Whole Home Wi-Fi v1.02.12 build02 (FR12)

[jrees970]

I'm also having stability problems, one or more discs will drop off the network - but the light on the front of the discs remains blue. Reboot the affected disc and it rejoins and says the signal strength is "good". 

[dlfranks]

That was similar experience for me and also friends and family with the same setup that I end up supporting 🙂 after a rollback been stable in 4 setups/households now. All with nearly 2 weeks of uptime in all disks rather than having to reboot. random disks every couple of days that dropped off.

[vayidm]

sounds like the v12 build is the culprit then. Makes the things worse!

[Topchat]

Had FR12 running for 33 days and counting without any obvious issues on a 2 disc network. Mind you the discs updated themselves without me doing anything which I find somewhat of an issue. Cannot readily detect any specific improvements either. 

[vayidm]

I tried FR12 again and factory reset the whole 3 discs and the main disc conked out again after 3 hours.

It does seem to be the cause of my ethernet switch going offline when it becomes unresponsive, somehow causing a DoS for all devices using the switch.

It's wired up as below:

Internet+-----+Router+-----+Switch
                              +
                              |
                              |
                              |
                              |
                              |
                  +-----------------------+--------+BT Whole Home Main WiFi Disc
                  |           |           |
                  |           |           |
                  |           |           |
                  +           +           +
                 PC1         PC2         PC3

 Effectively each device is connected via the switch.

So when the main disc stops responding, only if I take the power out or disconnect it's ethernet cable, all other devices on the switch lose access through it (the internet) and to each other.

When I've connected the disc directly to my router and it goes unresponsive, the line between the router and the switch gets cut off, but because the disc isn't on the switch the devices can still talk to each other.

I've tried doing a WireShark packet capture but it doesn't seem to show much, although I haven't looked at it in too much detail.

[sOckhamSter]

@vayidm Yes - this is *exactly* what I've been getting since day 1 of using BT Whole Home. I thought it was just my setup somehow. The entire LAN goes offline until you disconnect or restart the discs. The only solution is to use the satellite discs on wireless backhaul, which is obviously not ideal. I don't think it's specific to this firmware though because there have been a number of updates since I first experienced it, and I've tested wired backhaul after every one with no success.

[vayidm]

@sOckhamSter Thanks for confirming it, thouhgt it would just be me with this niche issue!

I suppose not a lot of customers will be using wired connections from the router or switch to even notice it being knocked out by the main connected disc.

So far since switching back to FR11 my main disc still can't beyond 3 days uptime but it isn't restarting as often as it used to.

I've modified my setup so that the main disc is connected directly to the router so it takes the internet offline if it happens, as I'm usually on a wired connection I don't notice it as much but should the internet go down it'd be easier for me to notice.

Just another tip for anyone encountering this issue, I've also enabled my router's main WiFi antennas with the same SSID and password as the discs, so that even if the discs go offline, you still have internet, just not the WiFi coverage.

Obviously it's not ideal but I've found that at least when the discs went offline or unresponsive my phone calls or meetings on my phone would be back online within a few seconds.

I'm surprised BT have released the disc out like this though hah. Maybe we just have faulty sets? I've factory reset each one each time I updated or rolled back to ensure it isn't a buggy configuration or something but since going to FR11 I haven't had a LAN or Ethernet blackout for a week now (fingers crossed!). Not great because it's intermittent and nothing seems to solve it but we've identified common issues.

[sOckhamSter]

@vayidmI have a full replacement of three discs arriving on Wednesday now. In a separate issue, one of the discs has been rebooting every few hours for the last few weeks. Can't figure it out - I've seen other people mention that issue, but combined with the total LAN lockout you describe and another issue of one particular device losing connection regularly, I've decided the only way to rule out a one-off hardware fault is to replace the hardware. This'll be its last chance before I investigate other mesh wifi solutions. It's a shame because on paper BT Whole Home is amazing value, and when it's working it is truly brilliant!

[vayidm]

That's good news @sOckhamSter 

I hope it's a hardware issue because that would be the easy solution to my problems.

I found that whichever disc is the main disc (connected at the router by ethernet) will always reboot more often.

Fingers crossed though and definitely report back any findings if you can 👍

[Topchat]

Your problems are curious. I’ve been running our 2 disc system using Ethernet backhaul for at least 18 months without issues and FR12 still stable. The idea of a batch of discs being faulty could be viable.