This topic

Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

David001 — Sun, 05 Jun 2022 08:33:14 GMT

I have the Whole Home WiFi Premium system, with four discs across the house. The primary disc is connected by ethernet to a TalkTalk router. I've changed the WiFi network name and password to one which is convenient to use, and many devices use these to access the network. I've had the system for a few years without any significant problems, but recently the network name and password will reset to the default shown on the back of the primary disc (i.e. BTWholeHome-XXXX). This disconnects all the devices (including the mobile app) and requires either a full reinstallation of all the discs, or connecting a PC to the now-default network and resetting the name/password using the web browser interface. This started a few weeks ago and now happens every few days. I don't want to have to use the default name for my devices, not least because some integrated systems (e.g. house alarm) use the personalised name/password and can't easily be changed. Any ideas what's happened? Is this the result of a firmware update?

Thanks.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

foz — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 11:09:18 GMT

May i suggest a full factory reset and set up a fresh, don't reinstall a backup.

I think these discs boot up using the default settings and look to a settings file during boot. It could be your settings file has become corrupt.

If unsure regarding firmware updates/version, you can disable automatic updates to be sure. System>firmware update>Automatic Update>Disabled. (But always keep an eye out for new firmware, you may wish to test beta firmware if so enable early adopter)

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

barrie_elliott — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 21:38:07 GMT

I have had this issue for about a year maybe more…

i have reset the disks, changed them and have the same issues.

as frustrating as it is, i am Currently sitting with 5 red disks and 1 blue. I can go months with out major issues a simple router reboot and not even a wifi network reboot.. however what i have found is that wifi can work, but dhcp addresses fail to be given to new devices, so i restart the bt hub and all ok….

today the wifi disks have restarted 5 times, and not all come back ip till i manually power down and back on. In some rarer cases the whole system resets and i have to reconfigure the lost from scratch.

interesting that when my DHCP on the router is 192.168.1.51 to 192.168.1.200, i allocate statics to 192.168.1.1-40, but seems wifi devices still get ip addresses from the lower end so end up with wifi devices clashing with wired static devices… so thats clearly a bug in the bt premium wifi disks as its ignoring the DHCP i have set…

this leads to clashes and the bt hub needs rebooting and all devices turned off, dhcp lease reduced to flush out after the shortest period then all turned back on..

sometimes take days to get to back to stable….

another issues is the amount of devices, the bt smart hub 2 is supposed to be able to handle 50 devices maybe leas.. the bt wifi premium disks perhaps 20-25 devices each, however this all goes via the hub, so if you have to many devices you may cause the wifi to reboot multiple times…

this is a major flaw in the design and even when i reported this to bt, they washed their hands of it… so basically when i het a chance ill be changing the wifi for the 4th time and go cisco.. more devices less dropouts….

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

foz — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 08:43:19 GMT

Try setting the disc's static ip in the router rather than on the disc itself.

This way it will get the IP you set. Not sure what version disc's you have but if i used static ip's on the original white ac2600 btwh1 discs, my guest network had issues never tested on the latest firmware, but assigning an ip to each disc in the router works without issues.

If you have the premium white discs may i suggest you set the static lease to infinite rather than a day this should stop a lot of master disc reboots.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

barrie_elliott — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:46:59 GMT

So I have set the master disks since day one and all of the other discs with static IP addresses, these are at the top end of the range.

I still don’t get why the DHCP even though specifically set on the router does not pass through to the devices that connect via Wi-Fi.

all hardwire devices get the correct DHCP lease because they are making direct communication with the router however anything I connect my Wi-Fi randomly gets anything within the /24 range completely ignoring a DHCP range set on the router.

I have tried one day and I have tried seven days and I’ve tried maximum days, in the more devices that I have connected the more I see the reboots. It has always been an issue for myself and I have gone through multiple different solutions and it hasn’t been no better.

i’ve already factory reset the number of times and set everything up from scratch one by one, that took me days because of the amount of devices that I had to reconnect so then I started doing it ad hoc with what was necessary.

all I can think is that the Wi-Fi discs get overwhelmed so the master disk reboot.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

jamiejackson16 — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:38:22 GMT

I am having similer problems with restarting the premium home discs every few days due to devices loosing their connections and the discs going offline, they have the current firmware. How do i change to "infinite lease"? I looked everywhere for this. I have the BT smart Hub 2.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

foz — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:52:14 GMT

It will depend on if the router supports this option some don't. I don't use BT routers so cant say, but it will be where you set a device Static IP to a particular MAC address within the router (NOT in the disc's)!

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

barrie_elliott — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 10:05:17 GMT

The BT SmartHub 2 only has a max lease time or 21 days. You can find this under Home/IPv4/AddressTable as shown below.

I have mine set at 21 days and although this works for a period of time, once the 21 days ends i have heaps of issues.

The other option is the you can run a NAS box with DHCP and use that as may give you infinite DHCP or perhaps run a small server. But that really depends how familiar you are with IT.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

jamiejackson16 — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 10:10:36 GMT

Thank you both, this is a huge help and much appreciated! I am taking that BT are aware of this issue and are they currently working on a fix for this on their next firmware update? I think i am asking for everyone as everyone is getting fed up of restarting their discs 🙂

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

cam50992 — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 09:22:26 GMT

Sorry to dig up a very old thread but did you get this sorted?

My Wholehome 6 Wi-Fi is doing the exact same thing. Frequently resetting itself to the default settings.

Sometimes its just certain discs resetting and I end up with both my normal SSID and the factory default SSID, both somehow connected to the internet!

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

barrie_elliott — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 14:50:31 GMT

Hi, I learnt a lot with these units, that was never buy them again.

I ripped then all out and replace with Amazon Eeero 6 Pro and never had an issue again.

I also left BT Broadband for a much faster 1GB up and 1GB down as BT cannot offer this, so I am much better off.

Basically the disks became unstable with about 15 to 25 devices per unit and worst off, the hub cannot support more than 50-75 devices, so it was a problem with get go and I never knew this. When a disc took more than 15 devices it triggered a reset and the whole system went down and on a number of occasions every device needed to be connected.

BT blamed legacy steering, but they soon stopped responding to my support requests as they clearly didn't know what was happening and even though this was escalated, legacy steering was supposed to be the cause. This was in a hidden hub menu where you add https://YOUR_HUB_IP/steering.htm, it was supposed to stop old 2.4GHz devices steering to other hubs for load balancing from my understanding, but this was off and I still had the same issues even with it on.

The only time the hubs were stable was once they had been wiped and I had just 10 to 20 devices spread across all discs. they really do not work well with IOT devices and this may have been the root cause as everything nowdays if wifi and needs to be connected for it to work, hive, lights, phones, laptops, tv, ipads, heaters, toaster, kettle etc, you know... BT hardware just cannot handle this as well as CCTV cameras constantly uploading and download data.

Linksys I tried, but range was an issue, Amazon Eeero Pro 6, 100% recommend and especially for security, wifi speeds, i get near 800mb download and upload. 1GB up and down when cabled. Good thing is that with these units you also can hardwire each one if you wish or mesh them and the work a dream... Highly recommend.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

cam50992 — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 16:44:11 GMT

Thanks for the response.

I'm finding similar with their support - the issue was escalated to 2nd line and I've not heard from them since. I've emailed them twice since then with further information but nothing so far!

I have just switched from Virgin to Toob's 900 up/down package. That also uses one of those Linksys routers that you can mesh with other linksys products - although if the router management page is anything to go by I don't think I'll be doing that.

The wholehome had been running very reliably until this month. There are no new devices on the network and I'm no where near the number of devices you mention. Just a shame it has decided to become so problematic now and it's crazy there's no real way of backing up and restoring the configuration!

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

barrie_elliott — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 17:42:17 GMT

I know exactly what you mean about the backing up of the config, that was another reason why I decided to move away. You can try going to the legacy staring and turning that off. By most cases you’ll just be told to reset the unit and have to remesh all the discs again. Personally, I called her a day with BT. I think they’re just getting a little bit complacent because of being taken over by EE. So he have supposedly better devices, but I’m not yet ready to Test those out.

If anything, I will probably look at upgrading my primary Amazon eero, to have Wi-Fi 7, and these devices will support over 120… and it is very stable and I have since it’s been installed, which is around two years, I have had not one issue with the devices at all. I occasionally reboot them to apply a firmware update which is done automatically., I have a subscription package which gives me advanced security features, gives me a private VPN and lots of other perks and I actually use a lot of of them, so for the price just wait for Amazon Black Friday sales and grab some then.

However, if you know anyone that wants any BT premium Wi-Fi discs, can have them cheap. There are three in a box.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

David001 — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 06:52:50 GMT

@barrie_elliott I might be interested in taking them off your hands. You can contact me on davidcameron001 AT gmail DOT com.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

cam50992 — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 08:03:20 GMT

Hi David - does that mean that your discs no longer randomly reset themselves?

If so - what did you do to fix it?

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

David001 — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 08:36:05 GMT

Honestly it was so long ago I can't remember. The only significant change was that I got p**d off with TalkTalk and switched to BT so replaced the TT router with a BT Smart Hub 2. That seems to have resolved the problem - we have a fairly standard set-up without fibre so superfast speeds and loads of connections aren't critical for us.

Re: Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium keeps resetting network name and password

barrie_elliott — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 21:27:51 GMT

I have popped you an email. 👍🏼