a managed switch.
2. When you wire the satellite Deco unit to the main Deco unit through a managed switch, you may find that you cannot have access to Internet via the guest network of the satellite unit. Here we will teach you how to do the configuration on your managed switch so that the problem can be solved.
1) The main network and the guest network are separated by VLAN. The guest network is tagged with VLAN ID 591 by default, while the main network is untagged. You can also customize the VLAN ID as between 3-1024. Here we take VLAN ID 591 as an example.
Note: The VLAN ID button will only show up when your Decos are wired together through a network switch.
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Thanks for the detailed reply.
I do have the VLAN setting for my guest network in the Deco app. I've tried a few different VLAN IDs and the behavior is the same with all.
We've resorted to just unplugging the ethernet backhauls whenever we have guests over, and then reconnecting them when they leave.
I also confirmed with Luxul that our switch is unmanaged and has no configuration interface.
If the VLAN tags are the issue, perhaps a feature request for a future Deco update might be to allow a method other than VLAN tagging to enable the separate guest network? I'm unsure how the eero system did things but again it supported a fully separate guest network using all of the same other hardware in our home.
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Hi, Thank you very much for the feedback.
I saw similar feedback on other models before but not on the Deco X55 Pro yet.
https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/666722
Can you send an email to the technical support-https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/contact-technical-support/? Maybe the engineer could help us find a workaround.
Wait for your reply and best regards.
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