BT Wholehome wifi firmware downgrade

[dnairb0011]

Yes the replacement discs were the same, BT Wholehome discs and running the latest firmware version, which is the version you list. 

It wasn't first line support that I was dealing with at this point, I was dealing with the technical services dept but I'm still disappointed that they didn't appear to be interpreting the logs I sent them to identify why random discs were going offline at random intervals, as they still do now, though nowhere near as often.

[dnairb0011]

I don't know what version you're running but I was running v1.02.12build02 for ages with no issues at all, having had issues with a previous firmware update.

At the time I first had issues I dealt directly with the team that were responsible for the firmware updates and they told me to turn off automatic updates, then sent me a pre release firmware to try. This worked without any issues and I had left automatic updates disabled. They then contacted me some time later to advise of an updated firmware release that they felt I should try, which was v1.02.12build02. This worked fine, with no issues and I still left automatic updates disabled.

I made the stupid mistake after a considerable period of running the stable version to turn on automatic updates, believing the latest version should / would be fine as it had been available for ages.

It was after doing the firmware update that my issues started and even reverting back to the previous firmware version (v1.02.12build02) didn't resolve the issues and restore my discs to their previously excellent performance.

If your system is stable then don't do the upgrade is all I can say.

[naylor2006]

Ive had the BT Wholehome WIFI since 2019, I originally bought a 3 disc kit, my house is a 30's build and the walls are concrete and incredibly thick, for WIFI its a right pain so strategically placed discs around the house helped alot, of course MESH helps so much when you cant run ethernet to access points.

From my experience with the discs they are great for the average home user, but if you stress them out, IE with heavy constant bandwidth or a ton of devices they crash, this is a right problem for them as alot of the time after they reboot disc 3 in the chain might not connect back to 2 and go straight to 1 even though clearly its a weaker signal there. You'd have to reboot and hope for the best.....and this is even after setting 'Prefer Daisy Chain' in the settings.

Other issues would be sometimes after a crash disc 3 would simply never see 2 until 2 was rebooted, so then you'd end up switching off all the discs, powering up the master, then 2 wait......then 3.....hoping it was all in order.

Things got worse when I got a 4th disc, they just arent enterprise grade type gear but for most difficult coverage homes they are great and easy to setup.

One of the main issues I read was that they use the existing 5Ghz connection to talk to each other, IE they dont have a separate backhaul, the same bandwidth you share with it and your device is also used to receive/send from the nearest disc. I connected my NAS to the ethernet port on one disc which was great in theory as it brought ethernet to a device where I could not via a cable, if multiple people opened up streams to watch stuff sometimes that disc would crash.

Having said that, I now have 8 discs (picked them up cheap on ebay)....I know the limit is 4 but eventually I just got so fed up because MESH is somewhat the issue rather than the discs. What I have done over the last 6 months or so is find hidden ways of getting ethernet to each disc or at least the area that needs ethernet. So they are all in AP mode now and never crash, they dont have to work to find their neighbour all they do is just act as access points. It helps so much now if there is ever a power cut or a need for reboot because they just come online, great news for my wife, no faff.

My advice would be before getting a 'better' MESH kit just consider getting some ethernet around the property, it would be a better investment. If you cant do it yourself there are plenty of data cabling guys who have very clever ways of getting cables into certain areas without ripping walls apart, which was a no no at my house.

[dnairb0011]

I used to have a 4 disc setup, which, as mentioned originally worked flawlessly for a few years. I also had my work laptop hanging off of one of the discs via ethernet cable and again I had no issues whatsoever. I believe the official max number of discs you can use is 6, but if you have 8 then maybe it isn’t 6. I did try the other home WiFi disc product that BT released some years back, which annoyingly isn’t compatible with Wholehome, but decided that I’d stick with my Wholehome setup, which at the time was flawless.

I do have 2 other sets of discs available that I don’t use as I now currently manage with a standard 3 disc setup. My property is also early 1930s and has had a major internal refurb, which included running ethernet cables to each room. Sadly these cables go back to a cupboard that is no longer suitable for my current requirements and a WiFi Mesh has now proven to be far more suited.

It's fair to say my setup is rarely stressed to the point it fails as the discs would often go offline when they aren’t busy, if I was away or if no one was home. Holidays being a regular occurrence where I had to contact family members to get them to go round and reboot the system. The only traffic they would be carrying at the time would be minimal and mainly from cctv cameras, which wouldn't be using much bandwidth, even when viewing live footage.

I now have smart devices plugged into the slave discs via Ethernet cables which are accessible via an app on my phone. When a disc goes offline I am notified of the smart device losing connectivity. I have all of the discs plugged into smart plugs, with the primary disc plugged into a smart plug that is connected to the Home hub WiFi, not the Wholehome Mesh WiFi. This way, if an individual disc goes offline I can reboot that disc remotely via the smart plug app, if the whole Mesh goes offline, then again I can still reboot the main disc and restart the Mesh. While not ideal it works for me as rerunning Ethernet cables isn’t something that will work for me.  

[naylor2006]

Haha, that’s great, I also did wonder about using smart plugs for this purpose also cause I have a few lying around for different things. They are all 2.4ghz as well so if the nearby disc goes down it could surely still reach the closer neighbour, in order to be powered off and on.

Forgive me, the max is 6, but as forums posts have found before you can plug one in and just leave it plugged into your network and it configures itself, then it just turns up in the app and you can name it. However it’s not that stable, I did have 7 all in a mesh at one point and it would crash a lot. Like I said now I have 8 all backed by Ethernet and I’ve not had an issue since I did that.