@gjb 

If you were to have the RE220 in AP Mode, but wired directly to the router how does it perform? Just to test.

@Tony I will give that I try tomorrow and report back. (All the ports on my router are in use, so it will take a little bit of swapping things around).

@Tony  As suggested, I plugged the RE220 directly into the main router and observed exactly the same behavior. As perviously, my ssh sessions would freeze up for several seconds even between two hosts connected directly to the router via Etheret, However this time I noticed some other really pecular problems with name resolution. With the RE220 I am getting multple (and incorrect) IP addresses for devices. As soon as I unplug it the problem goes away.

Here is an example of what I am seeing. (Baker and Pizza are two hosts on the network. Baker is on Ethernet, Pizza on WiFi. Both have a single network interface/ First with the RE220 plugged in:

baker [gjb] ping pizza
PING pizza.fios-router.home (192.168.1.179) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- pizza.fios-router.home ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 4ms

baker [gjb] nslookup pizza
Server:         192.168.1.1
Address:        192.168.1.1#53

Name:   pizza.fios-router.home
Address: 192.168.1.162
Name:   pizza.fios-router.home
Address: 192.168.1.179
 

[Here 198.168.1.162 is the actual address of pizza.fios-router.home on the WiFi network. 179 is actually an Amazon Echo.]

baker [gjb] ping 192.168.1.162
PING 192.168.1.162 (192.168.1.162) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.1.162: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=6.49 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.162: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=4.44 ms

As soon as I unplug the RE220 things return to normal

baker [gjb] nslookup pizza
Server:         192.168.1.1
Address:        192.168.1.1#53

Name:   pizza.fios-router.home
Address: 192.168.1.162

@gjb 

Log into the RE220, see what its LAN IP address is, if it is set to obtain one automatically, statically assign an address outside of the DHCP pool. Set the primary DNS to reference the main router.

@Tony That certainly made things better - I am no longer getting the bad host addresses, but I am still experience regular pauses in my SSH sessions between hosts. This time I monitored the system log in real-time when I was testing. It seems that everytime I experienced a pause, it corresponded to a "Sent a dedection for DHCP" message in the log. 

I have attached a screen shot of the configuration page and system log.

BTW 192.168.1.55 was the addess that had been assigned to the RE220 before I turned DHCP off. 

@gjb 

Here is a beta firmware to try: https://static.tp-link.com/2020/202006/20200601/RE220-V1-DHCP.zip

After the extender has been uploaded with that firmware, configure your network so the extender is the DHCP server

1.      Login to router and check the DHCP server settings on Router.  For example, below is the DHCP server settings on TP-Link Archer C7.

2.      Customize the DHCP server settings on RE. According to the settings on Router, RE’s DHCP server should be set as below.

Note: Please ensure that the static IP assigned for the RE is excluded from the IP Address Pool you set up for it.

@Tony Sorry for the long delay in responding. Honestly, I was reluctant to let the extender, which will be stuck down in a utility room without battery backup, be the DHCP server for the network.. In any case, I downloaded the new software that you provided, plugged it in and it everything seems to work fine. I had already assigned the RE220 a fixed IP outside of the DHPC range, but I just left the RE200 DHCP setting as Auto. That seemed to be okay. I have now just set it to OFF and that also seems to work. Is there any reason not to just leave it set to Off? I have it reconfigured and it is now serving its intended role in the utility room. I will keep an eye on things for a few days, but everything seems to be fine.

Thanks a million for your help!

@Tony 

There seems to be a similar problem with an RE305 that I have just bought. Why can these devices not work "out of the box" as an access point and get their configuration from the router the same as other devices?

I was doubting my sanity as I set up the deivce as an access point then plugged it into the ethernet port in my study and found my network was going crazy with devices dropping off and reappearing. I reset the RE305 (pin in the bottom) several times and set it up again from scratch. I changed the ethernet cable to the wall socket for another. I plugged in into another wall socket as well before giving up for lunch.

It was only later when I searched for information on the problem that I came across several threads on various TP Link repeaters including the RE305 that I found that I was not going mad.

I am reasonably IT literate but it will drive most people mas and just get TP Link a bad name.

@Tony I'm wondering the same thing. Since Ethernet port is only 100Mbps (and wireless capable of theoretical 750Mbps) anything connected to it will not be able to reach more than nominal 100Mbps. My test shows only about 90Mbps on 200Mbps connection from ISP. My wireless connection isn't so good in the first place therefore I use it as an access point.