KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat

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KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-02-25 09:03:18 - last edited 2021-02-25 16:02:24
Model: KL130  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version:

Greetings, first post.

 

I have a new KL130, fresh out of the box, that will not remain pingable on my network. It will respond to 2-3 pings, then go unresponsive for ~30s, then the lamp will blink, and a few seconds later it will respond to 2-3 pings, then go unresponsive again.

 

I've done the 10x power cycle reset at least five times now, then gone through the setup. No improvement.

 

I have four more of these smart bulbs, no problems there. I have around 16 other Kasa wall switches, plugs, and outdoor plugs. No problems with any of them other than this one KL130.

 

It's in a room with three smart plugs, a smart switch, and two other KL130s. The WAP is a Ubiquiti UAP 2.4Ghz in low-power mode, about 10' from the bulb. There's a dedicated SSID for the smart devices in this room. I've tried a different SSID on another WAP (a UAP-AC-LR). No difference.

 

I've tried a different light fixture. I've tried a different electrical circuit in a different room. No joy.

 

There are plenty of available IP addresses in the DHCP pool. I've tried reserving a static IP for this lamp, but it didn't help. I've since removed the static mapping.

 

My firewall reports that nothing is being blocked from or to the lamp's IP address and the Internet. My home network is flat.

 

Did I mention that it's the second KL130 that's doing this, fresh out of the box? Both from Amazon/Amazon, purchased separately, within the last 10 days.

 

Since there are two KL130s with the same problem, it could point toward a problem on my side, but remember, all of my other Kasa devices - including four other KL130s - are working perfectly.


I'm out of ideas and I've spent two long hours on a $15 smart bulb.  I've got a KL125 on the way to see if I have better luck with it. Sadly, if both of these KL130s are somehow defective, and that's a long shot indeed, I can only return one of them because one of the cartons went out in the wheelie bin yesterday.

 

Does anyone know what could be the problem here? Thank you --

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#1
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24 Reply
Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-03 16:53:46

@xpanmanx 

 

Might be best to swap the problem KL130s with one that does work to verify if the issue follows the bulb or stays with the socket it was originally installed in.

 

If the issue follows the bulb, I would reach out to support regarding the remaining bulb as there could be an issue with it.

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#2
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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-03 18:19:39 - last edited 2021-03-03 18:20:10

@Tony - thanks. Neither KL130 would work. My OP describes my troubleshooting process, I was quite thorough.

 

That KL125 fired right up. Although I will say, briefly, that the KL125 coloration is a little different than the KL130. Not much, but it's noticible.

 

I've sent both KL130s back to Amazon with a note that they were defective. I don't know if they'll get binned or sent back to you guys for dissection, but that's the end of that chapter.

 

I have to try one of TP-Link's lightstrips soon  ;)

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#3
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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-05 00:05:06 - last edited 2021-03-05 00:06:14

@xpanmanx  I am having the exact same situation as you have described. I have 4 KL130s (3x v1 and 1x v2) and 2 of them (at separate times) have decided to go belly up. One of them is v1, one v2 I was getting the same pings for 2 seconds and then non-responsive for about 30 seconds. The bulb also blinks off every 37 seconds. I've reset the bulbs multiple times across multiple sockets and the setup process never completes. It hangs on different phases of the setup. It is no more than 8 feet from my access point in which it shares with a couple other devices.  One of the other devices, mostly TP-Link wall switches, have any issues. 
 

@TP-Link @tony what are our next steps?

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#4
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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-05 06:28:33

@jlboggsCO - I wonder if they're being bricked by a firmware download.

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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-05 14:16:26

@xpanmanx I don't think so, I haven't done any firmware updates since I got them. I actually got the v1 working last night, so now I just have a v2 that's jacked. Turns out I'm 1 day shy of the return window Amazon is handling the return and replacement.  I've tried resetting it a couple more times with no luck.  

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#6
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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-05 14:51:42

@jlboggsCO, I feel like the firmware updates are automatic.

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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-07 03:02:54

@xpanmanx so here's a fun twist. I got a replacement KL130 v2 from Amazon today and it's doing the exact same thing. Meanwhile my 3 KL130 v1 bulbs are fine. 
 

I'm going to take a deep(er) dive in to troubleshooting this. I do have a very busy network (60+ devices, many hardwired, many wireless across multiple access points). I need to isolate it and see if it's my network configuration or truly the bulb(s).

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#8
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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-07 04:41:54

@jlboggsCO Exactly my symptoms here. All KL130 v1 running strong. Two new KL130 v2 no go (as described in my OP). New KL125 working fine.

 

My network is similarly sized to yours, with different SSIDs depending on the device (to help me apply throttling to the kids when they act out, lol) but no VLAN segmentation between compute and IOT.

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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-07 05:35:41

@xpanmanx do you run your own DNS and/or DHCP server?  I hooked up an old router running ddwrt and setup a basic network with DHCP and using 8.8.8.8 for the DNS server.  I paired the bulb with this network and magically everything works fine!  So I have, unfortunately, narrowed this down to something on my network.  I did recently move my DNS/DHCP (PiHole controlling both) from one server to another.  I disabled all blocking on my DNS server and this did not help.  I'm going to keep playing around with the settings to figure out if it's the DNS side or DHCP side that's making things freak out.

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#10
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Re:KL130 won't respond to pings, blinks, responds to 2-3 pings, rinse, repeat
2021-03-07 16:56:23 - last edited 2021-03-07 16:57:01

@jlboggsCO I'm running pfSense for DHCP/DNS/VPN/NAT/firewall etc. I also run pfBlockerNG-devel, so there's some DNS blackholing taking place. I use a NAT to force any outbound DNS query to my router. And, I use OpenDNS (Umbrella free) for p*rn filtering so my local firewall doesn't have to bear the brunt of processing sooooo many domains into a blocklist. It can be pretty restrictive, but the logging is great and I can work around anything which can be seen.

 

That said, I have a group/rule that will allow specific devices to directly query Google's name servers. I tried the KL130s there, also, without luck.

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