Fibre 65 signal issues

[durdle]

I've been on Fibre 65 for a couple of years now and, initially, it seemed reasonably stable. Then, I was given a Ring doorbell at the beginning of last year. This has worked as expected except that one or more of the doorbell, the battery cam or the chimes has tended to stop working from time to time and had to be reconnected to WiFi. It's been annoying, but not a massive problem because these devices seem to provide quite good instructions on how to recover from connectivity problems. 

My Epson ET-2850 printer, purchased around mid ’21, has been a different kettle of fish. It has dropped its connection too often for comfort, and required various efforts on my part to become reconnected, eg by powering it, my router, and/or just my WiFi connection off and then back on etc. 

Very recently, however, these issues have become more difficult to resolve in that the printer became unavailable for several consecutive days earlier this week, and I could not recover it using any of my old strategies. Two days ago, I took it to the print shop that originally sold it to me, and they kindly configured it for their shop network, where it appeared to work with no problems. When I took it home, I attempted to reset it for my home network, but this appeared to fail with error (E-9), the subsequent printer generated report being as shown below. 

Later that evening, I noticed that the device was again showing its connected-to-WiFi symbol and found that I could print files again. 

The printer is still working this morning, well over 24 hours later, though it did go offline late last night for a while. While I'm happy for now, I'm not over confident that I won't have similar problems again before too long. 

Apart from my printer and doorbell problems, the other main issue with my WiFi has been that, all too often, I have attempted a Google search but have seen a black ‘no internet connection’ display for a few seconds before the requested information has then appeared. Also, sometimes, I have seen an equally black ‘download pending’ screen that has not delivered the goods, although a repeate attempt sometimes has done. 

These issues have often lead me to suspect my WiFi signal strength. I can't access the same information on my Samsung A9 tablet, but my Samsung A71 phone suggests it's of the order of 110 dBm 30 asu, not that I have any real understanding of what these figures imply. 

The Ring doorbell and accessories have device health displays in the Ring app, all of which seem to suggest signal strengths varying from around 45 and 70 ssi. If I look online, sometimes I see that higher ssi values indicate weaker signals, sometimes I see its the lower ones. As I say, I suspect I'm suffering from a poor signal, even though at least half my devices, including my printer just now, are only a few metres away from my router. 

I apologise for the length of this post, but can anyone offer any thoughts here, please? 

Check Network Connection

Check Result                                                      Unknown

Error code                                                           (E-9)

Confirm the connection and network setup of the PC or other device.

Connection using the EpsonNet Setup  is available.

Contact your network administrator for assistance.

If your problems persist,

see your documentation for help and networking tips.

Checked Items

Wireless Network Name (SSID)                          Pass

Communication Mode Check                              Pass

Security Mode Check                                          Pass

Mac Address Filtering Check                              Pass

Security Key/Password Check                            Pass

IP Address Check                                               Pass

Detailed IP Setup Check                                     Unknown

Network Status

Printer Name                                                      EPSON0xxxxx

Printer Model                                                      ET-2850 Series

IP Address                                                         169.xxx.y.zzz

Default Gateway Network Name (SSID)            abcde

Security                                                              WPA2-PSK (AES)

Signal Strength                                                  Excellent

MAC Address                                                     E0:BB:9E:01:XX:YY

[KeithFrench]

A device e.g. your Ring doorbell, PC or phone etc will decide which AP (wireless Access Point) it wants to connect to. This could be the 2.4 or 5GHz bands of the router or either of the two 266s. Wi-Fi signals can & do vary in signal strength & signal quality time. It is perfectly normal to see that device connect to different APs even though it is not physically moving its location at all.

[durdle]

Thanks, indeed, @KeithFrench , though I'm not sure I've run out of questions yet 🤓. For example, there seems to be a migration issue. I've named all my devices in the router WiFi Mesh Devices list, apart from the cable connected heating hub, and two entries which I can't link to anything. The naming process caused me to spend much longer than ever before taking screenshots of the overall device list and I've noticed that the connections for the 15 devices I do recognise have a tendency to move, eg router to/from one or other of the two extenders. Over 4 days,  but only checking once a day, I've seen the spread of connections between the router/Extender 1/Extender 2 to be

Day 1: 5/7/3

Day 2: 5/7/3

Day 3: 6/8/1

Day 4: 11/3/1.

There are anomolies; eg the Ring doorbell connection migrated from Extender 2 to the router between days 3 and 4, even though the extender is much closer and smack between the doorbell and the router.  To add insult to injury, the corresponding signal strength dropped from the low minus fifties to low minus sixties in the process.

Today, I have checked the list several times and there seems to be little stability in that the spread of connections appears to change quite frequently. I'm confused, to say the least, and rather losing faith in the concept of signal strengths as a tool.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Thanks for your help @KeithFrench 🙂

Michelle

[durdle]

Thanks,  @KeithFrench, for those clarifications . The fact that I could change the icons hadn't really registered with me, hence my confusion. All I wanted were more meaningful names, and I did actually manage to work out how get them late last night. My problem had been that I had been trying to select a device first, then hit the Rename button. Not having tried before,  it hadn't occurred to me that I needed to hit the Rename button first, then make the selection from the drop-down list. 

[KeithFrench]

Hi @durdle 

Hopefully, this will help. The Icon can be seen against the device list in both My Devices:-

My Devices

as well as the Advanced Settings device listing:-

Advanced settings device listing

Then clicking on the device will take you to Device Info. This will allow a friendly name to be set to what you want, as well as the icon to be changed to one of the provided ones. This is where you can't use "Camera" icon, due to the bug I mentioned:-

Device Info

However, if a friendly name is set above and in WiFi Mesh > Devices a different name is set for the same device, the latter one will be the one that is always used.

[durdle]

Sorry, I still don't understand what you mean. Are you referring to the WiFi Mesh device list entry for a camera? Every camera? As previously mentioned, I have five including the Ring doorbell. Are you saying I can't rename any of them? 

[KeithFrench]

You should be able to cut & paste OK.

The tablet with the Amazon OUI is because the WiFi adapter inside it must be an Amazon one. I said before that there is no guarantee that any device manufacturer make its WiFi adapter.

With the camera icon, when trying to set it, an “Operation not complete, something wrong happened” error is received when the Apply button is clicked. It has been like this for ages & is perhaps considered low priority.

[durdle]

My apologies for sending a photo attachment there.  For some reason I can't fathom out,  I don't seem to be able to cut and paste here at the moment. 

[durdle]

 

[KeithFrench]

Mind you I should have said for the View My Devices and the main Advanced Settings device listing there is a new bug from V202, where often no devices or only some are displayed there anyway. I have reported this. At the moment the only place I rely upon is in the Wi-Fi Mesh > Devices sub-tab .

[KeithFrench]

Hi @durdle 

Normally in the main Advanced Settings device listing & also View My Devices, it should not be more than an hour or so. In Wi-Fi Mesh, the Devices sub-tab it is almost instantaneous. However, in the Wi-Fi Mesh, Overview tab, that is very different, several days or more there. I have logged that as a bug a while ago.

Yes, you can enable the Guest Settings, it never worked until V202. Set up the SSID & required password, it will use the same WiFi channel as the main network in this band.

[durdle]

Thanks, especially for the link. This is all new to me. How long are we talking about in

'... will "time-out" in a while'?

My grandson last visited just under 8 weeks ago. Is there any way I can get him, and other visitors, over to the jodsl-GUEST network? Presumably, I would need to make the ssid a visible option in my Connections settings.

[KeithFrench]

Hi @durdle 

It is easy for me, but I appreciate it might not be for you. A MAC address is made up of 6 bytes of data, e.g. 90:48:6C:8E:81:94.

The first 3 bytes 90:48:6C is what is called the vendor code or OUI (Organisational Unique IdentifierI). This identifies the manufacturer of the WiFi adapter. OK, I know that a vendor is not always the same company as the manufacturer, but that is what they called it when the standards were drawn up years ago.

The second part (8E:81:94) uniquely identifies the WiFi adapter (like a serial number).

What you have to do is to visit this site, paste in the full MAC address and click Lookup Mac address:-

https://aruljohn.com/mac.pl 

The result shows that the vendor is Ring LLC:-

OUI Lookup

The next thing is to look in the Ring app to find which Ring device has this MAC address. It may be listed as the MAC,  Physical or Hardware address. Then that one is solved & onto the next.

You can't remove an address, but old ones will "time-out" after a while.

[durdle]

@KeithFrench , I'm still feeling my way here, but how did you link those three to Ring devices? They would have to be the three chimes in my system, and I can probably identify each one by referencing the nearest booster etc, but the three screenshots here, taken on my 14" tablet,  are rather more inclusive than my previous set, taken on my much smaller phone.  I can see how to rename devices and, with regard to the controllers, I would like to be able to remove the four of them, but I can't see a remove button anywhere. They will undoubtedly be for my 14 year old grandson's games consoles,  and I would prefer to be able to confine him to the jodsl-GUEST network; I'm not entirely sure how though.  My devices 05/10/24Channel populations 05/10/24Connected devices 05/10/24

[KeithFrench]

Hi @durdle 

Here you go:-

90:48:6C:8E:81:94 - Ring LLC
9C:76:13:D1:B9:7D - Ring LLC
9C:76:13:D3:53:9C - Ring LLC
D6:ED:66:E0:90:DF - No matches - is this correct?

These two are not MAC addresses:-

C310_A60F4B

C200_2F3316

[KeithFrench]

I should be able to identify the make of the WiFi adapter in them, which is not always the same as the manufacturer of the device. I'll see what I can come up with over the weekend.

The ? is because the router could not identify the device type, e.g. PC, Laptop, Phone, Tablet etc. Don't use the Camera one though, it has a bug if you do. I have found that with V202 on the router, its Device listing is often not up to date. The Wi-Mesh Devices sub-tab is much more accurate. When you know what device is what, use the Rename facility to call it what you want. This will override any names that you may have set in the router's Advanced Settings device list.

[durdle]

Thanks. Couldn't have managed without all the advice though. Meanwhile, I've noticed that the router dashboard can identify a few devices like my Ring cameras, my phone and my tablet, but not most of them. Given that I can't expect the various MAC addresses to apply to the same device two days running, is there any way I can identify which of the entries with question marks at any one time belongs to which device, allowing me to rename them in the dashboard? Digging around this deep in the dashboard is all rather

 

new to me. 

[KeithFrench]

That's great well done, those RSSID values are all OK.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Good morning,

Thanks for the update.

Michelle

[durdle]

UPDATE:

I think I now have my two boosters in reasonable locations without calling in an electrician to install additional wiring in difficult locations, ie cloakroom, bathroom etc. As it is, the doorbell seems to be hogging the one booster (excellent connection), while the two cameras share the other one (good connection) with five or six other devices. As of this morning,  my Ring signal strengths have been:

Bell: -48, Mains camera: - 55, Battery camera: -52, Battery chimes: -55, -42 & -28

and these figures are more or less what I've been seeing over the last two weeks or so.

My broadband download speeds have been around the 52Mbps mark since I installed the boosters, significantly better than when I started this thread (below 40).

My printer, which was spending too much time offline (and which triggered my original post here) has given me no further problems since installation of the Sagemcom router

All in all, I'm much more happy than I was five weeks ago, though I can't help thinking I could be doing more, eg with the WiFi analyser. For the moment,  I don't plan to try unless something happens to make my Ring devices start going offline again.