@Lmsp87  I have just ordered one of these moving over from a Huawei B818 4G router, however it sounds like from this, this router is a risky proposition with all these bugs. Am I best to cancel order and steer clear?  Doesn't seem like a solid fix is in place. Any other solid recommendations? Thanks. 

  @C_LH  Wow, thanks, shocking you cant get it going and you are having to use it like that, very frustrating having shelled out for it... OK, I will cancel order on this -  Its a shame as Ive been using a Re450 extender for about 4 years and that has been fabulous with only relatively small losses from the router to the end device connected via the extender.  I had thought of  Huawei 5g but it seems like most of them are used devices and I wanted something new hence ordering this. It does seem like quite a lot of the 5G routers arent very stable. Thanks for the advice...

  @Bob1920 if you want 5G, you should look elsewhere until there's a permanent fix. The 'fixes' proposed in this thread have not solved the issue for me.

@David-TP I shared information earlier on this chain showing how the router switches between 4G and 5G. It's hard to get the logs when the red light issue happens because you literally cannot get back in. I get a message saying "We couldn't find Deco" - see image attached. 

  @Lmsp87 

I think David suggested you to connect to 192.168.68.1 with the owner password and pull the logs from there, you can only do this if you have access to the local network. I am managing my X50-5G remotely, so whenever the connection drops I'm not able to pull the logs and they don't seem to persist over restarts.

Just to let you know, I opened a separate thread trying to understand what the band value on the app means, before I found this thread that has some great documentation! I have come across the red light issue only once during last month since I bought the X50-5G, and before it happened it was a stormy night with bad reception and I saw exactly what you described before, the network showing 5G but the EARFCN and NRARFCN switching around quite a lot. This happened with the latest firmware 1.1.7, so I can confirm the issue is not fully resolved.

I think the situation is actually a bit better for me, since the 5G band in the area is low frequency and therefore usually has pretty good reception, so the switching between 4G and 5G doesn't happen very often. I hope the vendor can find a proper solution for this, the fact that the device doesn't even have a power button makes it a bit worse.

  @juhovh 

I'm in a similar situation - I'm managing the device remotely and whenever this issue happens, I'm forced to restart (next time I visit the property m) and consequently all logs disappear. 
 

I'm situated not far from a 5G tower and therefore the signal strength should not be a problem. I'm wondering whether the issue is with external antennas?
 

I spoke to my network provider and they said that "your antenna is pretty strong as it connects to towers much further away". Could it be that the Deco X50 is not optimised to work with external antennas? It cannot decide where to connect and this "confusion" gives you the red light?

  @Lmsp87 

Hmm, I'm using external antennas as well, it would be interesting if external antennas have something to do with this...wouldn't fully rule it out.

Have you tried checking cellmapper (google for cellmapper, external links not allowed here) in your area and tried to identify the 5G towers and which way their cells are directed? Sometimes it's possible there's a tower nearby, but its antennas are not directed to your direction and therefore the reception is bad, and you need to use a tower further apart instead. This is the case for me, but there's only one tower in that direction so the Deco is quite consistently connected to it. Also, usually the external antennas are directional and where you point it makes a big difference in which signal will be caught, do you mean you have two towers in the same direction and the device is picking the further one?

I've noticed that the cellmapper website has very limited data on 5G cells since it's community sourced, but many operators seem to share PCI values between 4G and 5G towers in cases where the tower supports both (which is usually the case), so using it in 4G mode works fine. If you can find the PCI value that your router is connected to from cellmapper, you should be able to see which tower it is and which way it's directed, I believe the PCI values should be unique for a single geographical location.

Hope this helps in debugging the issue, maybe directing the antenna differently to make sure the signal is always coming from the same place might alleviate your problem, until TP-Link comes up with a proper fix (whenever that may be).

  @juhovh 

Dear All - apologies not replying earlier of my development of my case - the reason is that the router I have is at my summer cottage and there are times up to three months not using it. My case is described like this:

* Latest firmware along with my journey, but right now one step behind as I have not been at my summer cottage

* I'm literally in between of three cellular base stations in which 2 of those are providing 5G

* Red light issue appearing only in 4G/5G mode, and disappears if I stick to 4G only

* Unfortunately the three stations are all so far away that 5G reception is weak and actually providing lower speed that on 4G

* The "best base station" (closest, behind the lake, an eye contact, has 5G but it's 5G bean is directed so that I'm not align, and therefore I am "enjoying" 5G directional RF beam only partly that makes 5G weaker than it could be

* I do have a directional antenna Poynting 2G-5G "pizza box directional antenna" that I'm moving around to find the best 4G connection (as 5G just mess up the Deco and triggers the red light issue time to time)

* I have reporter to the 5G carrier to get a directionlal 5G beam to my direction, but not sure if done or still waiting

* Keeping in minf that even I am using my directional antenna, it's reception is "symmetrical" 180 degrees, meaning that if I'm pointing it to the best station, it does not prevent it hearing the station 180 degrees opposite direction

My process to get the best connection under my circumstances:

* Contact the carrier technical support to ask the directions to the 4G and 5G stations and to ask which of them are a) with 5G and b) to which directions their beams are oriented

* Turn on the Deco with directional antenna, stick to 4G only and monitor manually the frequencies it is using time to time rebooting it

* I try to find what are the EARFCN and PCI numbers when getting the best signal strength and speed - write them down while observing those, by orienting the directional antenna towards to those stations

* Finally pick the best one - lock into the one and only and keep it there by disabling the 5G

* Monitor few days is my connrcetion stable, if it is, fine - if not, keep on searching.

(And hoping that some day there will be better 5G in my area and meantime waiting for Deco to release SW that would handle automatically this challenging situation or to give some sort of log in their app that I could track what channels and base stations it is using to ease my "find the best base station" process".

  @HenrikEkman 

I will be at my summer cottage next week and I will update my router with the latest FW and I'll provide an update how things are going with the lates FW.