KP125 switches going offline and solid orange state - Unifi NanoHD
I have had major problems with my TP-Link KP125 smartplugs. On monday, afternoon I had a power outage. Only half of my 50 KP125 smartplugs came back online in the Kasa app and in my smokeping data. The other half remained in the solid orange state that signifies they can't connect to Wifi. They remained in that state for more than 8 hours, after which I decided to unplug them from the wall socket, and plug them back in, one at a time, and they came back. Some of them are in difficult spots behind appliances, and it was easier to toggle circuit breakers to accomplish the same task. After I did so, all smartplugs came back online.
This morning, 4 out of my 6 APs went offline. I can see that 4 of my smartplugs have gone to this same offline state again where they won't try to reconnect to Wifi. I had to unplug/replug them manually. Not so smart plugs !
I saw the same behavior with these smartplugs last week when I upgraded the firmware on my APs. During the time the Wifi network was completely off, some of the smartplugs (about a dozen) went offline, and never came back online.
HomeAssistant has also been reporting these TP-Link smartplugs going offline, reporting this as a "configuration error" because the devices are "not found" with my "appliance has finished" automations.
It's fair to say there is a bug in the TP-Link fimware here - the smartplugs should never go to this state where they stop trying to connect to Wifi.
TP-Link, please fix this !
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Since the issue occurred when you updated your APs, can you think of anywhere network settings that may have changed from the previous firmware.
Also, have you tried to set static IPs for the smart plugs, this may create a more consistent connection with the network.
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All my smartplugs are already using static IPs, more accurately, static DHCP reservations in my router, which is a Comcast XB7.
The issue didn't only happen while the firmware was being updated. It also happened when the power went out and then came back on.
The APs take a while to come back online after the power outage, longer than it takes for the smartplugs to boot. All 50 smartplugs would have booted up simultaneously, and completed booting before all my APs were done booting up. About half the smartplugs waited for the APs to be fully up, and connected. The other half somehow gave up trying to connect complety.
IMO, this behavior from the smartplug is a bug. If the AP goes down, or is in the middle of booting up, or if the smartplug is done booting up before the AP is, the smartplug should not give up trying to connect to Wifi completely. It should keep trying until the AP comes online.
What's strange is that some of the smartplugs give up, and others don't give up. They are all on the same latest firmware, latest 1.08 version. Random bugs are hard to fix, but this needs a fix from TP-Link.
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BTW, just did a very simple test :
1. disabled the SSID to which the smartplugs were connected on all 6 Unifi NanoHD APs
2. waited a minute or so
3. enabled that SSID on my XB7 gateway/router
Now, all the smartplugs that were previously connected to Unifi APs are in the solid orange state, and are no longer trying to connect to Wifi at all.
I would have expected them to migrate to the XB7, but no.
Looks like it's time to toggle breakers again. Sigh.
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On another thread, a user was able to keep their smart plugs connected to their network by changing the encryption setting on their network. It might be worth seeing if any of the other commonly available encryption methods on your router would fix the problem.
When the devices go offline and you are connected to the network that they were on, do the devices show as being offline or as being only under local control? Most cases like this involve the smart plugs going into a local only state, if they are going offline, this sounds like a bigger incompatibility between a setting on your APs and the plugs.
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When the Kasa devices go offline, they show as being offline in the Kasa app, not under local control. I can't ping their static IP address.
If we were talking a straight incompatibility, none of the smartplugs would be connecting. But the behavior is that half of them went to this odd state.
As far as AP settings, someone on the Ubiquiti forum suggested I created a separate SSID for IOT devices, one which is on the 2.4 GHz band only, and with the default Wifi settings. I did so last thursday. It took me the better part of a day to move all 50 TP125 smartplugs to this new SSID.
I have not had a power outage since then, and have not tested the behavior. I could simulate one by turning off the main breaker, and may do so later today.
But from my point of view, there is a bug in the TP-Link firmware. I don't understand what the "solid orange" state signifies. If all the APs went down, all my other Wifi devices wait for APs to come up when booting. The TP125 should do the same and never go into the solid orange state.
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Well looking at the User Guide, that amber light can mean a couple of different things, unfortunately.
Solid amber: Initializing, rebooting, or no network connection
Setting up your IoT devices on a separate network is actually a pretty common option for smart home installations nowadays. Many of our users have reported that they have had success using their 2.4 GHz guest network for their Smart Home devices.
If we can try to pin down what setting was causing an issue, our engineering team will have a much better chance of identifying, replicating, and then fixing the bug.
I will have to look more into the reconnection options for smart home devices and plugs, but if I remember correctly many IoT devices have a 10 minute timeout to reconnect to a network or to complete setup. If the APs don't restore functionality within the 10 minute period for the timeout, the devices may stop trying.
How long does it take for the network to come up?
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It takes much less than 10 minutes for the APs to come back up.
A normal reboot takes about 90 seconds.
For AP firmware updates, I have seen them be offline as long as 7 minutes (looking at smokeping graphs to determine this), but never 10 minutes. Usually, I don't update all 6 APs at once, I do it in a sequence. Here are the settings for my new IoT SSID, as listed in the Unifi controller :
Here are the settings for my main SSID on which I saw the problem after the outage last week :
As far as radio/channel settings, those are set per-AP. The channels are set to auto for the 2.4 GHz band. Width is set to 20 MHz.
Here is a copy of the settings for one of the APs (wired one) :
There are 2 wired APs and 4 wireless ones (meshed).
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@Riley_S ,
FYI, I rebooted all my APs seconds apart earlier today as a test. All the KP125 smartplugs came back online properly.
It looks like the new settings on the separate SSID may have helped. The behavior I saw is still very strange, and I don't think it should ever happen. There is no good reason I can think of for the smartplug to give up after 10 minutes. Sometimes, the APs/network could be under maintenance for longer than that. If it's truly designed to stop trying after 10 minutes and require the user to manually unplug/cut the power to restart it, that is not a good design, IMO. But I didn't have >10 minutes of Wifi AP downtime in this case anyway.
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@madbrain, I was skimming through your settings, and I will take a look further later today; however I noticed that you have fast roaming enabled in the UniFi controller. I know that this setting is known to cause issues with devices reconnecting, but this Is usually limited to times where the network does not go down. Either way, it may worth a try.
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