M5 1.6.0 connection preference stopping devices reconnecting
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I thought the ability to set a connection preference for a device in this firmware was brilliant - but it is causing problems. Devices that I set a preference on are at some point later (could be hours or days) dropping off the network and then failing to reconnect. I have had this happen with two devices now, my Wiser central heating controller, and an ESP8266 running Tasmota.
In each case, powering the device off and on will bring it back online, and also when the ESP8266 dropped off just now, I went in to the deco app and set its connection preference back to auto (I didn't touch the device), and it immediately came online again (but not to the node I had set as preferred). It had been offline for about 40 minutes, all the M5 nodes were online.
So while this feature is very welcome, as static devices will sometimes inexplicably switch/lock to a node with much poorer signal, there's something not quite right with it. It seems devices are dropping off for some reason, and then appear to get stuck trying to reconnect to a node other than the one set as preferred, which I assume the deco system is refusing...?
Hi, Thank you very much for the feedback.
I have seen a few similar feedback about the connection preference and some users have the same confusion and so far it has been addressed. Hope we can work out together to locate this issue
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Would it be possible for you to provided a picture of the network layout to show us how these Deco M5 are connected to each other, via Wi-Fi backhaul or Ethernet backhaul? And which Deco has been set as a preferred Deco for the controller and ESP8266?
What would be the original reason that you wish to set up connection preferences on these devices? because they kept connecting to a Deco far away?
As for the frequency of occurrences "could be hours or days", it is rather randomly and there is a debug firmware for Deco M5 in your private message.
Hope you can install this firmware first and later when it started again, if the disconnection was restored by "Auto" connection preference, please log into the web UI(Deco web interface login) and help us export the log that might record the whole process so that I could forward to the senior engineers to check whether there would be any useful clues.
Thank you again.
Best regards.
Hi, thanks for the reply. I have (simply!) drawn the layout of our house and the devices, pic attached.
Briefly:
The decos are in AP mode, connected to the main Plusnet Router in the study where the phone line comes in. The other decos connect by wifi, no ethernet backhaul.
The dining room deco is on top of a cupboard, I found this gives much better signal coverage.
The lounge deco connects to the dining room. The lounge TV is ethernet connected to the lounge deco and I consistently get around 25Mb on a netflix speed test on the TV, the network is really good.
In a cupboard in the upstairs bathroom are the Wiser heating hub and the ESP8266 (which measures the hot water temp for my home automation system). These normally connect to the lounge deco and this gives good connectivity. They are on the floor above, but almost right over it.
Occasionally the heating will switch to the dining room deco, which still works, but often gives timeouts in the heating phone app because it can't talk to the hub fast enough. This is why I want to use the new facility to force the heating to the lounge deco. I set the ESP8266 for the same reason (I have only just installed this device so I have no experience of how it might also switch or not).
I have had problems with both devices as I described, currently they are both back on AUTO and both working ok connected to lounge (for now).
I would be happy to install some test firmware but this is going to have to wait a couple of weeks, we are going to be away and I don't have much time to play around before we go, and I don't want to risk anything weird happening while we are not here.
If I install this test firmware, will I be able to easily switch back to the main release if needed?
Hope this info helps for now.
