MC888 Disconnection Issues

[thearea]

Hi, hopefully someone is able to shed some light….and able to help? I’ve put a couple of posts up reaching out but am pulling my hair out as I work away from home and my wife keeps telling me that the internet has gone down (again). It was getting better after I made a short visit home to alter a couple of settings and change the Ethernet cable to a short cat 6, but alas, last night after a couple of good days, it all went down again. Each time, my wife has to unplug hub and all Orbis then plug everything back in sequence.
 
Background: I’m getting a decent 5G signal on the hub. I’ve switched WiFi off and set the hub to bridge mode. We have an old house with very thick walls so we’re using an Orbi RBK753 (router and 3 satellites). Even when the Orbi goes down, the signal on the hub still shows as strong. Problem is that once it’s gone down, a lot of connected devices won’t reconnect. The Orbi is set to AP. Any help or pointers would be massively appreciated. 

@JonathanB is this anything you could possibly help with? Will the MC888 work better with another mesh system? Have I got settings correct (in theory) on the hub? 

Thanks again. 

[thearea]

As an additional, the Orbi system worked faultlessly with our previous ISP. Was just tempted by the 5G signal at home. 

[JonathanB]

Hi @thearea,

I'm sorry to hear about all the trouble you're having with this.

I can't recommend 3rd party hardware, but I have heard that our tech teams did test our Broadband equipment with Eero devices successfully in the past. 

It's not came up for a while, but we did have some odd issues with a past router which were fixed by setting a manual APN profile. You might have seen this mentioned on other threads, but I'd recommend having a check in your router admin for the APN settings. Set the APN to 3internet and there should be an option to set this to IPv4 or IPv4 only which may also help with this.

The thread predates us stocking the MC888 but I believe you may find some more info about setting a manual APN in this thread FYI : IPv6 Prevented VPN Connection 

Also although you've got the Wi-Fi turned off, I wonder if the info here will help:ZTE MC888 Ethernet ports random disconnections and dropped packets. 

A few community members have recently confirmed that when they pop into the advanced Wi-Fi settings and set the Wi-Fi coverage to "short", this has helped with some device disconnection issues. As you're not actually using the router's Wi-Fi I'd say that this change is certainly worth trying.

Let me know if any of this helps.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[thearea]

Thanks @JonathanB

I’ll give those couple of things a go. I’m wondering if the hub loses internet connection momentarily which throws the Orbis into a tailspin? When this happens, some of connected devices reconnect randomly and some don’t. I know the TP Link Deco system wifi shuts off when the modem it’s attached to loses internet connection. Does the MC888 have any sort of log that would show disconnections?
I’m trying to cover all bases at the moment as I just can’t afford to have to reset everything pretty much every day, at least once a day. 

Regarding the Eeros, do they maintain a WiFi connection if the hub loses internet? At least then when the internet connection is re established, all connected devices are still as they were. 

Much appreciated again for the advice. 

[JonathanB]

Hi @thearea,

I've not spotted anything in my support info about a disconnection log, I don't have an exhaustive list of all Admin settings though unfortunately. If you do find anything either way, please let the community know. It might come in handy.

Based on what we've seen posted on the community in the past, the issue you're seeing could be down to fluctuating 5G signal, local weather and power fluctuations to the mast for example.

It may be worth experimenting with the location of the router if your set up will allow for this. Generally near a window and high up tends to be best. I've spoken to the odd person who say that they actually got best results putting their 5G router in a loft space!

I don't know whether an alternate brand of mesh will be helpful here. Eeros were tested with our routers successfully in the past, but I'm not certain if your scenario would have been covered.

If you do decide to purchase more hardware whilst trying to troubleshoot this issue, make sure to check out the returns policies of the retailers or sites you're dealing with.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[thearea]

Ah, I did change hub settings as recommended in linked posts, but alas, today, it has all crashed again. I will try to resite the hub, though it is fairly optimally placed at the moment, on a windowsill nearest the mast. Ideally, I'll accept drops in signal, but the issue occurs when everything need to be reset and I'm away. 

Cheers,

Paul