Connectivity issues with BT Whole Home Wifi

itm

itm

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I have a BT Whole Home Wifi mesh network with 4 discs, in various locations of a 3-storey townhouse. All of the discs are connected to the main switch via ethernet. I am running software version 1.02.13 build07

Recently I have found that devices in one area of the house (in and around the hallway on the ground floor) are frequently dropping off the network. Some of them are also not reconnecting after a power cycle, or in one case suffering 50-75% packet loss after eventually reconnecting. The problem comes and goes - sometimes all of the devices maintain good, fast connectivity for many days. Sometimes devices will drop offline just before I go to bed, and then magically be re-connected in the morning.

I use static IP addresses a lot, and have checked for conflicts but can't find any. Where possible, I set the static IP address on the target device. Where this is not an option I use an address reservation on the router - a Netgear X4S R8700 which manages DHCP.

Apart from the physical location of the problem devices, I thought the other obvious common factor was that they all usually connect to the same BT Disc (on the floor above, but a very short distance from all of the devices on the floor below - maybe a maximum of 20 feet, and some as close as 8 feet (through a ceiling).

I have tried power cycling the BT disc in question but it didn't help. I have tried restarting the entire Whole Home Wifi system (from the web UI). That didn't help either. After power cycling the disc the only two devices which re-connected to it suffered severe connectivity issues - 50-100% packet loss. After an hour or so things were much better - no packet loss and ping response times <10ms.

The BT disc in question has never been physically relocated, and no new electronic devices have been introduced to the area near it. There's no obvious source of interference at the time that the problems occur.

Any ideas for how I can diagnose this further?
 
Have you asked BT? No idea about their discs, apart from reading a lot of issues with them.
I wasn't aware that there were a lot of issues with them (I bought them on the back of a very favourable review in a PC Pro group test a few years ago).

Any real-world recommendations for a decent mesh system from the 2023 product line-up?
 
If you already have ethernet running to each spot, then how about a few Unifi U6 lites? They support fast roaming if you need that "mesh" feature. Alternatively if you need something cheaper then TP-Link Deco works pretty well and also supports ethernet backhaul.

EDIT: Misread, is it only the main disc connected to the main switch via ethernet with the others wirelessly connecting to that?
 
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If you already have ethernet running to each spot, then how about a few Unifi U6 lites? They support fast roaming if you need that "mesh" feature. Alternatively if you need something cheaper then TP-Link Deco works pretty well and also supports ethernet backhaul.

EDIT: Misread, is it only the main disc connected to the main switch via ethernet with the others wirelessly connecting to that?
All four of the BT discs are connected via ethernet back to the main switch (no PoE, though)
 
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All four of the BT discs are connected via ethernet back to the main switch (no PoE, though)
In that case if budget allows, U6 lites with PoE injectors or a switch with PoE out. If not you can get a triple Deco X20 pack for less.

As for the actual issue, have you checked with a wifi analyser app to see if there's any neighbouring networks that could be congesting the channels the BT discs are using?
 
I've looked at a wifi analyser app while standing in the area where the problem devices are located. There seem to be two access points sitting in the same space in the channel spectrum:
- My own BT system, which has two SSID's - one for the LAN and one for the guest network (ASUS 2.4GHz and PRETTY_FLY_FOR_A_WIFI24)
- Another device with an id of NOVA_85A8.

If I look at their respective details in the AP list in the app, I see that all 4 of my APs' are CH36, whereas the NOVA_85A8 AP's are CH40. I'm not entirely sure what this means (i.e. CH40 vs the channel no. 6 which they appear to occupy in the first graph.
???
EDIT: Sorry I've just realised that the CH36/40 are for the 5GHz networks...so I switched my 2.4GHz BT Network to operate on CH11 (from CH6), and I see that the NOVA_85A8 network is also now using CH11. I guess it's channel-hopping?? In which case I have no idea how to avoid any potential interference/conflicts
???
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This seems to confirm that the NOVA AP is indeed hopping around between channels, so potentially causing interference with my own devices. Not sure what I can do about it, though, as I previously had my Wifi channel set to "automatic" and that didn't seem to be working very well
???
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Could that be a mesh being created between the BT discs even though they are wired?
I have no idea. I'd like to think that the system is smart enough to use an ethernet backhaul if all discs are cabled up?

BTW I've also sent a query to the BT support guys. No response yet....
 
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Not sure which setting you're referring to, but there's this one:
Disc Topology
Whole Home Wi-Fi automatically decides the best network topology based on signal strength. In some environments, other factors may result in better performance with a daisy chain topology.
You can use this setting to increase the likelihood a daisy chain is selected.

There are 2 options: Default, or "Prefer Daisy Chain". I've tried both in the last couple of days, but the problem didn't go away.
 
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