WiFi Unreliable
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@stuartofmt The reason why I'm very hesitant to say it's a router issue is because I have no issues communicating between any devices on the network besides the duet. The duet is the absolute only one to have any issues, so it doesn't make sense to ignore all other devices and say it's a router issue because of this one device. I do ask again, is there a gcode to check that the antenna is working as it should? Because that right there could be the issue.
EDIT: I also want to note I tried inSSIDer and saw that both my networks, 2.4 and 5GHz, are running on the most unused channels in the area. So that's probably not it either.
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@dessiverse said in WiFi Unreliable:
EDIT: I also want to note I tried inSSIDer and saw that both my networks, 2.4 and 5GHz, are running on the most unused channels in the area. So that's probably not it either.
Not necessarily, because the Duet may itself be creating a small amount of interference on the channel you are using, which only affects the Duet because of the proximity of the antenna.
From memory, I think it was the lower 2.4GHz WiFi channel numbers that other users reported being unreliable.
Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer
Please do not ask me for Duet support via PM or email, use the forum
http://www.escher3d.com, https://miscsolutions.wordpress.com -
@dc42 Is there a way to confirm for a fact the antenna is in use and it's not just being ignored? I tried another antenna with a wider range and it's having the same issues.
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Did you get this resolved ?
As an FYI. My Router is on Channel 11
I also tried using FTP both upload and download to /gcode and got similar timings to using DWC and my slicer.
So at least in my case - its all consistent.
In your case - "something" is (was?) clearly getting in the way
Just needs to be found.Edit: Just saw you last post - definitely
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@dessiverse The antenna is definitely in use as your signal strength would be next to nothing without it. And AP mode is working fine. There's some settings incompatibility between the router and the Duet. Without knowing anything about the router it's hard to suggest what to change. If you want to continue troubleshooting we'd need to see some screen shots of the router setting screens to get an idea of what's going on.
Or if you're not interested in messing with all that, to get you back up and running as soon as possible you are authorized to contact your vendor and seek an exchange for your choice of wifi or ethernet version of the board. I'm quite certain that the wifi replacement would have the same issue, so if ethernet is a viable option for you that might be the better way to go. If you choose to go this route, contact your vendor and initiate the warranty process and include a link to this thread as authorization.
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@phaedrux I would like to go the ethernet route. I had already consulted filastruder regarding this and they said duet has to authorize the exchange. I will reach out to them and send them the forum.
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Alright. In the meantime if you'd like to try any more troubleshooting of settings so we can try to get to the bottom of why it doesn't play nice with your router can you share the model name and number of the router along with screen shots of some settings?
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@phaedrux This is the model info
This is the 2.4GHz settings. Some of them.
What settings are you looking for specifically?
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Can you try forcing it to channel 6? In AP mode it defaults to channel 6, so if it was working well then and it's related to channel selection, maybe that will help.
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@phaedrux After reaching out to the internet provider, customers are not allowed to change the network channel manually for some reason. Which doesn't make sense.
However, it's really odd that the duet would be restricted to channel 6. For the price the duet is, I wouldn't expect such a weird design flaw.
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As DC42 speculated above it may be related to internal harmonics with the duet frequency, but that's speculation. If we can't change your channel to test, who knows.
For what it's worth, I would suspect that most people are using channel 1 (as I am as well) without issue.
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@phaedrux Wait, if it's a problem with the channel wouldn't the signal be worse? When I ran the
M122tests the signal showed it was fine in all cases, even when it was being slow. -
Not necessarily. Good signal strength is part of it, but that just means the transmissions are coming in loud and clear. There can be crosstalk and interference that causes re-transmissions, but without more detailed info from the router side it's hard to judge what's going on behind the scenes.
Wifi is as close to magic as we're every likely to get. It's incredibly complicated and an insane amount of work has been put into it to make it largely seamless for the end user, but unfortunately it's not always the case.
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@phaedrux what other information do you need? Is there anything else I can do from the Duet's end?
I'm still working with the ISP to try to change the signal channel.
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Unless there is some more detailed settings pages there's nothing I can see that we could try. I found the manual for that model router but it was a very basic user manual with no info on actual settings pages. If it's locked down so that you can't even change the channel selection or wifi mode I doubt there would be any chance of more advanced options being available either.
What I suspect might be happening is that the router is misidentifying the capabilities of the Duet and initiating band steering trying to force it over to the 5ghz network which doesn't work. Or it's detecting it as a slow client and throttling it's performance to keep it from taking up too much air time from other faster clients. Just speculation on my part though.
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@phaedrux said in WiFi Unreliable:
What I suspect might be happening is that the router is misidentifying the capabilities of the Duet and initiating band steering trying to force it over to the 5ghz
So I know this isn't happening because I did separate the two networks for one test, and had the same issue.
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I'm working with my ISP today to try to get any more information that I can. I'm still very much on the fence of it being a router issue given that the problem is only happening with the Duet. To me, the duet is having an issue with the router, not the router having an issue with the duet.
Especially given that running SBC mode there isn't an issue.
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@dessiverse said in WiFi Unreliable:
....... I'm still very much on the fence of it being a router issue ....
Especially given that running SBC mode there isn't an issue.
I agree that this is not clear-cut by any means. In this instance, I've tended to give greater weight to the lost packets from the ping test compared to the "clean" behavior in AP mode. To me this suggests something between the Duet and the other Computer. So I think the network "cards" are likely OK at both ends and that the tests point to "something" (hardware or software) in the network links. But that's just me - it could just as easily be something else.
Your ISP should give you admin access to the router - I've had several in the past and all, on request, did. If they don't then frankly - they are not "good". I now, always, use my own router even if the one provided is just used as a modem. I found the ISP provided ones usually lacking in some capability and / or setting-wise.
As an example one was set up to prioritize VOIP (which I did not use). It tended to slow some other types of traffic. Their default QoS settings were an issue. On another - with a satellite - my computer was first attached to the base router. When I moved near the satellite it was determined to stay (even after reboots) to the base (with a very weak signal).
Its a process of elimination and where possible bifurcation or in the case of an ethernet Duet sidestepped
These things are sent to try us. I just wish they did not succeed so often!!!!
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@stuartofmt the packet loss is consistent across multiple computers.
Here are the "advanced settings" that I can change from the router:
My biggest frustration with this is the lack of any phone or priority support. The amount of time wasted "troubleshooting" this is costing more than it would be to just buy a different board and call it a day.
To attempt to wrap this up; when using SBC mode is it possible to combine SBC with Octoprint in anyway?
It still makes no sense to me at all that SBC would run fine, all other devices run fine, yet the duet has a million network issues but somehow it's my modem that's the issue not the duet.
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@dessiverse There's a couple of other people that have reported problems using the xfinity routers, see https://forum.duet3d.com/search/?term=xfinity&in=titlesposts
One ended up using a Raspberry Pi as a network bridge.Also, not sure what has changed, but the latest version of DuetWiFiServer.bin shipping with 3.3RC1 is v1.26, you're on v1.25. May be worth updating to that.
Also, just had a thought. Can you post your config.g? There's a bug in 3.2.2 where if you have a heater, usually heater 0 (bed heater), but also heater 2, configured with PWM and a low duty cycle, it can interfere with processes on the Duet including networking. If you notice when your network speed drops, is it when your heaters are on? Updating firmware to RRF 3.3RC1 will fix this.
Ian
