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Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop

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Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop
Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop
2020-05-05 03:24:36
Model: Deco M9 Plus  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 1.2.12 Build 20191014 Rel. 42025

This past weekend I installed my brand new 3-station Deco M9 plus (single-story home, ~1700 square feet) and it was super easy and has been great. The signal covers my entire property and the speeds have been what I expected.  I have 19 devices on the network and everything has been connecting fine except a MacBook Air laptop.

 

When waking from sleep (screen closed), the MacBook Air is generally unable to rejoin the network, but it's inconsistent.  Sometimes (like now while I'm typing this), it rejoins the network almost instantly. However, most of the time, it cannot reconnect.  It just prompts for the network password and fails. I've tried everything I can think of, so I need some community support:

 

On the laptop, I've tried:

  • forgetting the network and adding it again
  • turning wifi on and off and trying to rejoin
  • Restarting the laptop
  • Checking my advanced network settings for anything unusual; looks normal (IPv4; DHCP; no proxies; no 802.1X profile)
  • Allowing Apple's "Wireless Diagnostics" to run - wasn't helpful
  • Ensuring the OS is at running the latest software (MacOS Catalina 10.15.4)

 

Via the Deco app on my phone:

  • deleted the laptop from my network devices
  • I only use one static IP, but at the higher end of the range as the routers seems to assign DHCP IPs at the lower end. I am trying to avoid IP conflicts.
  • IPv4 in use; IPv6 is disabled.
  • Fast Roaming is disabled
  • Trying to update firmware, which is currently at the latest available via the app (20191014)

 

Reading other community forums, I thought it may be related to static IPs, so I deleted some others I had in use.  Or Fast Roaming, which I have never enabled.

 

Any other ideas?

Proximity to one Deco station vs. another?  Password complexity? Something with Apple laptops? :)

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Re:Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop
2020-05-05 16:54:54

@mynameis 

 

 

Try this: enable the Guest network but for 5GHz only.  Then try to connect the Apple device to it.  If that does not work please let us know more detail on the Macbook.  OS, hardware version that sort of thing.  We would need to provide that to our engineering team to further look into it.  

Check out the Latest: Recent Smart Home Features and Updates for Tapo and Kasa Securing Your TP-Link ID with 2FA:Deco and Tether | Smart Home Splash into a Smarter Summer with Sub-G Sensors, Matter, and Apple Home!
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Re:Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop
2020-05-07 03:02:00

@Carl I implemented your suggestion (5 GHz only Guest network) yesterday morning and the MacBook Air has successfully been joining the Deco Guest Network for the past 1.5 days.  I think it has connected every time without problems.  What do you think this means?  Ideally, I don't want to keep a Guest network and my main network going.  I'd prefer to only have one main network SSID.

 

Also, when the Guest network is active, is it competing for air time with the primary 2.4/5 GHz network, or is it using the backhaul band instead?  I'd like to understand what impact the Guest network has on my network performance.

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Re:Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop
2020-05-07 18:51:32

@mynameis 

 

 

My guess based on expeiance is that its an apple issue.  Apple products tend to like to connect to and do their best on higher channels which could be leading to the connection issues.  Another thing it could be is becasue both 2.4GHz and 5GHz are broadcasting on the same band there is a chance the adapter in the computer is confused by which one to connect to.  We see this alot with Range Extenders and apple products when the extender has the same name as the router.  The device is confused by which network AP to connect to so it doesn't connect to either.  I don't know if you have the ability to do this but if you can set your Mac's adapter to AC only that would eliminate it from even seening the 2.4GHz band and might clear the issue up entirely. 

Check out the Latest: Recent Smart Home Features and Updates for Tapo and Kasa Securing Your TP-Link ID with 2FA:Deco and Tether | Smart Home Splash into a Smarter Summer with Sub-G Sensors, Matter, and Apple Home!
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Re:Brand new Deco M9 Plus: works perfectly for 19 devices EXCEPT a MacBook laptop
2021-01-14 17:44:49

Hi @mynameis .

 

you might want to look into Wifi country codes as reported in other threads here with MacBook issues : Tp-link decos might have fixed CountryCodes that do not match your country. 

Other members here suppose this might cause the Macbook troubles (given that authorized wifi channels depend on countries)

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