Last few days smart plugs go offline in the evening

[PaulB2005]

Seen a similar story here but not sure if its the same - https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Broadband-Landline/Phones-suddenly-dropping-off-the-Wi-Fi-why/td-p/162...

We have EE 1GB fibre BB with a Smart Hub SH32B (Model: F5394-P EE) and its been great for 18 months or so.

Suddenly in the last 4-5 days we've noticed in the evening many (not all) of our TP-Link smart plugs, smart bulbs and WiFi repeater in the house, go Offline.

The only thing that fixes it is to restart the hub and everything is back online until the following evening.

From the hub

App version: 3.14.5

Firmware version: r4.26.1-R-1860948-PROD-83002

Is there a possible issue with the hub / firmware?

Edit to add - 2 x iPhones, 1 x EE TV Pro box, 1 x iPad, 3 x Amazon Alexa's, 1 x dishwasher seemingly unaffected by this. Noticed today there is a 2.4 and 5Ghz Compatible Wi-Fi setting. Would I be right in thinking that switching on the 2.4 Comp and getting the affected devices onto that might help?

[JimM11]

@PaulB2005 With you on that if nothing else is connected on the WiFi with the _Ext Tp way off doing it, i always edit out that on Tp's to get seamless roaming, BUT it is broadcasting that ssid and if you are not using the PC just power it off JIC it's messing with the wifi..... Nothing is connected apart from your EE hub, it knows all about your Tp and how it's set....

Edit:- Your devices that are dropping off, do you happen to know which band they are attached to, was wondering if the unit was channel hopping about both the 2.4Ghz/5Ghz that the smart wireless is designed to do, but some devices just don't like that at times, especially on the 5Ghz, think my Plus when i had it stuck pretty rigid down on channel 36 and never once opened up to 160Mhz wide. My 2.4Ghz was fixed channel as the Hub allowed and if it did not i moved the other channels away so not to interfere...

[JimM11]

@Cliff_G Perfect, see your logical brain is working it all out, pity EE not on the same page but you never know....

[Cliff_G]

This morning's findings:

1. My phone, was on the Compatible wifi yesterday, turned off overnight, could not see either Main or Comp when turned on this morning (9 am)
2. My wife's phone (on Main) was just about hanging on to the wifi this morning but could not find the Comp network.
3. A 5 minute router power down again fixed everything
4. The log file contained nothing of interest. Only entries were devices connecting, and nothing at all between 9 pm last night and 8 am this morning

Conclusions

1. The factory reset did not cure the problem
2. The problem is limited to certain devices
3. Unclear if it is time of day or time since boot - but see 5.
4. The comp wifi did not help.
5. It looks to be time since boot, not time of day
6. Can't think of anything other than the firmware update

[Cliff_G]

@PaulB2005  Can I suggest when everything is up and working that you look through the protocol that each of your wifi devices that are connected to the EE hub are using, i.e. WPA2 or WPA3 etc., and which speed, 2.4 or 5 Ghz.  What would be interesting is to establish that it is repeatably only certain devices which drop off the wifi and what they are using as WPA version.

In my case it's not simply old age of the device. Our phones are roughly 3-4 years old, Android 11, but my tablet is an even more ancient Galaxy Tab S2 on Android 7 and has never dropped off the wifi.

[rhialto · Accepted solution]

All the devices (smart plug, cat feeder, LED lights, old printer) that lost connectivity in my environment were 2.4GHz, WPA2. As others have described, they went offline, I restarted the router, they came back. The next day, same process. Fortunately, for the last week, they have remained online without having to restart the router. The only change I made was to move the 2.4GHz channel from auto to 6.

[JimM11]

@Cliff_G Will say kind off going with you on point 5, your old phones will not be getting pushed updates at all, and the Other that @PaulB2005 is his IOT devices, hard to pin all those down, band specific, wireless securities, but let me throw this in for you, my Samsung A54 only mine wifes A32 was fine, never dropped off but the speed tanked, was an easy fix wireless on the mobile off/on couple seconds between when it happened, would have swore blind the wireless wifi was good signal wise, when it was down in speed it staid there forever, so sat the phone next to the hub, couple off day's no issues held it's own, started now moving about the home again and sure went back to tanking again so was wifi signal, added another Asus AP and NEVER had it once again, the mobiles are not chain linked to the Asus mesh as they are free to room everywhere home wise, three devices set that way 2 mobiles and the good lady's laptop and they need to be able to drift about the mesh nodes....

Next logical is reset the hub at a specific time, say 8am if up and about, see if the two devices can hold onto 8pm, so 12hours up. Same again 8pm and see if they get through to 8am in the morning.... 

[Cliff_G]

"The only change I made was to move the 2.4GHz channel from auto to 6."

Will try that. Seems only possible on the Main on 2.4 GHz, everything else here (Main 5 and Comp 2.4 and 5GHz) is fixed at Auto. Since that's how the problem phones connect, should provide extra troubleshooting info.

[PaulB2005]

Will do.

Oddly last night the usual suspects dropped off again but 60-90 minutes later they were all back on without me doing anything....

Next time I'll note the devices, channels and the encryption type.

[JimM11]

@PaulB2005 @Cliff_G @rhialto Could be the possible cause with the smart channel auto hopping, or just getting confused when set to smart channel auto operation! 2.4Ghz was allowed at one time to be fixed to the desired channel especially on the main, never used the comp mode as had NO need when it was introduced, the 5Ghz was not allowed to be fixed only Auto but you never no until tried with the new FW may have been something that was changed by EE... Good shout @rhialto 

[PaulB2005]

 @Cliff_G @rhialto

Could be the possible cause with the smart channel auto hopping,

About an hour ago, 5 devices went offline.

When I logged into the EE Hub on the PC, it showed 15 devices connected. The ones that were offline were not listed.

The Wi-Fi repeater that i use as an access point only had the 5 ghz connection and the 2.4 ghz connection was set to an IP address of 0.0.0.0

As the offline devices were missing there was no way get the encryption type etc so i just clicked about until i was looking at the Channels.

2.4 ghz was set up Smart (Channel 11) and 5 ghz was set to Smart (Channel 36)

I rescanned the 2.4 ghz channel and it went to Channel 1 and suddenly the hub was showing 20 devices connected and all the offline devices were online again.

So somewhere in all this, it looks like the issue is to do with the 2.4ghz channel automatically rescanning.

I've set 2.4ghz to Channel 1 with Smart off for now and will see how it goes.

Not sure what, if anything this tells us..... 😕