Troubleshooting problems with TPLink router

Lloyd · July 8, 2016

Hi All,

I'm having a few problems with a TP Link router located at a site I'm working at in Ethiopia. I opened a topic about the web connectivity issues I was having a couple of days ago, I've now managed to work around them by tethering my laptop to my phone.

However, various people here on the site with me are having intermittent issues with connecting to the TP Link router. Sometimes devices that had connected with no issues the previous day cannot connect the next day. The router is configured as an access point, presumably as part of a larger network as I can see the same SSID when I walk between different buildings over 100m apart.

Could this be a problem with how the router is assigns IPs to devices trying to connect to the network? Any help here would be most appreciated as there's really no IT guy to help out as were about an hour outside of Addis Ababa.

Thanks!

dzonidev · July 8, 2016

This is not an uncommon thing with TP-Link, most likely the configuration is screwing it up. This is a pretty broad question/problem and there is no straight answer. For example, I used a WR740 as an access point and it kept losing connectivity, turns out the Wireless mode setting was causing that.

Try playing around with the configuration and see if it gets better. If nothing helps you could flash all of them to DD-WRT if they are supported.

I would help more but you didn't exactly give us much to go on. A good start would be the model of the AP and a little more detail on how it's configured.

Lloyd · July 8, 2016

5 hours ago, dzonidev said:

This is not an uncommon thing with TP-Link, most likely the configuration is screwing it up. This is a pretty broad question/problem and there is no straight answer. For example, I used a WR740 as an access point and it kept losing connectivity, turns out the Wireless mode setting was causing that.

Try playing around with the configuration and see if it gets better. If nothing helps you could flash all of them to DD-WRT if they are supported.

I would help more but you didn't exactly give us much to go on. A good start would be the model of the AP and a little more detail on how it's configured.

Sorry about that

The router is a TL-WA901ND.

Operation Mode:	Access Point

Wireless Network Name:	(Also called the SSID)
Region:	United States
Warning:	Ensure you select a correct country to conform local law. Incorrect settings may cause interference.

Channel:	Auto
Mode:	11bgn mixed
Channel Width:	Auto

All Security Disabled

Wireless Mac Filtering Disabled

Operation Mode:	Access Point

Transmit Power:	High
Beacon Interval :	100 (40-1000)
RTS Threshold:	2346 (256-2346)
Fragmentation Threshold:	2346 (256-2346)
DTIM Interval:	1 (1-255)
	Enable WMM - Ticked
	Enable Short GI - Ticked
	Enable AP Isolation

What else might you need? There may be some info I cant give you as the router belongs to another company and was set up by them, but they aren't reachable.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

tewynkoop · July 8, 2016

2 hours ago, Lloyd said:

The router is a TL-WA901ND.

So I looked up the "router" and from what I found its actually AP. So what I think could be causing the problem for you is that the AP has a dynamic ip address and if the ip address on the AP changes from day to day it could be causing all issues on other wireless devices. So you might need to find the actual router and give the AP a static ip and confirm that the settings on the AP are correct.

Lloyd · July 9, 2016

16 hours ago, tewynkoop said:

So I looked up the "router" and from what I found its actually AP. So what I think could be causing the problem for you is that the AP has a dynamic ip address and if the ip address on the AP changes from day to day it could be causing all issues on other wireless devices. So you might need to find the actual router and give the AP a static ip and confirm that the settings on the AP are correct.

Cool, if that's the case then I'm scuppered. No idea where the router actually is and no clue as to who originally installed the network. They look fairly professional, some pro networking cabinets have been bolted to the wall but other than that it's all fairly standard so I don't know how clued up the person who installed it was.

Looks like we're all just going to have to sticking it out with the problems we've got. Been a whole set of new ones this morning, the whole site's been running off the emergency generator as the mains power from Addis is out.

Thanks for your help though!