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EX6200 Authentication Error comes and goes
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 ...
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.