XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul

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XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul

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XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul
XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul
2024-01-26 20:04:22 - last edited 2024-01-29 09:18:43
Model: Deco XE75 Pro  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 1.2.7

Hi,

 

I have 3x XE75 Pro units, all connected to the wired Ethernet network that I have throughout my home.

 

The master unit plugs into my main switch, a TP-link TL-SG1024DE, which in turn connects via a Draytek router to my ISP.

 

Another port on the switch connects to a switch in the loft, which in turn links to 2 other switches in different rooms, each of which has a slave Deco plugged in.

 

Until this evening it was all working perfectly - but then I decided to tidy up some of the cabling under my desk where the main switch and Deco reside. This, of course, meant plugging and unplugging various things, then putting it all back together again, switching on, and...

 

...now the two slave Decos have decided to talk wirelessly to each other and/or the master unit, forming a loop (or maybe, loops).

 

If I leave loop detection turned on at the main switch, the master Deco port gets disabled whenever the slave units are powered.

 

If I physically power down the slave units, the master Deco comes up and works fine on its own.

 

Plug in a slave, though, and as soon as it's booted, the master Deco port blinks on the switch, and it gets disabled.

 

I've been able to temporarily resurrect my network by turning off loop detection on the switch, but that's only a short term workaround. What I actually need is a way to force the slave Decos to only use Ethernet backhaul - or at least, a way to strongly encourage them to figure out for themselves that the Ethernet network is there and is preferable.

 

The app says "Everything looks good", but shows a little wireless icon above the links between my master and slave Decos.

 

I really would have expected the option to manually select wired vs wireless backhaul in the browser interface. If nothing else, and if anyone from TP-link is reading this, please update the browser interface to be _at least_ as functional as the app. Give more tech savvy users the ability to manually configure things in a way that works - thanks.

 

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Re:XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul-Solution
2024-01-26 21:12:19 - last edited 2024-01-29 09:18:43

Upd: problem solved - though the fault turned out to be quite subtle and interesting.

 

For some reason the switch in my loft decided it was no longer configured to pass VLAN tagged traffic, which in my case means pretty much all traffic on the network. That meant the slave Decos really couldn't see each other over the wired connection, but they could see each other wirelessly, of course. So that's what they did - and in doing so, they effectively 'shorted out' the uncooperative switch and allowed different parts of my network to communicate.

 

Since the misbehaving switch still passed untagged traffic OK, that formed a loop, which the main switch detected and, quite rightly, complained about.

 

I do wish the Decos had simply indicated that they couldn't see each other, rather than automatically forming a wireless link that hid the true fault and made debugging unnecessarily difficult. It's cost me several hours I won't get back.

 

Please, TP-link: manual configuration, via browser. It would have saved me a lot of time and hassle.

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Re:XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul-Solution
2024-01-26 21:12:19 - last edited 2024-01-29 09:18:43

Upd: problem solved - though the fault turned out to be quite subtle and interesting.

 

For some reason the switch in my loft decided it was no longer configured to pass VLAN tagged traffic, which in my case means pretty much all traffic on the network. That meant the slave Decos really couldn't see each other over the wired connection, but they could see each other wirelessly, of course. So that's what they did - and in doing so, they effectively 'shorted out' the uncooperative switch and allowed different parts of my network to communicate.

 

Since the misbehaving switch still passed untagged traffic OK, that formed a loop, which the main switch detected and, quite rightly, complained about.

 

I do wish the Decos had simply indicated that they couldn't see each other, rather than automatically forming a wireless link that hid the true fault and made debugging unnecessarily difficult. It's cost me several hours I won't get back.

 

Please, TP-link: manual configuration, via browser. It would have saved me a lot of time and hassle.

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Re:XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul
2024-01-28 14:44:55

@racenerd How did you find out the problem?

Just a M4 (2-pack) user who regrets buying it
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Re:XE75 Pro insists on wireless backhaul
2024-01-29 08:53:26 - last edited 2024-01-29 09:16:40

I found that even after unplugging the two slave Decos, wired devices in rooms other than the study (where my ISP connection comes in and the router is located) couldn't see the internet. Since that has nothing to do with wi-fi I knew there had to be a fault with my wired network.

 

I also realised that if my games console and music streamers couldn't see the internet, the slave Decos probably couldn't either, and that would explain why they were insisting on using wireless backhaul.

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