Bungled setup, need help recovering. Solved

Bungled setup, need help recovering. Solved

Bungled setup, need help recovering. Solved
Bungled setup, need help recovering. Solved
a week ago - last edited Wednesday
Model: Deco BE25  
Hardware Version:
Firmware Version: 1.1.7 Build 20260114 Rel. 14971

Edit - Per spectrum, these routers aren't going to work on their network.  I wish that was the first answer I got.

They have an approved hardware list, and these are not on it.

 

Okay, so Friday I purchased these and spent a couple hours setting them up.  Always only a red light.

I called the tech support number and after repeatedly getting disconnected I was finally able to get to a person.  His accent was very thick and I couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying, but eventually I reset one of the devices and replaced the cable from the modem with a known good one, and rebooted the modem a few times, and it finally got a green light.

He said to hook up the other 2 required a special set of instructions that he had to email to me, but he couldn't understand me well enough to spell the email address and eventually the call died.

So anyway I went back to the website and tried a live chat, which said there is no special instructions, just turn them on and they'll connect automatically.  So one of them only ever turned red, but the other one worked.

But all weekend long everybody had to keep logging back in to the wifi every couple of hours, but every device including our printer.  I have several raspberry pis, but they will only connect to the wifi but then they never connect to internet or any other devices. Pinging the deco works, but any other ip addresses just time out. Weird, right?

So I tried running something called "network optimizer" on the deco app, but it just gave a spinning circle for over an hour so I just gave up.

Yesterday, the main computer hardwired to the port on the deco had no internet and none of the wifi devices had internet. All the units were red and I tired for a few hours and nothing would work.

So then we called spectrum and they sent a signal to reboot the modem.  Didn't make any difference.  So then they sent out a service tech who said the modem is fine and didn't know what was wrong with the deco or a bad wire.  I told him it was strange that every wire we have suddenly went bad.  So he got a new modem and hooked it up, and then got out a spectrum router and hooked it up, and everything started working right.

But after he left, I tried hooking up the deco to the new modem directly.  Red light.  Then I put spectrum's router back in the modem, and plugged the deco into a port on the spectrum router, and the deco works just fine.

But if I plug it into the modem directly, it only ever gives a red light.

So I think I messed up by not getting the instructions to hook up the 2 other units, and definitely have screwed up something major in setting these things up.  Could someone tell me if there's a way to factory reset these or something? Because the spectrum router has terrible range, and costs an extra $10 per month which is stupid.

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#1
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Re:Bungled setup, need help recovering. Solved
Sunday

  @newdecobe25user 

Hi,
Please try connecting your PC to the new modem directly and check if it has internet access. If not, try rebooting the modem.

 

If your PC has internet access, but the main Deco has no internet when connecting to the modem, you can try the steps in the following video to troubleshoot.
What to do if I fail to configure the main Deco and get stuck on "Testing Internet Connection"? 
 

If the same phenomenon persists, it's recommended to contact our technical support team for assistance.
 

Best Regards

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Re:Bungled setup, need help recovering. Solved
Yesterday

  @Solla-topee 

 

That was the first test... my wife's employer will only allow hard-wired connections for working from home, so I have checked both her connection, as well as the connection to our main pc as well.  Both our old modem and the new one that spectrum swapped us for give a good signal when plugged directly into the modem.

 

After everything I've done, it keeps coming back to Spectrum and their stance that tplink doesn't work right with Spectrum.  This after burning through all of the troubleshooting steps on the deco website, after changing modes and settings and trying each unit as the 'main' unit, no matter what seetings I've tried based off the forums and some digging on reddit, and after having spectrum service show up at our house and confirm their system works fine but still tried a new modem just to shut me up. Plus 3 trips to best buy for ethernet cable to try connecting my wife's office with a new cable, replace the deco cable that came with the deco router (per deco tech support) plus 2 more cables to try connecting the satellites directly (reddit) 

 

After all that, here's what I have:

 

Old modem, old router (dbit):  Everything works, range is bad.

 

Old modem, new router (deco):  Everything works (but not raspberry pis) but constant signal loss and requests to re-login form all devices. 1 satellite works the same, the other one is almost always red.

 

New modem, old router (dbit):  Everything works, range is bad.

 

New modem, new router (deco): Nothing works, only red light in ap mode or router mode with or without cloning old router mac address.

 

New modem, new router (spectrum): Everything works, just plugged it in and it stated working. No connection issues.  Lousy range.

 

New modem, new router (spectrum), new router (deco) plugged into new router (spectrum):  Green light in ap mode only, frequent connection loss for everyone connected to the deco wifi or wired connections.

 

New modem, old router (dbit): Everything works, range is bad.

 

New modem, new router (spectrum), old router: I haven't bothered trying.

 

App settings I've tried:

 

Guest network: disabled

 

IoT network: disabled

 

Network optimization: Tried it a couple of times. Force closed it the first time after about 5 minutes, after over an hour the second time.  Just a spinning blue radar screen.  Maybe this not completing is the issue?

 

Test internet speed: 942Mbps

 

Operation mode: Currently access point, just so it gives a green light. Router mode only gives a red light.

 

Wireless network mode: Stable mode  "Ultra speed mode" behaves the same as stable mode.

 

Smart DHCP: Currently Enabled, but same behaviour if it's turned off.

 

Fast roaming: Diabled (no difference if on or off)

 

Beam forming: Disabled (no difference if on or off)

 

Satellites - Currently off, but frequent connection drops when we were trying to use them.  Didn't matter if hard wired or wireless.

 

I have several raspberry pi devices, none of them has ever been able to connect to any deco.  They connect and then time out on any wifi access.


Spectrum said tplink has issues connecting to Spectrum.  This from an on-site technician who tried multiple combinations of hardware just to ensure the modem is not the issue.

 

Spectrum followed up with an email of 'approved third party hardware that works on spectrum internet' that does not include tplink or deco.

 

Deco phone room support said I need to follow the 'special' instructions, but the call qulaity was so bad I don't think he got the email address right, so I still don't have those instructions.  However, nobody else from tplink or deco can provide me with that specific set of instructions.  Maybe this is the problem.

 

Sorry for the lengthy reply, I've explained this setup mutlipe times and in several forums (here and reddit and a few emails) so I'm just going to copy paste this as a "here's where it is."

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#3
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