Problem with Ubiquiti Unifi WAP Network and TalkTalk

cgclassics · 3 Jan 2023 at 09:09

I am a non-IT home network user for my non-IT related home usage. I have TalkTalk FTTC with a TT Router Huawei DG8041W-2.T5. I bought 5 Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR UniFi AC1300 LR Cloud Managed Access Points w/ 3-Year Hosted Cloud Controller Service from Broadbandbuyer. They set up the cloud controller for me and all seemed fine. I used to get messages whenever an AP went down (for example if I turned off the power to one of them), but those stopped coming a while back - not sure why. The rest of my network is a single LAN cable from the router to an HP unmanaged switch and a combination of hardwired connected things and those that are wirelessly connected to the Ubiquiti APs. All works fine except that every couple of weeks or so, the network seems to drop and I start having connectivity issues with equipment. That gets worse until I do a whole house reboot, then everything is fine for a couple of weeks. I have tried just rebooting the router, just rebooting the APs and just rebooting the network switch, but basically I have to turn everything off and restart. I was using DHCP for everything to assign IP addresses, but have since tried by fixing the IP address of the APs and reserving those in the router.

The problem really goes beyond the little that I know so if there are any good suggestions what this might be, I would be grateful to hear them. Also I have the 3 year cloud hosted controller, but do I actually need that. Another non-IT friend set his Ubiquity Unifi APs up and said he didn't bother with a cloud controller. Just wondering if there is something with the cloud controller that causes issues with the combination with the TT router or router firewall.

Thanks

jfish · 3 Jan 2023 at 16:45

When this issue occur can you collect log files from the devices or login to the device via SSH or console cable and view logs on the devices, ideally I would get a Wireshark trace file from a client to see whats happening with the network packets.

cgclassics · 3 Jan 2023 at 17:23

jfish said:
When this issue occur can you collect log files from the devices or login to the device via SSH or console cable and view logs on the devices, ideally I would get a Wireshark trace file from a client to see whats happening with the network packets.

Thanks for the reply - unfortunately its a bit over my head (I'm limited IT knowledge). When the network goes down as described, above I seem to get some devices acting as if not on the network, others are OK, but eventually more go down. This includes both wirelss and wired devices. Sky TV boxes go down - they are wired (and not on their own Sky mesh which is deactivated), PC is wired and loses connectivity to the internet and mobiles running wireless may or may not go down.

I have previously swapped out the unmanaged switch (which was a TP-Link to a new HP one), and swapped one TalkTalk Sagem Super router for another TalkTalk slightly lower spec Huawei router (the one indicated above). Neither of those has fixed the problem, but in that it manifests itself for things hard wired directly to the router via the switch which aren't going through the Ubiquiti WiFi APs, as well as things which do go through those, I can't find a common thread here to go after. I can't help feeling that it is some interaction between the TalkTalk router and the Ubiquity system, but I can't just disconnect the WiFi and run wired as I have all sorts of wifi stuff running with property alarm, cctv etc. I also have about 6 or 7 SONOS systems on the network which also mesh with each other.

If you had a layman's exolanation of what I could simply do to get the information that you refer to I'm happy to try.

Thanks

WJA96 · 3 Jan 2023 at 19:18

Firstly, I would get off the BBB cloud hosted service. It’s poor and it’s just a way to trap you into using them on an ongoing basis.

You can do the same thing from a mobile phone app these days.

The fact that the same thing happens every 2 weeks or so says to me it could be a DHCP issue if the IP address leases are roughly two weeks long. Those IP addresses are released and re-assigned when their lease time expires. This could be 2 weeks.

The DHCP server on your router tells all the devices what their unique IP address is. And when you get multiple DHCP servers on the same network, you get exactly the symptoms you describe.

Could you possibly draw out a rough diagram of all the devices on your network please?

cgclassics · 3 Jan 2023 at 20:15

WJA96 said:
Firstly, I would get off the BBB cloud hosted service. It’s poor and it’s just a way to trap you into using them on an ongoing basis.

You can do the same thing from a mobile phone app these days.

The fact that the same thing happens every 2 weeks or so says to me it could be a DHCP issue if the IP address leases are roughly two weeks long. Those IP addresses are released and re-assigned when their lease time expires. This could be 2 weeks.

The DHCP server on your router tells all the devices what their unique IP address is. And when you get multiple DHCP servers on the same network, you get exactly the symptoms you describe.

Could you possibly draw out a rough diagram of all the devices on your network please?

Thanks for your response. A couple of immediate things - do you have a suggestion of a suitable controller app (and ideally an idiots guide on how to migrate off the BBB hosted cloud controller) that I could use to get away from the BBB version? My free period is nearly up anyway and I would like to avoid a subscription going forward. If you know of a good app that would be great. The units are 5 x UAP-AC-LR UniFi AC1300 Unifi.

I will draw out a rough diagram and post here hopefully tomorrow. however, I have the TT router which is DHCP but nothing else, unless the CCTV camera system and recorder that is in the network can act as a DHCP server??? The security company says they gave all cameras a static IP, but that's the only thing I can think of.

I had thought about the DHCP lease time on the router and indeed I gave a few things fixed IP addresses and reserved them (specifically the Sky boxes and the Unifi WAPs), but I just checked on the router settings page and the lease time for IP addresses is only set to 1 day.

WJA96 · 4 Jan 2023 at 10:23

So you'd need to download the Unifi app and set up a new Unifi account. You'll need to set up a network and name the Wireless LAN (use the same SSID name and password as now so you don't have to redo all your wireless devices). Then log into your BBB control panel and one by one forget the access points and readopt them onto your new Unifi account. Don't do them all at once or you'll lose your network connection over WLAN.

cgclassics · 4 Jan 2023 at 11:04

Perfect thanks have been looking at it overnight as well and all done. So now I am completely off of the BBB hosted service and using the Unifi Network app on my mobile phone. I thing done! I've raised a query with my security camera company - they say they give fixed IP addresses with high numbers to the cameras and haven't seen an issue, but they can also take a look to check that we don't have two things trying to act as a DHCP server.

WJA96 · 4 Jan 2023 at 11:43

You might be shocked at what can act as a DHCP server. Dahua video doorbells can be DHCP and SIP servers and they’re switched on by default. It’s bonkers.