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Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

I have a Plusnet Hub One which runs software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.263 (last updated 19/02/19). Although we’ve had the router for 3 years now without problems, recently I am having problems with devices failing to connect and / or losing the connection to it. The only recent change has been to add another 8 WiFi devices (since I’ve just set up multi-room audio) and so I wonder if I am now exceeding the limit for the box but I’m not really sure how to debug it...

The router is currently reporting 20 devices connected: 2 via ethernet and 18 via 2.4 GHz WiFi. I can’t quite square what is connected with what should be connected but if everything was on, we’d have the following:

  • Laptops × 2 (one connected twice when it sits in its docking station)
  • Tablets × 2
  • Mobile ’phones × 2
  • Smart TV × 1
  • Nest Smart Thermostat × 1
  • Google Home Devices × 9
  • WiWo Smart Plugs × 4 (one probably disconnected)
  • NAS × 1 (probably disconnected now)
  • Scanner × 1 (probably disconnected now)
  • Printer × 1 (probably disconnected now)

Current setup has most things connected to the router via. WiFi with only one ethernet socket being used. The only socket connection goes through a pair of TP-Link Powerline Adaptors that takes the connection through to an office which has a small 7-socket switch.

The only things that connect via. ethernet through the powerline adaptor are one laptop when docked; the scanner, printer and NAS. I did have a few more powerline adaptors going to various WiFi range extenders but I have removed these now in case they were causing problems.

I have split the WiFi, but beyond an initial connection from a laptop running linux which dropped after a few minutes, I cannot get anything to connect to 5GHz (trying reconnecting the Linux laptop; a Kindle Fire Tablet; a Samsung S8; and a MacBook Air). The problem that they all report is an “Authentication Error” or varient of the same.

The eight Google devices I recently added have been given IPs in a block from 192.168.1.109 to 192.168.1.116 so I presume I haven’t run out of IP addresses.

The problems I have is sometimes devices refuse to connect due to “Authentication Errors” (reported in various ways) or drop their connections. Looking at the error log, I get quite a lot of this sort of thing (here with Kindle Fire Tablet but, I think, it repeats for other devices).

21:54:44, 03 Jul. (691508.080000) Device connected: Hostname: amazon-[redacted-in-case-identifiable] IP: 192.168.1.86 MAC: 38:f7:3d:c8:51:b9 Lease time: 1440 min. Link rate: 39.0 Mbps

21:54:44, 03 Jul. (691508.000000) Lease requested

21:54:44, 03 Jul. ath00: STA 38:f7:3d:c8:51:b9 IEEE 802.11: Client associated

21:54:44, 03 Jul. ath10: STA 38:f7:3d:c8:51:b9 IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated

21:54:44, 03 Jul. ath10: STA 38:f7:3d:c8:51:b9 IEEE 802.11: Client associated

21:54:43, 03 Jul. ath00: STA 38:f7:3d:c8:51:b9 IEEE 802.11: Client disassociated

Can anyone suggest what might be happening / how I can find out what is happening / what I can do to sort it out? Do I need a better router than the Home Hub One if I want to run c. 24 devices?

Many thanks!

Jacob

22 REPLIES 22
dvorak
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Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?


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Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

Thank you very much!

Beyhive
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Posts: 722
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Registered: ‎25-02-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

Hi @Sarrusophone,

 

There isn't a limit to how many devices can be connected to the router however, the more devices you connect to the router the more interference you will get which would degrade the wireless performance.

 

Could you try factory resetting the router? This can be done by pressing a pin, cocktail stick etc.. into the "reset hole on the back of the router for 5-15 seconds. You should see the router reboot. Once complete allow up to 15 minutes for the service to reconnect then try connecting your devices.

 

If this does not work then it might be an issue with the router struggling to assign IP addresses.

 

Please let us know how it goes after factory resetting the router.

If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Faris
 Plusnet Help Team
Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

Thanks: I have factory reset the router and re-divided the WiFi. This time I can get things to connect to the 5 GHz (and have moved the devices closer to the router across to those frequencies). I will see whether that improves things and let you know.

RandallFlagg
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Posts: 1,915
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Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

 

Thanks for the update @Sarrusophone - let us know how you get on.

 

Best wishes

 

Dave

Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

The factory reset seemed to work until a couple of days ago (so for perhaps 4 or 5 days) but now I am experiencing the same problems.

 

In particular, since Tuesday (i.e. for the last 24 hours or so) no devices will connect to the split 5GHz WiFi. Also, I had two always-on devices next to the router which I had connected to the 5GHz network--a Nest Thermostat and a Chromecast Audio. They have both lost their connections and wouldn’t reconnect. They would happily connect to the 2.4GHz network when switched over.

 

Could anyone suggest how I might go about debugging what’s going wrong?

Gintas
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎19-05-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

You are not alone. My best guess it's problem how PN hub1 can't handle with 5Ghz wifi interference. Probably best solution buy proper wifi access point (like uap-ac-lite) and disable wifi on hub one. 

Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?


@Gintas wrote:

You are not alone. My best guess it's problem how PN hub1 can't handle with 5Ghz wifi interference. Probably best solution buy proper wifi access point (like uap-ac-lite) and disable wifi on hub one. 


Thanks for that. I didn’t initially realise that but it seems to me that the problem is a version of this one: “Hub One losing internet connection on 5Ghz WiFi only” . I presume that what was happening when I first noticed there was a problem was that devices were attempting to connect over 5Ghz and failing without trying the same SSID over 2.4Ghz (which would have worked).

 

Somewhat depressing that this appears to be a known problem since about April without resolution, though.

RandallFlagg
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Posts: 1,915
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Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

 

Hi @Sarrusophone

 

Does this occur irrespective of which wifi channel you have the 5ghz strand set to?

 

Best wishes

 

Dave

Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?


@RandallFlagg wrote:

 

Does this occur irrespective of which wifi channel you have the 5ghz strand set to?

The 5Ghz was set to Automatic / Smart Wireless and was defaulting to channel 42. There were two more access points in the 36-64 range (albeit at pretty low power: they wouldn’t show up as being available but were available when using a scanning app). I therefore tried to manually set it to channel 112 where I can’t see any other networks. I’m not sure if this was a good channel to aim for or not!

 

It took several goes to get this to work, with the router crashing. Once it did work, I could successfully connect. However, the router repeatedly crashed and rebooted itself every couple of minutes. As a result, I’ve factory-reset it again and disabled 5Ghz which at least allows me to connect but does not solve the 5Ghz problem.

RandallFlagg
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,915
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Registered: ‎11-01-2018

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

 

Thanks for letting me know.

 

Could you please re-enable the 5ghz thread and work through the remaining wifi channels to see if any of these work effectively without crashing the router?

 

Best wishes

 

Dave

Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?


@RandallFlagg wrote:

 

Could you please re-enable the 5ghz thread and work through the remaining wifi channels to see if any of these work effectively without crashing the router?

Apologies for the delay in replying. I was away for the weekend. I re-enabled 5Ghz and split it. I attempted to set the 5Ghz connection to channel 100. As previously, it took several goes, with the GUI becoming unresponsive and requiring to be turned off and on again. Eventually, it seemed to stablise and I could connect to the 5Ghz network. This worked for about 48 hours until last night when I noticed that my mobile phone was connected to the 5Ghz network but could not then connect to the Internet. On returning home today, I found that my mobile phone could not connect to the 5Ghz network and other devices set to connect to it (e.g. the Nest Themostat) were no longer connected. It also seemed to have reverted back to the default auto-channel-selection so I am not sure whether I did, in fact, connect to it when it was on channel 100.

 

I have therefore disabled and re-enabled the 5Ghz (keeping it split). I then tried channel 120. Despite being told in the GUI that “changes [are] applied”, I could not see the 5GHz SSID on any device. I suppose this may be related to the warning that is issued when you choose a channel >= 52. I therefore changed it to channel 36. Here I could connect to the 5GHz SSID (and the device shows up as being connected on the router homepage). However, as with last night, I could not then connect to the Internet. I have repeated the process with channels 52, which produces the same result as channel 120 (i.e. cannot see it); and 40, which produces the same result as 36 (can connect to it but no Internet Connection).

I’m happy to try further frequencies but since there are 16 options and it takes quite a long time both to change the frequency (with the lagging / crashing) and also some time for the problem to re-manifest itself, could you please give me a steer as to which ones you think are mostly likely to work or if there are any other solutions?

 

Thanks!

TheMightyAJ
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Posts: 2,511
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Registered: ‎26-03-2018

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?

Hi @Sarrusophone,

It's hard to say what channels would work better than others as it quite subjective based on the other wireless signals that are in your area. I'd recommend trying as many of the channels as possible over a set period of time to see which one works best for yourself.

If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Alex H
 Plusnet Help Team
Sarrusophone
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎03-07-2019

Re: Device Connection Problem (Authentication Errors etc.). Too Many Devices?


@TheMightyAJ wrote:

Hi @Sarrusophone,

It's hard to say what channels would work better than others as it quite subjective based on the other wireless signals that are in your area. I'd recommend trying as many of the channels as possible over a set period of time to see which one works best for yourself.


I’ve tried the following channels so far: 36, 40, 42, 52, 100 and 120. None of these work at all so it doesn’t seem to be a question of some working better than others (or really a question of subjectivity), but I will cycle through the rest when I get back home...