XE75 Pro many issues
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Hello,
After upgrading from xDSL to 1 Gbps fibre I decided to replace my existing wifi with something that should provide faster speeds to more clients.
I replaced 2x Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR with a 5x TP-Link XE75 Pro. The 2 Ubiquiti AP's provided 5 years solid service covering 3 floors, garden and yard.
Initially I placed the main XE75 on the middle floor next to the ISP router and put one XE75 on the top floor and one on the ground floor which are connected wirelessly. The remote units report fair signal strength. At the same time i had areas in the house with very weak or no signal so added another 2x XE75 making 5 in total.
Since installation i experienced continual issues such as :
- Devices frequently disconnect and reconnect to the WiFi a short time later for no apparent reason.This includes static devices that are not moving/roaming.
- Teams performance is very poor with choppy audio or complete loss of audio for seconds at a time (laptop is wired into remote AP)
- Streaming devices performance is very poor with frequent disconnections. There is no logic to how or why. I have 4 Samsung TV's of the same model in various locations. 3 of them are just about watchable but suffer from frequent disconnect, reconnect, buffer. The same model TV within 3 metres of the main XE75 is unwatchable and just constantly buffers.
It almost appears like a limitation of the number of clients. I have around 60 devices connected but there are usually around half of them disconnected or having problems.
I have tried enabling and disabling fast roaming. There is no difference in either mode.
I have tried enabling and disabling beam forming. There is no difference in either mode.
I have tried disabling and enabling Mesh Technology per client. There is no difference in either mode.
Having bought 2x 3pack of XE75 Pro i'm very disappointed. Coverage is not great but far worse and more annoying is the instability of the whole system and the constant issues experienced by the wireless clients.
Is there anyone from TP-Link that could help troubleshoot otherwise they will be returned to Amazon mid Jan.
After 2 days i've managed to get things reasonably stable.
Given the available information in the app is limited and its difficult to get exact signal strengths etc I think the root cause seems to be with the mesh and specifically if any of the remote nodes have a weak signal or drop/regain connection.
Im going to make 2 guesses as to what the cause of the client connectivity issues are - 1) if a remote AP has only weak/fair signal, if it momentarily drops connection when the mesh tries to recover or optimise paths it disconnects clients or b) clients suffer massive latency which i guess is to do with the remote AP with a weakest connection possible causing re-transmits which affect the whole system.
Ultimately the issue is poor signal strength between the wireless nodes which is almost impossible to get the around as in my experience the XE75 Pro's give about the worst range of any WiFi access points ive ever used.
I came to the above conclusion after moving 6 AP's to the same room for testing...all within maybe 4 or 5 metres. Clients that were within range and could connect remained connected reliably and speeds were good and there were no client issues whatsoever.
I then began to move the APs further away. As long as they remained within sight everything was OK and signal was shown as great in the app. As soon as i moved an AP to the other side of a blockwork internal wall the signal dropped off so much that the AP's would connect OK but with even moderate traffic it then became unstable. I live in a 3 storey house...if i then moved the AP directly down up or down 1 floor the connection then became unstable without even any traffic.
Below diagram shows the middle floor of the house i live in. The main deco is located by the ISP router at the front middle of the house. Either side is a central blockwork pier that runs top to bottom of the house to support the floor span. The floor above and below are similar with the 2 blockwork walls. Ultimately to get reliable connection between the AP's ive had to have them all located on the same floor and then it appears the signal will cover the floor above/below through the floor/ceiling.
Ultimately things are now working but 6 AP's at £1100 to cover maybe 2500 sq.ft. is ridiculous. Im going to see how it goes over the next couple of weeks before deciding whether to return or not. Poor range. Poor coverage. Few features compared to other solutions. Its also a liberty to ask for £60 per year for HomeShield Pro when it's included in much cheaper TP-Link models and also many competitor offerings. All in all, very disappointed.
Very helpful summary of investigation.
For those who plan to troubleshoot their Deco mesh, you can get quick glance of signal strength for each of your Satellite Deco units, in single place in Deco app. Open Show List and you will see the following, as an example:
In this screenshot, Bedroom unit has good (Fair) signal strength for its WiFi backhaul connection.
This will also tell you if Satellite Deco units you connected with Ethernet cable do use it for backhaul, or if they can't and stay on WiFi backhaul.
