Devolo Homeplug Issues

[Martynt74]

Just before christmas i bought 2 of the 500mps triple homeplugs and 2 of the 500mps mini plugs.

I plugged one of the minis into the router, and then 2 of the tripples into my boxee box and my sons pc (the other mini stayed unused)

At the weekend i built a new htpc and pulled out the spare devolo mini, plugged it into an extension and into the htpc. All worked fine and happily. Speeds were good and all was good and xbmc was flying.

Come to tonight and i did the same to change a few settings on the htpc upstairs but this time i got no connection. Windows 8 just told me i was connected to an unidentified network. I thought nothing of it and assumed it was due to the devolo being plugged into an extension and presumed the first time was a fluke.

Brought the htpc downstairs, plugged it into the devolo tripple down here and got the same error. Weird i thought and put it down to windows 8 being dodgy. However i then plugged my laptop into the same cable and got the same result. Went and plugged the laptop directly into the router and it worked fine.

I downloaded the Devolo software and its only picking up the Devolo mini plugged directly into the router. Looking at the lights on the others it seems the middle one is generally dull (i believe this relates to traffic) but the power and network ones are lit.

I assume therefore that the 2 devolo triples are creating a network amongst themselves but not seeing the homeplug connected to the router.

Does anyone know what i can do to reconnect them all? I've tried pressing the buttons on the homeplugs but i'm not too sure what to look out for and the instructions are pretty crap.

For reference the specs are

Router - Asus AC66U

HTPC - Intel i3 and onboard gigabit from an Asus P7H55

The only thing i can think i've changed recently is by upgrading the asus firmware from the normal 266 to the Merlin firmware but that was last thursday which was before i even built the htpc and things had been going well.

Any ideas?

 

[bremen1874]

Powerline adapters can just die. They can also decide to go to sleep for no obvious reason, and then be stubborn about waking up again.

If you just want to try reconnecting them I believe the procedure is to press and hold the button on the first adapter for a couple of seconds, and then repeat for the other adapters within two minutes.

I'd get all of the adapters into the same room and then plug the laptop into each one in turn and see what the Devolo utility has to say.

 

[Martynt74]

Oh thats quite annoying, i had read about reliability issues and had hoped going for the more expensive Devolo ones would be a little better. Seems odd for all 3 to go down simultaniously though isn't it?

When you say the first adaptor is that the one connected to the router? I think i may have done it the other way round and pressed it on the one connected to the htpc. Maybe it just needs a bit more playing with to get them working.

I'll get them all connected up close to each other tonight and see what happens.

 

[Martynt74]

Hmm maybe they are ballsed. I have a bank of 4 power sockets in the back room. Plugged all 4 into them and then connected my laptop to each one in turn and refreshed the app. All only showed the plug it was connected to.

Could it be that in my attempts to "sync" each plug in the last day or so i've accidentily "unsynced" them all so they're now operating independantly?

Any idea how to factory reset each plug as the troubleshooting within the Devolo software is useless and just seems to tell you not to plug them into an extension.

 

[bremen1874]

You'd have to be amazingly unlucky to kill them all.

I think the Devolo software will have an option to set the encryption key for the locally attached adapter. If you set them all to match they should be able to talk to each other.

Otherwise pressing and holding the buttons for 10-15 seconds should reset them to a random key. You can then try and resync them (one second press on each adapter's button within two minutes).

 

[PaulyD]

I had a similar problem with Zyxel ones. bought 2 twin packs. Cabled up the first lot (1 in router, 1 in switch upstairs in bedroom for NAS, Apple TV etc) and worked perfectly.

Put one of the other twin pack into the PC room and nothing, nada, didn't want to synch. Read through instructions and had to pair them up in the most convoluted manner, holding reset buttons and having 2 mins to pair up by holding reset buttons on the others.

Took a few tries before it finally worked and now all 3 see each other fine.

Not looking forward to adding the 4th if I ever have to