EE Smart Hub Plus Wifi Instability

[BlockyMan]

Are there any known problems with the EE smart hub wifi?  Since joining EE I've noticed that the 5 ghz connection becomes unstable and after a while the 5 ghz network becomes unstable and my devices have periodic disconnects.  I can see on my PC that  I'm getting a lot of Event ID 5002 and 5005 errors during the connectivity issues.  I've found that if I factory reset the hub the problems go away but but they'll eventually return and I'll have to start again.  I've done the usual trouble shooting and I've made sure we're using a clear channel etc.  I've never had these issues before and if I connect my devices to my separate access point the issues dont occur so I'm fairly sure its something to do with he EE hub.

Does anyone know what's going on here?

[JimM11]

@BlockyMan Cannot say that i have seen any issues what so ever with the wi-fi bands. Had been monitoring the hub over the last 43 days but FW update wiped and reset 4am this morning. Have noticed that some devices do struggle to maintain link on the 5ghz band and jump back to 2.4ghz, one stubborn laptop will not connect until wi-fi disconnect/reconnect not pinned that down yet. Would take a look at the advanced event log, you will have to find your pc mac address, and see if the log is showing multiples of a mac struggling on the connection and may be causing a problem, what frequency band does your 5Ghz settle on in the EE router, only other suggestions you may have to adjust 5Ghz band wap or mode, suspect that more likely device slight compatibility issues with the EE router operation. When you say devices, do you mean all devices become unstable on the 5Ghz band if you could possibly clear that up?

[BlockyMan]

So as for disconnections most devices seem to become unstable including my desktop PC, a kindle tablet, a lenovo tablet and the TV (samsung) .  Strangely my phone and laptop seem to be OK though.  The router is on 5 ghz channel 100 and 2.4 ghz is disabled.

I'll test this a bit more today but the thing that seems to start the instability is going through the steps on the EE mobile app to set up management of the router.  There's a step that's related to connecting other devices to the router (even though they're already connected) and when I go through that step the instability starts.  At the moment the app won't connect to the router because I reset the router last night so I'll reset the app and reconnect it to the router and I highly suspect the instability will return if I do that.

As for the logs the routers logs don't show much but there are plenty of errors showing on my desktop PC and TV.  Logs on the other devices aren't available.

[JimM11]

@BlockyMan  Just so you know, with Wi-Fi 6 it is not a good idea to turn the 2.4ghz off, as this method is used in control for this version of AX only, that is why manufactures are stopping customers from splitting the bands with different names. It may be an idea to turn it on at the router to see if you have a more stable router. If it is so and you do not have any client devices that are using wi-fi 6 there is an option to put the router to wi-fi 5 mode, and this does not rely on the 2.4ghz signal. There is an EE problem just now with the App on the broadband connection, just started today and also FW updated on the router for me, but as my app was ok before this, think its more at the EE end of things currently.

[BlockyMan]

I don't want the router to put more congestion in the 2.4 ghz band as its very crowded around here and I have an access point on 2.4 ghz that I use for low bandwidth devices and ones where I need the extended range (eg my Ring cameras).  Unfortunately the router hasn't got the range to reach these devices itself.

[JimM11]

@BlockyMan Then go into the router and set wi-fi 5 compatibility mode to see if your router is more stable, AX mode of operation is different than the earlier modes...

[BlockyMan]

I'm after the fastest possible link for my gaming PC so instead of using compatibility mode I'll move any devices that cant support ax to the access point and see how that goes.

[JimM11]

@BlockyMan If you are gaming, you really should be on Ethernet. 

[BlockyMan]

Yeah I suppose that would be ideal but the cable run to my PC is a bit difficult and I wouldn't be able to hide it to the wife's satisfaction.  Anyway the Wi-Fi is very good when it works and can give single digit pings with 0 jitter.

[JimM11]

@BlockyManSure know how that goes, keep at it, wi-fi can be a pain at times and the router is not the easiest to find out what's going on with it.👍