Wi-Fi Turning OFF then ON on TL-WPA8631P
I have two of these Powerline adapters with Wi-Fi repeater (TL-WPA8631P) at each end of the house.
They are duplicating the Router two Wifi networks (one on 2.4 Ghz, one on 5 Ghz)
The Wifi are synched (Wi-Fi Move option)
I have a laptop setup next to one of them, and I am losing internet connection occasionally.
When that happens, I notice the two Wi-Fi LEDon the adapter are turning off, then after a moment, they turn back on and things go back to normal.
So basically, it appears the adapter is turning off its Wi-Fi repeater on occasion.
Any reason why that would happen and what I can do about it, or is the adapter defective?
Thank you for any insights!
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Can you go into the Web Interface for your Powerline network and see if there is anything appearing in the system logs?
Also, when the disconnect happens, can you see what the status of the LEDs is? If for some reason the powerline connection is broken, the adapter may behave like this while it tries to adapt.
How often does the disconnect happen?
Is there any rhyme or reason as to when the disconnect occurs?
Have you ensured that there is nothing in your router settings that could be preventing the powerline network from having a consistent and stable connection?
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@Riley_S Thank you for pitching in
When going in the ToPLC app, it always shows over 100Mbps between the router and each TP-Link, so that part looks fine so far.
On the last event when I saw the Wifi LEDs were Off on the nearby TP-Link, The power and the Powerline LEDs (2 on the left|) were ON. So the Powerline connection appeared to be up and running. Only the 2 WiFi LEDs went OFF.
LOG wise, it looks like the system clears the log when disconnected (unfortunate), so I don't have the log of the event since I power cycled the devices since then...
It is hard to tell how often that happens because unless you are streaming or doing a conf call (when we noticed) you may not noticed it went down then up.
We are now on the lookout if it happens again to save the log and double check Powerline status in ToPLC.
Annoying / confusing things in the TP-Link monitoring tools (toPLC and webpage):
- The log is very hard to exploit as it shows by time since events instead of date and time of the actual events...
- The mac addresses are all over the place.
- TP-link Advanced page > Status > Powerline network > Powerline Device, lists MAc addresses are different that Mac addresses on the back of the device and are different from the two (2.4Ghz / 5Ghz) Wireless network mac addresses
- In Device settings > Powerline WiFi Move, Only shows One Mac address when opened and matches one on the two TP-lInk sticker address.
- In the website Status page it shows:
Router ---- Powerline network (2) (Shows My two devices with 2 Mac addresses when opened)----PowerLine WiFi Move checked only shows a single Mac Address when opened) --- Clients (x)
Does the Powerline WiFi Move with a single Mac address represent the global network of multiple devices?
Regarding your last remark:
Have you ensured that there is nothing in your router settings that could be preventing the powerline network from having a consistent and stable connection?
Is there anything in particular I should be looking for. This is my Network provider Fiber optic connected box/router ?
Thanks again, and I will be keeping an eye on it
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I would try to disable and enable some of the various settings in your Powerline Extender. I would first try turning off the Wi-Fi Move functionality and see if the device still drops. The router may have a setting that changes, which results in the extender having to reconfigure itself.
Also, please make sure that you are using the most up-to-date version of your firmware for your device. Looking at the support page for your device, the most recent firmware looks like version 3.8 and was updated in June of this year. https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/tl-wpa8631p-kit/#Firmware
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@Riley_S Thanks, I will try to deactivate wifi move sync.
I guess, as long as I set both Adapters with the same wifi networks, I dont need anything further.
One side question if I may.
Is there any benefit it giving the network a name in Device Settings > powerLine > network name (shows unknown network name right now)?
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Most likely it would not make a difference, as the names for networks usually are defined using numbers.
However, I would recommend setting this to a custom name, so that you can see if anything changes, or if your receiver for some reason can't read the name of the network. It may help the stability of your connection if the devices use this name during the configuration process to establish something like a static IP, but I do not know for sure.
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@Riley_S Thanks, will do
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Well that was not good.
I tried entering a network name, but it failed, I tried the default name, it failed, then I logged out, and one of my TPL was gone, powerline LED off.
I had to redo the pairing with the router to get it back online.
Any idea why it would not take a networkd name?
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One thing I forgot to mention that may explain why I cant change the network name, is that the Master (coordinator) Powerline adapter is not a TP Link, but the power supply of the Internet provider Box / Router.
The TP Links are paired to that, and it appears as the Coordinator in the server configuration parameters, so may be it has control of the name...
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@scrambler Hello, same thing happening to me. Did you solve the problem? I have TL-WPA8631P v3.0 too.
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@Tungra Deactivating the sync option seems to have helped.
But I have not had time to do thorough monitoring in the last months
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