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Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 18:57:27 GMT

We are having a recurring problem with a few devices that keep randomly disconnecting/reconnecting from the wi fi continuously, or just disconnect and won't reconnect, saying that authentication failed.

Rebooting devices usually doesn't work.

Forgetting the connection and logging in again doesn't work.

Sometimes if we reboot everything, forgeto everything, reset network settings etc etc, it might work again, but usually not, and we just have to wait, which may take days or when weeks till it works again

This only affects a small number off devices, my wife and daughter's phones and 2 fire TV's.

They all have a strong WiFi signal as we have a mesh network using the BT Discs.

We have had the router replaced several times and got new discs.

I have check the channel we are on, and it is not congested and interference from neighbours is minimal.

We have had numerous BT engineers out, but they are useless and have no idea how to actually troubleshoot the issue. All they do is come and check the broadband and WiFi is working, and just say everything is fine.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Keith_Beddoe — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 19:01:54 GMT

@snakehollywood

Have you tried a factory reset of the BT Home Hub?

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/how-do-i-reset-my-bt-hub-to-its-factory-settings

Connection issues can be caused by the home hub running out of internal connections. A normal restart does not fix that.

Its more of a problem if any of your devices are configured for MAC randomisation (sometimes called private addressing), as that can cause multiple unused allocations for the same device.

Change them to device MAC address.

A normal restart does not clear these entries, only a factory reset does that.

If you have BT Digital Voice and are using any of the BT supplied phones, make sure you backup the phone numbers from the home hub, before you do a factory reset. You can restore them afterwards.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 19:30:24 GMT

Hi,

Three Mac randomisation only applies to phones, nothing else does it, and I have disabled that on all the phones as I have a firewalla and use this for security be and parental controls, so devices with mac randomisation get blocked.

Is there any way to see the routers current allocations? So you know what the limit is?

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Keith_Beddoe — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 19:53:48 GMT

Windows 10 and 11 also have MAC randomisation.

The home hub device list would normally show what is connected. Anything showing "unknown device" has most likely got a random MAC address.

Try the factory reset, as that will clear out all DHCP leases. Then see if you still get the problem.

You could also try disabling the 5GHz wireless band, provided that nothing needs it. Many dual band devices keep trying to switch between the bands, causing disconnections.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Davosi — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 20:22:24 GMT

Hi!

im also experiencing this issue with my WiFi devices. We have WiFi radiators and they keep disconnecting and turning on by them selves because of this.

Since the beginning of December this has been happening. I also play games online and this has been impossible due to high intermittent ping spikes.

we have had 4 engineers out, all of which were useless.

all these issues occurred when my digital voice service was turned on, could just be a coincidence but my connection has been fine for 3 years until this.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 16:17:57 GMT

The total number of registered devices is more than 30, which I can see on my firewall, however, these are not concurrently connected at all time, as many are my kids friends when they visit, or devices which are not always on.
Active devices is usually < 30

So does the BT home hub only count active devices or total number of devices that ever connected?

It seems this is going to be an ongoing issue, so if factory resetting the router is the only solution, I would be doing this on a weekly basis, which is not an acceptable solution.

I assume the only solution to this is to get a better 3rd part mesh network?

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Mickyboy06 — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 20:30:31 GMT

following as this is similar to my issue (posted). random DC's and very poor wifi speeds, switching between 2.4/5ghz..... kids and wife going mad at me to fix it! Not even going to waste my time on a BT engineer anymore. I've got max. speed to the SH2 and wired is all good.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 21:10:23 GMT

yes it seems not one single person at BT support or any of their own engineers knew about this limitation on their own routers. Its pretty disgraceful that I had to find out on this forum.

and if I buy myself a better router, they then won;t provide any support if I have any broadband issues because it's not a BT router, so I can;t win.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

countrypaul — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 09:09:08 GMT

Have you read this: Smart Hub 2 Connectivity and Too Many Smart Device... - BT Community

Following his approach at least you can keep the SH2 (and therefore BT router support) but use a 3rd party mesh system for all the WiFi (as you seem to have suggested yourself). Not ideal, but may give you an option.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Mickyboy06 — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 10:13:44 GMT

Thanks, yes I've just had a read. Sounds very similar with the key point coming out is the instability we are getting.

As said, the wired connections to our devices are full speed, its just the wifi being so randomly awful, with no obvious reasoning.

I've spent about 6 hours since yesterday reading lots of posts on the forum and its really hard to find another persons issues to be exactly the same, as we all have our own circumstances and environments, plus a lot of people don't post the solution with the right technical information to aid anyone else.

I'm certainly picking up the following from my research here:

1. Interference from other devices, there is a lot that sits on the 2.4ghz and less on the 5ghz.

2. SH2 IMO seems to be a poorly handling wifi as lots of things are connecting to it instead of the discs and plenty of chat here complaining about the SH2's lack of customisation in the settings.

3. Doing away with the SH2 transmitting wifi and use the discs instead - In lamens terms how is this achieved? Do I have to wire to each disc?

4. Buy a new mesh system wired into the SH2 or a mesh system and do away with the SH2.

5. A lot of people try different channels and different modes but generally that never appears works for their circumstances.

6. I had a look on a wifi analyzer app, trying to get my head around what it suggests.

7. Haven't seen much chat about SH2 Modes 1, 2 or 3.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:42:27 GMT

using the discs won't help, as you will still have the same number of devices connected, so if you have over 30 devices, same issue. the discs only provide a mesh network for better coverage.

You can find more on the wireless modes here

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/what-is-the-wireless-mode-feature-on-my-bt-smart-hub-

this might help if you are having stability issues, but not if you have the too many connections issue that I have. The only solution to that is you use a different WIFI AP as I eluded to above, which supports more connections/devices.

A couple of months ago, I purchased a cheap mid range Tenda Nova MX6 mesh network, but sadly it caused other issues, so had to send it back.
The wifi connectivity did improve, and I think nobody had connection issues while I was using it, but It has very limited config/settings, it is obviously intended for more IT illiterate types who just want a plug and play system and never want to login to any admin or change any settings, and so lacked things I need.
It also couldn't take over DCHP from the BT home hub, just wouldn't work, so we ended up with duplicated NAT subnets, unless I put it into bridge mode, without DCHP, which then disabled even more useful features.

Some devices (amazon fire TV's for example) just wouldn't connect either, and I had to plugin an old powerline adaptor with AP extender for those.

I also couldn't get it to work independently, plugged directly into the FTTP box, so I could take the BT home hub out of the equation.

So basically I needed to spend a lot more money on a more expensive mesh system.

I would just use powerline adaptors with WIFI access points, but the wiring in my house obviously is not great, and I get worse speeds this way.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:54:17 GMT

@countrypaul yes I have done this also a couple of months, using a Nova MX6, see my reply to @Mickyboy06 Mickyboy6 below for what happened. At the time I didn't know about the connection limit of the home hub+discs, so now that I do know about this, it seems I have no choice but yo spend a lot more money on a better setup.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Mickyboy06 — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 16:36:13 GMT

I would say that there is only 10-12 and no more than 15 devices at any one time in our household.

Smart TV's (Toshiba, Bush), Xbox, Laptops, Mobile phones,

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 20:04:22 GMT

did you check connected devices in the BT app/admin?

as was mentioned above, any devices using mac randomisation will keep reconnecting as a new device and getting a new lease.
I have this issue with my kids friends, went they visit and connect to our WIFI, it shows as a new device each time. This has easily added 10 more devices to the list. And they will continue to use up a connection until the lease expires.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 20:36:10 GMT

@snakehollywood

The DCHP leases never expire, that is the bug in the firmware. Eventually the home hub runs out of IP addresses. A factory reset is then needed.

One way to avoid this, is to disable the DHCP server in the home hub, and use your own DHCP server. Many network devices like wireless access points have a DHCP server that can be enabled.

You simply configure the DHCP server to use 192.168.1.254 as the gateway, and define a suitable IP range, like 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.199. You can make the lease time 24 hours, you will never run out of allocations.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 20:43:22 GMT

ok, but even if you used your own DCHP server, that wouldn't solve the issue with the WIFI-connected devices limit if you do have > 30 devices, which I probably do a lot of time.

I have a firewalla which can I use as the DCHP server, so I am going to give that a try and see if that helps.

the other issue I have is that the DISCS regularly lose connection to the hub, but I guess this is the same issue, since etheya re also assigned IP addresses as well.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 18:34:16 GMT

since I factory reset the router, no-one has complained of their devices not being able to connect, so at least that is solved for a while, but I now have the issue that one of the wifi discs won't stay connected.

If I set the disc up again from scratch, it may stay connected for a while, but then will eventually disconnect again and won't reconnect. Re-syncing and rebooting doesn't help.

Yet again BT have replaced both the router and the disc, but still the same issue.

The engineers they send clearly have no idea and just do exactly what I have done, set the disc up again from scratch, and say everything is fine, which of course it isn't, a sit just disconnects after they have left.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 18:16:16 GMT

alas still having this issue. Factory resetting seemed to only be a short term fix. I have factory reset again, but this time it did not help, my phone still kept disconnecting.

So I turned off wifi for a couple fo days, and then it was fine, but then my wife phone started having the issue. It seems there it always some devices having the issue.

Afte the factory reset, I was sno longer able to access the router admin, even after multiple resets,

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

Troubled_Talent — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 14:45:52 GMT

I was having exactly this issue from the newest hub, fewer connected devices and no discs. It seems to be related to interference. It would vary with no rhyme or reason day or night. somedays it would kick devices off and allow one to work, or allow everything and disable one.

After disabling wifi on the hub and using it as a passthrough device for a TP link AX3000 wifi 6 router, everything is connecting flawlessly and stable.
TP link also have a meshnet system that works like the discs, unfortunately you will have to shell out for your own equipment to get the service you're paying for from BT.

Customer service told me there is a new EE wifi 6 hub that has been back ordered and delayed for 6 months and they wouldn't let me place an order for it.

Re: Devices randomly disconnecting

snakehollywood — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 15:16:25 GMT

Since BT were unable to help me and all their engineers are clueless, they cancelled my contract, allowing me to change provider.

So I am moving to Zen Internet, hoping their hardware will not have these issues, beating the need for me to buy my own expensive mesh network.