WiFi security settings messages and devices offline

[papd63]

Hello,

Please can someone tell me what the message 'WiFi security settings have been successfully saved' in my router log actually means i.e. what is the router doing, and why? The message tends to appear multiple, usually 4, times in quick succession, and I get several groups of messages on most days.

My reason for asking is I've been struggling with my wireless printers frequently going offline at seemingly random times. Internet searches show printer-offline issues are widely reported with various printer models, but none of the suggested fixes work for me. Furthermore my problem is affecting two printers (different models) at varying times. So I decided to take a closer look at what is happening in my case...

I ran a batch script which pings my printer IP addresses every 5 minutes over several days to find out when the problem occurs. By cross-referencing the results against my router's log, I've concluded that my problem is somehow linked to the 'WiFi security...' messages in the router log.

To clarify, my 'WiFi security...' messages are usually followed in the log by all 2.4GHz wifi devices - or less frequently all 5GHz wifi devices - automatically disconnecting and reconnecting from the network, and therefore becoming un-pingable for a short time. This is acceptably brief, and is NOT the problem.

The problem IS:
- one or both of my printers becomes permanently un-pingable (ping returns 'unreachable' response) from any device (like my test laptop on wifi, or wired, or my mobile phone) which disconnects and reconnects to the network, AFTER the 'WiFi security...' messages appear. Subsequent pings continue to fail despite the fact that, according to the log, both test device and printer are successfully connected to the network;
- devices that stay connected to the network after the 'WiFi security...' messages, continue to see the printer until the next time they reconnect;
- the only way I have found to make the printer ping-able again from all devices is to disconnect/reconnect the printer itself.

As said above, the 'WiFi security...' messages are normally followed in the log by all wifi devices on one frequency disconnecting and reconnecting. In practice, this can lead to a scenario where the printer becomes un-pingable after one set of 'WiFi security...' messages, and then becomes pingable again several hours later, through being automatically disconnected and reconnected following another set of 'WiFi security...' messages.

In hindsight, my problems will have have seemed random during daily use because firstly, my newer printer can switch between 2.4/5GHz, and secondly, my main laptop running Windows 11 reconnects to the network every time it wakes from sleep. My testing has eliminated these random elements and my printer-offline problems coincide with the 'WiFi security...' messages every time.

So to help me determine where the root cause lies and how to fix it, please can someone tell me what the router is doing when these messages appear, and why do they happen when they do (what is the trigger)?

[ The back of my router says its a Sagemcom FAST 5364-3.T8. The firmware version is SG4K100174. ]

Many thanks in advance.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi papd63,

Glad to hear that it seems to be OK now. We tried disabling wifi optimisation as it was felt that it could be related to the log entries, which does seem to have been the case

Chris

[papd63]

Hi Chris, I'm pleased to report that I haven't seen any instances of the 'Wifi security...' messages since October 20th, and consequently my printers have remained online!

Whilst there was no-one at home for a significant part of that period, we've been home for long enough to conclude that things have improved, presumably as a result of the change that you said was made.

Please can you give me a bit more detail on what was changed? If it was a configuration setting then I'd like to ensure it stays set, and check for it if I see the problem again; if it was a code fix then I'd like to know if it will stay fixed if the firmware is updated?

Many thanks.

Paul

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks for the information Paul, I'll pass it on to our product team.

Chris

[papd63]

Hi Chris,

Re your request for logs, please find two screenshots attached from Oct 20th. These show one group of eight messages from the time I had the 2g and 5g Guest bands also enabled. They also show disconnection of all devices which were connected at the time to 2G (2 devices), Guest 2G (1), and Guest 5G (1) bands. There were 4 devices on the 5G band at the time, none of which were disconnected in the log, and one of which was my printer. I didn't detect this occurrence at the time, but my printer was unreachable when I next tried to use it on the 22nd, and this is typical of what's been happening.

I can provide many more examples if you need, with groups of 4, 6 or 8 messages in the logs. 

In fact I haven't seen any more messages since the 20th, and my printer has remained reachable since I manually restarted it on 22nd, so it's been a pretty good week. That said, it isn't unheard-of for nothing to happen for a week, and then things start happening frequently again. I'd say there have been relatively fewer devices connected this week due to fewer people in the house.

Thanks for making a change, whatever it is - I'll monitor and let you know how it goes. Just to set expectations, I'm going to be travelling for a few days so will only start checking from mid next week, and given that it can sometimes go quiet for a week anyway, it might therefore be a couple of weeks before I can report back anything definitive. Of course if I do see any messages sooner, I'll let you know.

Regards,

Paul

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi papd63,

We've made a change, could you please monitor and let me know if it's made any difference to the security settings entry in the logs

Thanks

Chris

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Paul,

Our product team have asked if you can post a screen shot of the router logs showing recent wifi security settings messages also including the time stamps

Chris

[Chris-TalkTalk]

OK thanks Paul, I'll pass this on to the product team. I'll let you know when they get back to me

Chris

[papd63]

Hi Chris, thanks for the question. The answer is yes I still get the log entries and device disconnections, but I have some more info...

I said that the 'wifi security...' messages in the log were appearing in groups of 4 (occasionally 5). Well as an experiment I enabled the Guest-2g wifi band on my router, after which I found that the messages started to appear in groups of 6; and then after also enabling the Guest-5g band they started to appear in groups of 8 i.e. there seems to be a pair of messages for each enabled wifi network.

Furthermore, each group of messages seems to trigger disconnection of ALL devices on ALL bands EXCEPT one. In the log there is a definite recognisable pattern to the disconnections accompanying each message in a group, which convinces me that its by design, not by accident. However the fact that one band is not affected, and my printer becomes unreachable when its on that band, suggests there might be a flaw in it? I'd hope that someone in TalkTalk can explain this - could it be an implementation of band-steering perhaps?

I've been trying to prevent the messages appearing altogether and my best guess is that they may be triggered by Android devices. There are 4 such devices which frequently connect to our wifi and I don't think I've seen these messages when they're all disconnected (but there isn't any one device that's always connected when there is a problem). That said, it may not be the fact that they're Android, it may just be that they are our most 'mobile' devices hence more likely to switch between bands, or it may just be having fewer devices connected helps? Again I'd hope that TalkTalk can shed some light?

[ Just an aside but in enabling the Guest wifi bands above, those configuration changes did trigger a single 'wifi security...' message in the log, as per Keith's earlier point - but only a single message each time, not a group of messages ]

Regards,
Paul

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Paul,

Our product team have asked if you are still experiencing exactly the same issue regarding the log entries and device disconnections?

Chris

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Paul,

Sorry for the delay, I'll find out if there's any more information available

Chris

[KeithFrench]

Just re-escalated it for you.

[papd63]

Hi Chris, its 6 weeks since your last reply and no-one has got back to me.

I appreciate you'll probably tell me that you'll chase it again, but is there anything different you can do this time in order to raise a response from a support team that clearly isn't interested in explaining this?

Pardon my sarcasm, but maybe TalkTalk is just waiting for my contract to expire in order to 'fix' the problem?

Thanks,
Paul

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Apologies for the delay, I'll chase it up and get back to you

Chris

[Gliwmaeden2]

Re-escalating this for you, @papd63.

[papd63]

Hi Chris, this contact has been open for 8 weeks now; it was apparently referred to the product team 6 weeks ago, and they referred it to the vendor 3 weeks ago.

At risk of repeating myself, the absence of anything coming back, not even a question, suggests that either no-one is looking at this at all, or someone has looked at it and it's a known problem awaiting a fix.  Which is it please?

Thanks.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Thanks for the update and we'll post back as soon as the team come back to us.

Thanks

[papd63]

Hi Chris, thanks for this update.

You are absolutely correct that the instability continues - further groups of messages on the 15th (1), 16th (6) and today (4 already), with consequent affect on reachability of my devices (printers and mobile phone) from other devices, which can't be seen by only looking at printer connectivity from the router.

I remain available to provide more details as required. Thanks.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi papd63,

Just a quick update. Our product team are checking with the vender regarding the wifi settings message. They did again confirmed that the connection to the printer looks to be stable but I told them that you are still experiencing problems. We'll let you know when we have any further information

Chris

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi papd63,

Thanks for the information. The product team did mention that they will look at the mobile issue too. They didn't directly mention the wifi security message so I've asked again if it's normal for the message to appear in the logs if nothing has been manually changed.

I'll let you know when I have any more information

Chris

[papd63]

Hi Chris, thanks for the honesty in your response. 

Yes I'm still experiencing problems - frequently. Please rest assured that if I stop experiencing problems, I will let you know, so that this thread can be closed. In the mean time I'll try harder to ensure that my patiently waiting for updates can't be mistaken for a lack of interest 😉

Please note the following points:

1) I'm not sure how your product team checked the router connection with the printers, but if they're checking for disconnections in the logs then I believe they may be missing the point - when the printers become unreachable by pinging from another device (which has reconnected after the 'Wifi security...' messages) then they appear still connected as far as the router logs and dashboard are concerned, and can still be pinged from other devices which have stayed connected to the router, until the next time those devices reconnect.

2) So, I don't think that checking connection between the router and printer says much about occurrence of the problem, except perhaps telling you about when I've manually restarted a printer after its gone offline. Lately I've got rather tired of repeated testing with no particular direction or progress, so I've only restarted a printer when I've needed to print something, typically less than once per day.

3) Specifically on July 24th which you mention, my newer (HP Envy) printer was turned off until 13:57, when I manually started it. The 'WiFi security settings...' messages appeared in the log at 16:18, then at 16:26 the printer became unreachable when pinged from a laptop which had reconnected to the router at 16:21, whereas it had been pingable from the same laptop at 16:16. I noticed the problem much later, so restarted the printer at 19:47, there was a further set of 'WiFi security settings...' messages in the log at 20:05, and the printer became unreachable again at 20:11 when pinged from a laptop which had reconnected to the router at 20:06:36, whereas it had been pingable from the same laptop a few seconds earlier at 20:06:12. I restarted the printer again at 20:23...  

4) As I said on Aug 4th, I have an android phone which also shows the same problem as my printers, so looking solely at printers misses the point too. Has the product team been made aware of this please?

5) In my view, there may be two problems here. Firstly, the 'WiFi security settings...' messages appear often, for as yet unexplained reasons, when I'm not changing any settings myself. Secondly, when the 'WiFi security settings...' messages do appear, it causes a connection problem EVERY time; if they're followed by explicit reconnection of 2g wifi devices it invisibly triggers a connectivity problem for my 5g printer EVERY time; likewise if they're followed by explicit reconnection of 5g wifi devices (this is much rarer) it invisibly triggers a connectivity problem for my 2g printer EVERY time. I've also seen the same problem affecting an android phone on 5g, its just a bit harder to prove if this happens every time.

6) Therefore I believe the best way to measure the problem is to look at how frequently the 'WiFi security settings...' messages appear in the logs, for no apparent (to me) reason. The messages always appear in groups of 4 or 5, and there were groups of messages on July 24th (8 times), on 25th (6), 26th (1), 27th (0), 28th (3), 29th (9), 30th (2), 31st (0), Aug 1st (1), 2nd (1), 3rd (2), 4th (4), 5th (3), 6th (4), 7th (3), 8th (6), 9th (3), 10th (1), 11th (14), 12th (2), 13th (2), and already today (2). If you consider that connectivity to my printer is disrupted every time, then perhaps you can see how inconvenient this is, and I certainly wouldn't call it 'stable'. I still haven't had an explanation of why these messages appear - and just to re-iterate, I'm not knowingly changing any settings myself.

7) My own observations are that there is no single device that has always been connected when these message appear, so I don't think they're due to any single faulty device. . I think the messages are more prolific when I have android devices connected to the network, and in some (but by no means all) cases they appear soon after an android device connects to the router, or changes frequency. Where I only see one set of messages on a given day it tends to be at around 3am, but again not always.

😎 I'd prefer if someone would actually engage directly with me to explore this in more detail. I'm happy to undertake further testing if there's a purpose, or to direct your product team to parts of the router log where I can share accompanying ping results to clarify the problem.

Sorry for another long email and please excuse any undertones of frustration above, but I'm a bit disappointed that after two weeks we've only got as far as asking me if the problem still exists.

Thanks again.