All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working

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All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working

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All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-08 15:01:46

I have 9 switches (7 regular 2 dimmers) and 3 smart plugs that have all stopped working within the last day. All of the switches are showing red WiFi lights. I have a Linksys WRT1900ACS. Everything else on my network is fine and is working properly. I restarted the router and everything connected for a few minutes but then went red again. All of these switches and plugs have been working fine for the last couple of years. I see people are having problems with ASUS, is anyone else having problems with Linksys routers?

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#1
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-08 17:52:42
Potentially your Router may be assigning new LAN IP addresses to them when it re-starts? You could try assigning Static IP's to each switch, which will at least mitigate that
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#2
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-08 17:58:29

@DEcosse I will try this tonight. Thanks for the input.

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#3
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-09 15:31:35 - last edited 2022-01-09 16:38:50

Started with a plug last night, set it to static IP. The weird thing was after I did this, everything came back on line so I stopped there. Woke up this morning and everything was disconnected again. Added the next thing to static IP and they all came back again. Going to wait and see how long it takes to drop off again. Not sure what is going on but this seems to be somewhat working. The only difference I can think of between now and when this started happening is a smart air freshener we got a few days before this became an issue. I'll update as I find more.

 

Edit 1: Didn't take long for everything to go offline again. I noticed all of the devices are connecting through 5Ghz, which I see on other threads can be an issue. I'm now resetting each device and putting it on the 2.4Ghz network. One thing I noticed is that when they come on-line now, they are recognized by their model number as opposed to a long string of random letters they showed up as on the 5Ghz network. Also, one of the plugs was showing up as a windows device with the name of one of my laptops. Something was definitely confused, the mystery is what caused all of this. I'm hoping this is the solution but will be somewhat time consuming so I'll wait a while and see if the devices I've made the switch on continue to work.

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#4
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-10 04:50:33 - last edited 2022-01-10 04:50:55

Ended up moving everything to the 2.4Ghz band / assigning static IP's to EVERYTHING. Did most this morning and it lasted all day. Added the last 4 switches and although they haven't turned red, I can see through the Linksys app they are randomly disconnecting. They are also spotty on whether or not Google will communicate with them. All of this since adding the last couple. Is it possible i'm approaching the max amount of WiFi Devices once you consider Google mini's, Alexa's etc? I wouldn't think I would be but i'm kinda at a loss for how to proceed. I don't know why it would have suddenly decided this was enough.

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#5
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-10 12:28:56

Hello @StrangeFlavor 

Thank you for your detailed post! Here are some tips that you could give it a try: 

 

1. Check if there is any Advanced Wi-Fi settings on main Router,  turn that off to help isolate the issue: 
-  Band steering(Smart Connect)/ Channel optimization (Wi-Fi Optimizing/ Fast roaming or Mesh , those settings may lead device connect to a different band or  channel and cause some drop-outs

 

2. If router 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz band use the same SSIDs, try to use a different SSID for 5Ghz band in case that confuse the smart devices. 

 

 

-  For ' opposed to a long string of random letters they showed up as on the 5Ghz network. '  '  Linksys app they are randomly disconnecting.'  

Can you share some photos showing smart devices disconnecting to Linsys APP or smart connecting to 5Ghz Wifi, does smart device still get IP address from router at that time?   

Please check the log of your Linksys router and see if there is any unusal. 

 

- May I know do you use the single router, or router + extender, can I know the 1)  firmware version of router 2) a photo of router Wireless settings 3) Did you rencetly update the firmware or changed any wifi settings on Linksys 4) If unplug the new smart Air fresher, does the same issue happen. 

Thank  you. 

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#6
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-12 17:48:30 - last edited 2022-01-12 17:56:24

It's been a few days now and after switching everything to the 2.4Ghz band, things seem to be alright. I had one minor hiccup where they all disconnected after adding back the final two, but since then I have had no issues. One thing I noticed on the router page was that some of the switches, while this was happening, were showing up as wired not Wifi, which I found odd. I reset the router and it seemed to correct itself. No issues since.

 

I've added all of the devices manually to the 2.4Ghz and I don't want to tempt fate so I don't have any of the 5Ghz screen shots showing anything.

 

Have not added back the air freshener back so that will be the last test.

 

It is just a router no extender or anything. It's set to auto update frimware and I'm not sure if it has recently or not.

 

Linksys WRT1900ACS FW: 2.0.2.188405

 

There are also pages and pages of router settings, so If I have to dig in more I'll post pictures but i'm not sure which ones you would need. Hopefully the issue has resolved itself with the 2.4Ghz solution.

 

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#7
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-12 22:50:08

Well I added the Pura back and they all disconnected an hour or so after that.

 

Now the question is, why? I don't think it's a Kasa issue but now I don't know what it is exactly.

 

Google devices are fine.

Alexa devices are fine.

 

maybe the router overloaded?

 

I guess the next step is to disconnect a few switches and see if the rest stay on line.

 

I should probably pursue this on another forum.

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#8
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-13 00:13:10 - last edited 2022-01-13 00:14:38

@StrangeFlavor I had very similar behaviour over the last few days with my ASUS ZENWiFi AX Router 

 

Everything had been working seemingly normally, although I had a few Alexa alerts that one or more devices reported offline (must have been temporary as all looked fine when checked) 

But then I was having problems with a Shelly device which kept going offline; the consensus from their FB page was they do not play well with some Mesh Routers (although in my previous home with my NetGear, this was not an issue with multiple Shellys and Kasas) 

So I separated out the bands and set the 2.4 to Legacy; now that SSID and PW remained the same, however most (but not all!!) my Kasa devices went offline; I proceeded to add them back in but noticed once I got to the last few, a couple dropped off again; I could repeat this, adding those that dropped back in and another couple dropped off!!! So it definitely appeared as if a capacity issue. 

Got tired messing with it, so restored my Router back to its previous Mesh config and assigned the Shelly to connect to the Modem WiFi directly rather than my Mesh - now all works, all the Kasas seem happy and so does the Shelly. 

But the behaviour certainly sounds similar to yours 

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#9
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-13 03:59:24
Pretty sure there is something similar going on here. I've contacted Pura and I'm waiting on a response to see if they have heard of this. I'm positive it's not playing nicely with Kasa. I disconnected 5 switches to see if it was a load issue and the remaining switches still went red after plugging the Pura back in. Unplugged the Pura and it all came back on line. I'm wondering if I can take an old router and plug it into my current one just to make a network for the Pura. Talk about annoying.
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#10
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Re:All Smart Switches Suddenly Stopped Working
2022-01-13 07:24:35 - last edited 2022-01-14 07:57:51

Hello @StrangeFlavor 

 If Wi-Fi Led went Red on Kasa devices (not flashing green/ not amber and green), that means kasa devices disconnected from Wi-Fi. (kasa switch only support 2.4Ghz band, not 5Ghz)

 

-You could connect Pura air fresher to an old router/ AP for a few days help isolate the issue, or connect Pura to a Guest Wi-Fi (isolated from main Wi-Fi) of Linksys router and see if that helps.


I created a support email for you to follow up your case, feel free to let us know for any update. 

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#11
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