EX6200 Authentication Error comes and goes

Question

This unit has worked fine on a fairly long repeater link, through many walls, of course best at 2.4ghz, without using fastlane and also using the main router password; only one roku device at the far end so easily streams 4k with no problems. However, the first 3+ years it rarely 'lost' the ability to connect to that main router, the roku failed to maintain connection, and my phone would also fail and give a 'authentication error occured' message. The 2.4ghz out of the main router connected fine, but again this happened maybe twice a year. Recently its started happening every couple of weeks; I do note the recieve LEDs are sometimes dropping from green to amber, but not when my phone connection drops or the roku stalls.

It is possible that over the years the RF from the main wifi unit has dropped, and I put in a new external antenna on the ex6200 to try and get the status LEDs to be solid green, and I have another antenna solution to try but, I don't understand how most the time the roku keeps running while my $1500 galaxy phone reports these 'authentication errors'.

Wish the ex6200 would report actual recieved signal levels, but no. I see lots of folks get these errors but I don't see any solutions.

Beck1948 · Answer

Would be nice if this blog allowed a way to add comments but I guess not.
I went back and reviewed all the manuals for this device, and the one thing that stood out was that if one wanted to use it in pure repeater mode, sans fastlane i.e. 2.4g to 2.4g with 5g to 5g, there wasn't a way to set up those individual freqs from ones main router, the setup only allows one ssid as an input not two. So I naturally chose the 5g output from my main router, and tested that the extender did allow both 2.4g and 5g outputs to be attached to. And this worked fine for over some 3 years to a 2.4g device (a roku that was some 30ft and two walls away). I may have had 1 or 2 drops but maybe not even that, biggest actual crash was when the roku power cord got caught up by a vacuum cleaner which ripped out the hdmi cable and pulled the roku off the tv cart and destroyed it to the point I had to replace it.
Then I had my home siding and windows replaced with dual panes and where I had the extender in a window no longer quite worked, so I had to move it. That's when things got shaky, the link rate leds for 5ghz would sometimes go to amber and every couple weeks the roku and my phone would not connect to the extender, I'd get the 'authentication error' on my phone; the roku would basically sit there and play dumb. I put a long range antenna on one of the extender ports pointed at the base router, didnt seem to help the occasional amber, but the unit is now two walls away from the main. In using my phone to do some RF sniffing I can extend a different antenna several feet eliminating one wall where my phone app says the 5ghz signal is at least 10-20+ db stronger. At the end of the day I might give that a try but the s/w setup is in my opinion a bit wanky as it doesn't appear to allow two wifi connections at the same time (both bands) when manually setting up with the browser instead of the WPS. Maybe I'm wrong, I may just reset the thing to factory and go through it again, I just don't remember getting that option with the browser and things worked pretty much great at the time so didnt give it any thought.

Beck1948 · Answer

Extended one of the antenna ports /w antenna to within 30' of the main wifi router, one dual pane window away, where signal level exceeds -55dbm on 5ghz. Yet ex6200 repeater still wobbles between green and amber on the 5ghz receiver level display on the front of the device. When I retested it a couple weeks ago some 20' away from the main in another room but only a hallway between, it appeared to be solid green. I can move the extended antenna closer to that testing point with no walls/windows but will take another day, my ladder climbing is at a minimum.

Beck1948 · Answer

The question of the day: the unit has two antenna ports . I assumed that both 2.4 and 5ghz are transmitted/recieved by both as there is no reference in any manual saying different. I'm about to test that tomorrow, moving one of the ports and antennas into a point where its output is fairly shielded from the other antenna, around 20db. If it shows no increase (should be max with my RF meter right next to it) then either the unit is defective or the build/design is wacky with power and reception going mostly or all to the other antenna port.

Beck1948 · Answer

All the documentation on this device, including replies to several questions both here and on amazon, say both antennas are transmitting and receiving both 2.4/5ghz. My testing shows that isnt quite correct, in that the summing circuitry gives preference to the top antenna port (or right if the unit is flat on a desk rather than standing upright), so that if the recieved signal from the wifi router is 20db down from (at the repeater) the signal at the remote antenna on the lower port that is 40db+, the lower signal drives the led signal monitor. Period.So it appears that the original problem of the repeater losing it's ability to authenticate attachment (at approx. Every two weeks) has little or nothing to do with the recieved signal level from the wifi router, as any attempt to 'blast' that signal into the repeater has failed. Again, it should be noted that devices that have attached through the repeater when it is working (like roku) continues to recieve and transmit data without any hitches while other devices (like cell phones) are unable to 'attach'.So it appears that this unit will, at its present location which is my only choice as recieved signal at the roku is 'good' and moving it to another indoor location closer to the wifi router results in solid 'green' but low recieve on the roku even with a spot antenna off the repeater giving upwards of 15db+ on that link, and the roku looses connection every couple of days.The only fix appears to be rebooting the repeater about every week. Its possible that a $1k mesh system would cure everything, but that's not going to happen, especially as I have another wifi repeater system that runs without ANY problems but where the repeater has excellent reception from the wifi router.

Beck1948 · Answer

In trying to figure this problem out, I had scoured the internet and read all the reviews on this device (ex6200) from when it first came out (2014) and afterwards. Just yesterday I tripped over the apparent fact that netgear had released an updated version (ex6200v2) in 2018 but had not updated the web pages since and had basically hidden the new device in their product line brochure, to where one would really have to dig to find it. Not, btw, listed as a product available for purchase on amazon, which basically means it doesnt exist.But after finally retrieving the newer unit documentation, guess what I find buried in it? Yep, an entire section devoted to the potential failure to log in/attach to/through the repeater to the host wifi router, precisely my problem. Now, no real explaination or 'fix' per se, but guess what their idea to potentially help? Right, move the repeater closer to the wifi router and insure that the link rate leds are solid green. That is precisely what I've been trying to accomplish, my structures are such that the furthest away from the wifi router (which is very strong, fills my 1500sqft home with 5ghz wifi over -50dbm from the front door to the master bath at the rear) and closest to one of the out structures (some 25' distance) but my attempt to put the the repeater some 20' away from the wifi router with a flat panel antenna aimed at the out structure didnt work well, the signal out of the repeater with the standard antenna was very low at distance and going through old single pane glass and a wall at the other end, or with the 15+db focus of the flat panel antenna outside not going through the glass only through the far very thin wall with aluminum siding. The RF measured out of that antenna was imo deficient, lower than the signal strength of the rubber antenna going through the glass, so that may have been the downfall of that attempt; I plan on taking that antenna apart soon and see if I can spot any defective construction.But I had moved the unit back to a shed halfway between the main structure and the far building, where a standard antenna resulted in a 'good' signal on the roku but an 'amber' level on the wifi signal from the wifi router; again, I have extended on of the antennas closer to the main structure where the signal level (through a double pane window + 5ft) at -52dbm, yes a loss of 20dbm through that window but should be well into the green strength wise, yet the 'idiot' led on the repeater stays amber with occasional flashes to green. There is no documentation on the exact dbm level that triggers this led, so who knows; -52dbm should be well above the level to trigger green, even figuring a 7dbm cable loss. However, I have the ability to move the antenna through another window (bathroom, 2-3" single pane window, where I had previously mounted the flat panel antenna) to the inside of the main structure where the signal level is -34dbm; really hot. I had tested the 10m coaxial cable that the original repeater antenna had been attached to, and at 5.5ghz the loss was less than 7dbm, so going back that -52 I measured at the window where it currently is yields -59dbm, one when I opened that window and measured -34dbm means -41dbm at the repeater. Yet the link led stayed amber, so moving it will probably still not improve the link signal. So moving it just simply will not work, I'm back to nothing working.I realize this unit is not anywhere near a professional device, and I'm throwing 50+ years of microwave engineering at it. But the minimum info I've managed to glean from bits and pieces of documentation has shown that throughput on the device is fairly excellent, it's the firmware and associated systems that are shaky. Some have suggested upgrading the firmware, but have you counted the number of folks whose units have been bricked? And I have updated it once already so dogged it once, like to try again? No thanks. Maybe I'll buy a v2 machine used off ebay....

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EX6200 Authentication Error comes and goes

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