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  • Author Author: neilk
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Unintended Consequences........

neilk

Just before Christmas last year, my ISP offered me a deal whereby I could have my broadband connection upgraded to twice the speed and actually pay a little bit less, provided I signed up for another 18 months contract. The deal also included a new router. I have been satisfied with my ISP and the price was competitive so I signed up,

 

The router arrived, the switch over occurred and my desk top PC (cable connected) was back online and looking good almost immediately. I then went through the process of reconnecting both laptops and the wireless printer to the new SSID. I then brought the ESP8266 greenhouse monitor inside so that I could update the firmware via a cable connection - can't do OTA updates if the device can't connect to the network! Finally, I reconnected the Humax hard drive video recorder to the new SSID (we don't have a SMART TV).

 

Then the trouble started: my wife's laptop periodically refused to connect to the WiFi, or would drop out whilst she was using it and refuse to re-connect, although mine was OK. The only fix seemed to be to disable and then re-enable the WiFi adapter and then reboot the laptop. Strangely, after a few weeks, this behaviour stopped! Then the Humax video recorder started to regularly disconnect from the network, - every hour or so - flashing a message up on the TV screen to tell us and then re-connecting after a few seconds, flashing another message on the screen!! Although annoying, this was not a big problem, because we rarely streamed content from the Internet.

 

However......... In these extremely difficult times of enforced stay at home, we decided it would be good to be able to access streaming content. So we did, and it was very inconvenient when the recorder disconnected from the network in the middle of a film! I did some Googling and found a suggestion that certain models of Humax recorders don't like to connect to an SSID with a long name. Easy peasy - I logged onto the router, changed the SSID and password and then reconnected the Humax. By this time it was 9:30pm. We didn't stay around long enough to see if this had fixed the problem with the Humax.

 

The next morning, I sorted out the laptops again and then the printer. My brain obviously wasn't working properly, because I then logged on to my server to check the overnight temperatures in the greenhouse. It took me several minutes to realise that logging had stopped at about 9:20pm when I changed the SSID!

 

Out to the greenhouse, disconnect the unit, back inside and connect the unit to my PC and upload an updated firmware image. Check that it's connecting to the network and logging OK, and then back out to the greenhouse. Strange, it's not logging anymore. Back out to the greenhouse; watch it for a while, waiting for the blue LED to flash when it logs - it doesn't.......I wonder if the battery is flat? It shouldn't be!

 

Back to my desk, grab the phone powerpack, back out the greenhouse; plug it in and see the blue LED flash almost immediately! back to my desk and check it's logging. Yes!!

 

Thinking it through, even though the battery had several days of life left in it, when the unit failed to connect to the network at about 9:20pm, it just kept on trying and trying and failing  Connecting to the network and logging are the heaviest drain on power, so it's only to be expected that the remaining life in the battery drained away between 9:20pm and about 11:30am the following day!

 

To add insult to injury, the Humax recorder continues to regularly disconnect from the network and then reconnect!!! I have no idea why!

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  • in reply to Fred27

    The directly connected PC AND the WiFi connected laptops AND the WiFi printer abd the WiFi connected ESP8266s are all OK.(now). It's only the damned Humax recorder giving a problem. Shortening the SSID did nothing except cause me a lot of grief!!

     

    I had thought about trying to use the old router to deliver the WiFi, but have come up with another solution: access streaming media content on my Laptop and cast it to a Chromecast plugged into the TV - works perfectly.

     

    Thanks for the suggestion. I will still research the Humax problem

  • in reply to neilk

    You may find it’s related to the channel that the signal is broadcast from the router.  They’re often set to auto by default, and you say it’s a new router, but you might get better luck changing it to something specific - I tend to pick low, odd numbers.  When my neighbours started getting BT hubs it caused lots of issues.  I swear those things could broadcast to the moon!  Changing the broadcast channel for 2.4Ghz worked for me and I bet your Humax uses that band where as your pcs and the like use 5Ghz.

  • in reply to Fred27

    Hi the weather stopped my gardening yesterday so I decided to try your suggestion. Seemed to work brilliantly until bedtime, when I turned off my PC - there was a shout from my wife - "Network disconnected".

     

    Thinks.............ah! I powered the old router from the dis board that gets switched off at night!!!!!!!!

     

    Plugged it into an outlet that stays on....."Network Connected"

     

    But.............this morning..............."Network disconnected" and won't reconnect!!!!!!!!!!!!

     

    Did a bit more peering at screens and thinking...

     

    When I look at the available networks in the Humax config screen, the new router appears twice. I had been selecting the first occurrence; the new router operates on 2.5Mhz and 5 Mhz bands; the selected network was the 5Mhz band - strongest signal. I have now connected to the 2.5Mhz offering and we'll see what happens!

  • in reply to Andrew J

    Hi   thanks for that suggestion please see my reply to fred, above

  • in reply to neilk

    Latest Update - connecting to the 2.5Mhz band didn't solve the problem!

     

    I have now disabled the use of DHCP on the Humax and assigned it a fixed IP address. I have also reserved that IP address on the router. Still connected to the 2.5Mhz band

     

    See what happens next!

     

    Surely, this is mass market consumer kit......I shouldn't need to do this!!!