Riley_S wrote

 

You can save and share a log using a Windows computer to upgrade the firmware for the device and help collect the device log. This is extremely useful to our engineering team, who may be able to quickly find the cause of the behavior. The debug tool and information can be found attached to this post or below

 

https://static.tp-link.com/upload/beta/2022/202211/20221118/IoT_UpgradeTool_For Windows.zip

 

 

  @Riley_S I ran the 'upgrade' program - it identified all my devices but they all 'failed' at the upgrade stage

I disabled my Firewall temporarily and it made no difference

Here are examples of couple of devices - but they all have same failure message, "Unknown Device Type" (even though the device type is identified in the original scan and the status report of the upgrade attempt) 
^ See post-script edit regarding this at bottom of post

Also - you made reference to contacting Tech Support - as does the Word Doc for the application:

it would be helpful if there was a specific e-mail address with a reference number for correspondence in this regard - can you please suggest that they incorporate this info in the guide document? 

Meanwhile please forward f you would ...... 

Edit - I missed this note in the guide: 

On the upgrade tool, it may show an "Upgrade fail", while the firmware is upgraded successfully actually, please do not worry about it. You can check the firmware version from your Kasa App and see whether the upgrading is succeed.

I'll have to check tomorrow to see what the revision is on the devices I tried and will report back accordingly
I have to say however that is not very inspirational to have it say 'fail', it's essentially 'meaningless', go check the device firmware revision in the app.
Come on - you guys have to be better than that! But I'll continue on with attempt to assist in getting to bottom of the issue. 

The note regarding contact address is still valid however, especially on where to send logs if the failure mechanism occurs

  @rmhart @Riley_S 

I reset (right button on the switches) the devices that were offline when I was off my home network and so far they have remained connected!

Fingers crossed they stay this way.

I still would like to know why being on my home network has different results (using the app) than off my home network.

rmhart wrote

 

I reset (right button on the switches) the devices that were offline when I was off my home network and so far they have remained connected!

 

  @rmhart @Riley_S I did the same a few days ago with most of my devices (except the ones outside and a few bulbs) - yesterday all of my devices but 2 (incl those of which I had pressed reset button) went offline 

I don't believe my devices ARE updating with the tool - the 'failed' message posts almost immediately, so it is certainly not applying new firmware to a device in a matter of seconds (I've used similar tool from TP-Link before to update firmware) - and can't see any difference in the firmware revision before/after (you can actually see the version for each device in the 'scan' step and doing another 'scan' after shows the same) 

  @DEcosse @Riley_S 

It has been 5 days and all devices that I reset are holding steady and not going offline.

However, I did run the tool, and got the same type of results as you.  All update attempts failed.

I've sent multiple emails to support and they keep asking the same questions, without any resolution to the issue

Here is one interesting thing I found today:

one oddity is that, once I start having the issue, when my phone and app are connected to my LAN, if I refresh the app, some devices will appear online (briefly) but will not control (although occasionally they might, but I cannot turn on/off repeatedly) and then I get a failed to execute notice and the device will be offline again 

If I go the Alexa App  - or if I use a remote access for my phone (i.e. not on the LAN) then I will cinsistently see the devices OFFLINE

THEN - when I try to ping a device that I'm having trouble accessing from my PC on the same LAN as the devices I get this - note that sometimes it connects and returns, others timeout and fail to reach it. 

I don't want to hear any more that this issue appears to be 'news' to TP-link - these are all recent reviews from Google Play Store, all of whom have seen these issues within the last few weeks. I have to agree with that one reviewer who asks, is anyone actually taking note of these comments and treating this as a MAJOR issue rather than individuals problems?

  @Riley_S 

1)  My devices have been stable in an over-arching sense since my restart and required reload of three devices.  Been more than a week now.

2)  The "beta" app you shared does seem to load devices more quickly.   Do we expect a revision to be released to the Apple App store for my other devices?

Decosse:

*  Do you mind sharing how/where you got the DNS name you tried to ping of:  "https://n-use1-wap.tplinkcloud.com"   I ask because it doesn't appear to even be a valid DNS name...

*  It's always been my experience that when things really go south there is more than one problem.  I've no doubt in my mind they have back-end problems, but I wonder if you have some local issues too:  An example:  Dropped pings on your local network are never app based or cloud based.  I suppose it could be bad firmware on the devices, but it's more likely something else.

BTW, are you familiar with "pinginfo.view"?

dafish wrote

 

 

Decosse:

*  Do you mind sharing how/where you got the DNS name you tried to ping of:  "https://n-use1-wap.tplinkcloud.com"   I ask because it doesn't appear to even be a valid DNS name...

*  It's always been my experience that when things really go south there is more than one problem.  I've no doubt in my mind they have back-end problems, but I wonder if you have some local issues too:  An example:  Dropped pings on your local network are never app based or cloud based.  I suppose it could be bad firmware on the devices, but it's more likely something else.

 

BTW, are you familiar with "pinginfo.view"?

 

 

  @dafish - TPLInk tech support asked me to see if I could ping to it - that was in the Powershell Window (didn't necessarily intend to show that element per se, more the ping responses that followed -  then I wanted to try pinging to some of my 'offline' devices to see what it revealed; it was quite surprising - I really expected to see them either return or not  respond at all - off/on response is just really odd and I can't really fathom that! 
But I know with certainty that this problem only started recently - and appears to be shared by other users. So what changed? Did the firmware update? 

It's almost as if the DHCP is not being renewed - however that does not explain the ping responses being good/bad/good etc 

Also note that yesterday I updated the firmware in the Router (just searching for other possible issues) and so it reboot at that time - so all the licenses should have been due to renew at same time - but some of the TP-Link devices were still good! 

I was not familiar with pinginfo.view but looked into it and downloaded and ran:
Interesting indeed!!! 

Here is one scan 

This is about 4 hrs after I last reboot my router - at which point - and NOW - all devices 'appear' to be ONLINE per both Kasa app and Alexa 

This is even with devices that are in same room (or very close to) the Router 

  @DEcosse 

Howdy.

I can't tell you much about the address TP-Link shared, but I can tell you what you entered is not valid.   It fails a simple nslookup so somebody someplace typo'd something.  NBD, but it might have been informative.  Should you talk with them further I'd certainly ask for the correct DNS name.

On rebooting the router:   This will not, and I'm quite certain, cure anything that is correlated to TP-Link backend.  Nor, BTW, will it reset lease time on DHCP.   Lease expiration/renewal is a client side process.  If you do see any changes it's a clear indicator there is a problem on your network.

DE, I'm not a Kasa shill so don't react to that - I'm just sharing how it works so you can discern valid hypothosis.

Was firmware updated?  I've been clear in this, and other, threads that I don't have much confidence in the wifi drivers in our switches.  Nor do I much care for the radio's they are using.  Helps make them inexpensive I suppose, but its a poor place to cut corners.   Yet mine are now stable (a relative term I grant you) and we're using the same drivers, so they aren't in and of themselves the one and only root (I suspect you have a number of problems making your life hard).

I'm also certain something corrupted the shitoly out of mine.   You may recall I've advocated restarting every switch.  Heck power off the circuit breakers,   Either way will force a Wifidriver reload of everything in your home,  Frankly, something someplace is NOT happy in your wifi environment and it's beyond the backend issues of TP-Link (I agree all not well there).

ICMP, ping to you, is a routable protocol but isn't likely being routed in your home.   Ergo those dropped pings are a layer 2 problem.  That sir, is your problem to find and probably to fix too.  

I'm not going to be on these threads much longer, but I will stick around a bit and help you through some of this if you'd like.   Or I can check out, your call.   Bottom line is going to be you need to get to dead stable ping response and quality signal level for each device before telling TP-Link they are the last of the problems.  I would start with making dead certain eveyrthing in your network was perfect and stable.  Regretably, "everything else seems to work fine" isn't conclusive.

BTW, there are lots of ways to make a wifi network "work".  There are much fewer to make one "really good".  I play from the "needs to be darn good" side of thats.

  @dafish I hear  you, it all points to my network - however all was good with this for a year since I started installing these devices when I acquired this house. 

And it only started happening a few weeks ago - coincidental with others who appear to be having same issue from that timeframe - and none of my other devices are having problems, just the TP-Link Kasa devices; so it does suggest something with the wifi on these devices.