FINAL UPDATE W/ SOLUTION: It hadn’t dawned on me that my wifi extender could have been creating issues, until I realized that it was only pushing my guest SSID to devices at the far end of my home and outside. I literally unplugged it and all my IOT devices connected and have stayed connected! So, not a router issue, but the damn wifi extender! Thanks to everyone who gave their suggestions.
Details:
I’ve got a TP-Link AX5400 Wi-Fi 6 Router router set up with 2.4ghz, 5ghz primary SSID’s and a 2.4ghz guest network for my IOT devices. This has been the setup for a very long time, and I’ve got around 30 IOT devices connected to this guest network at any given time.
Last night, I noticed my doorbell cam wasn’t connected. After many failed attempts, it seems to ONLY want to connect to my normal 2.4ghz SSID and refuses to connect to the guest network. Even worse, the majority of my other IOT devices (wifi cameras, wifi thermometer, weather station, etc.) aren’t connecting to the guest network anymore, and I really (REALLLYYYY!) don’t want to have to re-pair them to my network (most are outdoors, and not easy to access).
At one point, a bunch of them were connected and I could livestream from nearly all my Reolink wifi cameras, but then they dropped connection and only one seems to still be working…
There have been no changed to my router, no new firmware, no settings changed, and no internet issues over the last many days/weeks, so this truly seems to have happened out of the blue.
Router reset has done nothing.
Anyone have any idea why they would refuse to connect to the guest network?
UPDATE: Several hours later and a few devices have come back online (on the guest network). Some are connecting and disconnecting still, but most are staying connected. I’ll probably end up manually re-pairing the bunch which aren’t automatically connecting and call it a day. Still not sure what caused this, but I really hope that’s the end of it, or else I’ll go to wired everything. LOL
Have you tried a tool like Wifi Analyzer to look at the per-channel bandwidth contention?
Yes, I did that early on as I thought there could be some conflict there, but I’ve got both bands on optimal channels and ruled that out.
Is someone by chance trying to break into your WiFi? Do you live in an apartment complex with dense living spaces?
Back when I cracked networks, one of the methods of gaining entry was known as a “deauth attack”. It deauthorized devices on a wifi network in an attempt to get them to auto-reconnect and capture the handshake.
Is someone by chance trying to break into your WiFi?
Anything is possible, but I see no evidence of this in my router logs.
Do you live in an apartment complex with dense living spaces?
Nope. Home surrounded by a few other homes. Most neighbours are at work and no sketchy vans parked outside. LOL
Back when I cracked networks, one of the methods of gaining entry was known as a “deauth attack”. It deauthorized devices on a wifi network in an attempt to get them to auto-reconnect and capture the handshake.
Interesting.
A few devices have come back online in the last few minutes, but at least 15 more haven’t. I’ve had single devices go offline every 6-9 months or so (outdoor cams, not close to the router), but nothing like this.
By any chance, do you know when you last updated the firmware on both the router and IOT devices? It’s shockingly easy for IOT devices to get hacked and very easy to mask the data passing through.
By any chance, do you know when you last updated the firmware on both the router and IOT devices?
The router’s last firmware update was in November, and I try to keep that up-to-date whenever I get a notification.
The IOT devices are a different story. Some basically don’t get updates, some get automatic updates, and some are manual. It must have been weeks since the last time I knowingly received a firmware update for any of those devices, but that’s not to say that they didn’t get one without me knowing.
The way I’ve isolated the IOT devices should minimize any chance of a rouge device getting hacked and doing any kind of damage. None of the IOT devices can see each other, and they are isolated from my main network. Basically, they have access to the internet to perform their functions, and that’s it.
Sounds like a decent network segmentation setup. U dought that its the IOT devices because you make it sound like theres multiple types of them, so I would consider looking at your router a bit more.
One thing you can do is use a phone hotspot for trouble shooting and built off of it.
What are OIT devices?
I think he’s dyslexia’d the term IOT
Corrected. IOT (internet of things) devices 😱
