*** Official Ubiquiti Discussion Thread ***

Hi guys, need a hand from the unifi experts.

We have a site with 15 APs, we use a controller hosted remotely.

Yesterday I went to update the APs one by one and all worked apart from one (AC-Pro).

It went into "disconnected" and stayed there.

I am on a server on said site and can ping this AP and Chrome Discovery Tool finds it and is set to "Managed/Adopted".

When I click on "Action" to factory reset or do anything it is not accepting the site SSH password (from Settings>Site>Device Authentication)

Discovery Tool shows:

Status Managed/Adopted

Model: UniFi AP-AC-Pro

Version: 4.0.21.9965

Extra info: Controller 6.0.28

Is there anyway I can sort this remotely or will it need me to go to site and factory reset it in person?

Ive tried to find the Switch port that the AP is connected to as i thought it maybe PoE but unable to find it so i think this AP is using an injector.

Thanks
 
Hi all, I’m looking for a bit of advice please as I’m a little bit rusty on this!

Basically the WiFi in the house is terrible and most of the family have suffered with it for years. Now that we have just had a new kitchen and I’m slowly bringing everyone into the 21st century I’ve decided it’s time to sort this out.

As things stand we are with BT so have the home hub and an FTTC connection. When full fibre is eventually here we will move to that but in the meantime we might also move ISP so the home hub isn’t guaranteed. I guess this doesn’t matter as the wifi would be disabled on this anyway?

I have been looking at WiFi mesh systems for a while but reviews are mixed and now that WiFi 6 is here I’m struggling to bite the bullet. As a result I’m not convinced this is the best solution so that’s why I’m here now.

We have a 1930’s house with a ground floor of about 200sqm. There are two floors in total, 4 bedrooms and network devices in most rooms. I do have cat6 run in between upstairs and downstairs hence why I’m thinking the AP approach might be better.

I would appreciate any suggestions at all. Is Ubiquiti a better option? Which model? How many? Etc.

Cheers!
 
If you have a cable then an access point is probably the best solution. As for which one, it really comes down to how much data you want to move at what speeds and particularly where you want to mount that access point. And no, you wouldn't necessarily turn off your existing wireless LAN.

Most of the saucer shaped access points only really work properly when mounted on the ceiling. They make specific units for wall mounting and there is also a free-standing access point. For ceiling mounted I would suggest UAP-HDNano. For wall mounting it would be UAP-HD-IW and for free standing or specific wall mounting scenarios I would suggest UAP-HDFlex. They're all in the £150-ish area cost wise. They'll all give you WiFi5 Wave2 spec so 4x4 5GHz traffic will be doing nearly 600Mbps under optimum conditions and you should see 300Mbps as a reasonable average. If you don't want to spend that much then For £80-ish there is the AP-AC-Lite which is the entry-level unit but it's 2x2 which will be fine for most clients and you should see 250Mbps+ in most use cases.

The Unifi WiFi6 access points have only just been launched so they are not freely available but supply will free up in Q1 of 2021 if you don't mind waiting a few months. The philosophy behind Unifi isn't like a lot of other networking devices. It's supposedly a software defined network (not really true) but ultimately all the devices are dependent on getting their initial programming from a central controller program. That can be hosted almost anywhere (Ubiquiti sell the Unifi Cloud Key to do this for you) and you tell the controller what you want the network to do and the controller programs all the devices for you. It's great if you have lots of devices but a bit pointless in most home networks.

You might want to also look at TP-Link Omada EAP-245 which I haven't used personally but which a lot of people on here rate very highly. It's a similar system but cheaper.
 
lmfy2k said:
Hi guys, need a hand from the unifi experts.

We have a site with 15 APs, we use a controller hosted remotely.

Yesterday I went to update the APs one by one and all worked apart from one (AC-Pro).

It went into "disconnected" and stayed there.

I am on a server on said site and can ping this AP and Chrome Discovery Tool finds it and is set to "Managed/Adopted".

When I click on "Action" to factory reset or do anything it is not accepting the site SSH password (from Settings>Site>Device Authentication)

Discovery Tool shows:

Status Managed/Adopted

Model: UniFi AP-AC-Pro

Version: 4.0.21.9965

Extra info: Controller 6.0.28

Is there anyway I can sort this remotely or will it need me to go to site and factory reset it in person?

Ive tried to find the Switch port that the AP is connected to as i thought it maybe PoE but unable to find it so i think this AP is using an injector.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I assume you've power-cycled the device REPEATEDLY (at least 3 times) and it's still no-joy? If it's not allowing you to SSH in then yes, forget the device on your controller and physically factory reset it and try to readopt it. It's not unheard of for devices to be bricked when having firmware updates.

Have you tried to SSH in using UBNT/UBNT as password and username? That quite often works.
 
lmfy2k said:
Hi guys, need a hand from the unifi experts.

We have a site with 15 APs, we use a controller hosted remotely.

Yesterday I went to update the APs one by one and all worked apart from one (AC-Pro).

It went into "disconnected" and stayed there.

I am on a server on said site and can ping this AP and Chrome Discovery Tool finds it and is set to "Managed/Adopted".

When I click on "Action" to factory reset or do anything it is not accepting the site SSH password (from Settings>Site>Device Authentication)

Discovery Tool shows:

Status Managed/Adopted

Model: UniFi AP-AC-Pro

Version: 4.0.21.9965

Extra info: Controller 6.0.28

Is there anyway I can sort this remotely or will it need me to go to site and factory reset it in person?

Ive tried to find the Switch port that the AP is connected to as i thought it maybe PoE but unable to find it so i think this AP is using an injector.

Thanks
Click to expand...

It's odd that the SSH credentials aren't working. Can you try ubnt/ubnt and see if that works? Seems unlikely but it's worth a shot. Did you actually try to SSH in though or were the authentication failures from the Discovery Tool?

If it isn't getting power from a PoE port then without physical access (either you or someone that's already on site) I can't see how it can be power cycled. You'll probably find that even though the AP is disconnected from the controller it's still working fine apart from that so there's no need to rush to site to fix it.
 
WJA96 said:
If you have a cable then an access point is probably the best solution. As for which one, it really comes down to how much data you want to move at what speeds and particularly where you want to mount that access point. And no, you wouldn't necessarily turn off your existing wireless LAN.

Most of the saucer shaped access points only really work properly when mounted on the ceiling. They make specific units for wall mounting and there is also a free-standing access point. For ceiling mounted I would suggest UAP-HDNano. For wall mounting it would be UAP-HD-IW and for free standing or specific wall mounting scenarios I would suggest UAP-HDFlex. They're all in the £150-ish area cost wise. They'll all give you WiFi5 Wave2 spec so 4x4 5GHz traffic will be doing nearly 600Mbps under optimum conditions and you should see 300Mbps as a reasonable average. If you don't want to spend that much then For £80-ish there is the AP-AC-Lite which is the entry-level unit but it's 2x2 which will be fine for most clients and you should see 250Mbps+ in most use cases.

The Unifi WiFi6 access points have only just been launched so they are not freely available but supply will free up in Q1 of 2021 if you don't mind waiting a few months. The philosophy behind Unifi isn't like a lot of other networking devices. It's supposedly a software defined network (not really true) but ultimately all the devices are dependent on getting their initial programming from a central controller program. That can be hosted almost anywhere (Ubiquiti sell the Unifi Cloud Key to do this for you) and you tell the controller what you want the network to do and the controller programs all the devices for you. It's great if you have lots of devices but a bit pointless in most home networks.

You might want to also look at TP-Link Omada EAP-245 which I haven't used personally but which a lot of people on here rate very highly. It's a similar system but cheaper.
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to provide such a comprehensive response! :)

I think I still want WiFi 6 as otherwise I'm investing in old technology and I like the sound of some of the improvements that it brings. Would my best option be to wait then based on what you have said? I can see that there is a Lite and an LR variant on their website now for preorder. Which model would you recommend? How many would I need and do I keep WiFi going on the ISP router?

Also interesting point regarding wall and ceiling mounted. I guess it will say in the specs whether the WiFi 6 models are ceiling/wall mounted but certainly something worth thinking about!
 
There are people (ahem!) who will make you a floorstand for your access point so it's just like ceiling mounted. Even if no-one backed their kickstarter project :(
 
And I would just get the UAP6-Lite at the moment. The LR isn't quite what it should be and can't actually run at the claimed throughput.
 
WJA96 said:
I assume you've power-cycled the device REPEATEDLY (at least 3 times) and it's still no-joy? If it's not allowing you to SSH in then yes, forget the device on your controller and physically factory reset it and try to readopt it. It's not unheard of for devices to be bricked when having firmware updates.

Have you tried to SSH in using UBNT/UBNT as password and username? That quite often works.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Ive not rebooted the AP yet. ive tied to find the port on the PoE switch so I can turn PoE off and on to give it a reboot but was unable to find it. Tried ubnt/ubnt too

the-evaluator said:
It's odd that the SSH credentials aren't working. Can you try ubnt/ubnt and see if that works? Seems unlikely but it's worth a shot. Did you actually try to SSH in though or were the authentication failures from the Discovery Tool?


If it isn't getting power from a PoE port then without physical access (either you or someone that's already on site) I can't see how it can be power cycled. You'll probably find that even though the AP is disconnected from the controller it's still working fine apart from that so there's no need to rush to site to fix it.
Click to expand...

Tried ubnt/ubnt to no avail, yep tried SSH through putty and to confirm the creds i ssh onto another AP on site which worked.

Ahh thats a good point about it still working.

il arrange a site visit

thanks guys!
 
Possibly a little coverage and the theoretical possibility of running 4x4 WiFi6 because it has the antennae and the chipset but only a 1GbE network uplink connection. Wait for the Pro or the HD which should have 2.5GbE Ethernet built in and will therefore run at the maximum rate the chipset can handle.
 
I note one of the SFP ports on the UDM Pro is labled for WAN... can this be used as an uplink to another switch?

Nevermind had a bit of a read up and seems I am not the only person asking for this!
 
Last edited:
blairw said:
I note one of the SFP ports on the UDM Pro is labled for WAN... can this be used as an uplink to another switch?

Nevermind had a bit of a read up and seems I am not the only person asking for this!
Click to expand...

No, it can't and it won't ever be possible because of how the UDM Pro is constructed. Be aware that the 'switch' ports are actually two sets of bridged ports and all traffic on the 'switch' actually passes through the CPU and if you have LOTS of switch traffic on the UDM it will basically slow down radically. It is not a good idea to use these ports for local LAN switched traffic and you should instead uplink to a proper switch.
 
WJA96 said:
No, it can't and it won't ever be possible because of how the UDM Pro is constructed. Be aware that the 'switch' ports are actually two sets of bridged ports and all traffic on the 'switch' actually passes through the CPU and if you have LOTS of switch traffic on the UDM it will basically slow down radically. It is not a good idea to use these ports for local LAN switched traffic and you should instead uplink to a proper switch.
Click to expand...

Yeah doing a bit of reading at the moment - it's deffo not a now issue but something to consider in the future as I look to bring 10gb connectivity across the network, may require a rethink on some of my existing kit
 
Then you can use the 10GbE ports to uplink to a US-16-XG or a USW-Aggregation Pro when it finally goes general access.
 
A little advice needed. My sister-in-law and her husband are moving into their new house and poor sods are having to downgrade from Virgin (unsure of speed but must be at least 100Mbps) to a lowly 60-70Mbps, even worse the husband recorded 1Mbps on 4G right outside the house.

They have asked me to sort out their home network :o:p, consistent coverage is the key for the new house. The husband bought a Unifi AP a while back but like my first attempt, hasn't set it up in the most optimal way (all tucked away in a corner with their current SH3). Considering they just bought a house, I don't want to suggest buying even more equipment and between us - we have 3 Unifi APs (their one, forget what it is and I have a spare LR and AC Lite). The BT connection in the new house will come into the living room on the ground floor, and I am guessing the easiest solution is to simply wire up an AP or two from the BT router? There's a hallway and staircase that joins the ground floor rooms that looks like a good spot and/or somewhere in the middle of the 1st floor. He doesn't need a 24/7 controller so can just use the phone app to set up. Anything else I've not considered/tips? Thanks :).
 
doodah said:
A little advice needed. My sister-in-law and her husband are moving into their new house and poor sods are having to downgrade from Virgin (unsure of speed but must be at least 100Mbps) to a lowly 60-70Mbps, even worse the husband recorded 1Mbps on 4G right outside the house.
Click to expand...
I’d call that an upgrade.
 
doodah said:
A little advice needed. My sister-in-law and her husband are moving into their new house and poor sods are having to downgrade from Virgin (unsure of speed but must be at least 100Mbps) to a lowly 60-70Mbps, even worse the husband recorded 1Mbps on 4G right outside the house.
Click to expand...

If I were to run a speed test right now I'd get about 32-34Mbps. Tell them to pipe down :p
 
Haha I am sure they will manage fine, I keep telling him "wherever you can, wire up". Just wired up my main rig upstairs (for VR) and it's so much better not having to deal with any of the flakiness of WiFi. Plus it only helps me up my trunking game ;).
 
doodah said:
Haha I am sure they will manage fine, I keep telling him "wherever you can, wire up". Just wired up my main rig upstairs (for VR) and it's so much better not having to deal with any of the flakiness of WiFi. Plus it only helps me up my trunking game ;).
Click to expand...
If it’s a fairly Morden house, that single AP will do the job when mounted to the landing ceiling. Easiest way is to run a cable back out and up the outside of the house into the attic. Job jobbed. :p
 
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