Adding more than 1 extender (EX7700) stops Wifi connecting to Internet

[Max13]

I have a Nighthawk R7000 Router and 3 EX7700 Extenders. For several months I have had this set up working, with all 3 extenders connected via Ethernet in different rooms. With that set up all 3 Extenders had separate IP addresses that would appear on the attachd devices page of Router. The wifi throughout the house generally worked well with this set up for several months (with occasional need to reconnect extenders etc).

Recently I felt like the connection wasn't strong so I logged into Extender and ran through reconnection steps. This included an extender firmware update that was prompted (I've done several firmware updates previously). After doing this my wifi had no internet connection (despite hard wired connections being fine).

I have now tried reconnecting several times and not been able to solve the problem. This has included doing factory reset on all extenders multiple times.

Key behaviour that I've noticed:

• Connecting 1 extender is fine. I can get that working as normal
• That extender always has IP address 192.168.1.250 (I never noticed this being address before the problem)
• When i connect 2nd extender the Wifi stops connecting to the internet (I see this happen on my phone and 2nd extender won't fully connect)
• 2nd Extender seems to get the same IP address 192.168.1.250 (and only 1 will appear in connected devices)
• Before the problem occurred all 3 extenders always had different IP addresses
• Wifi starts to connect to internet again when all extenders are switched off. Removing just the 2nd one which caused the problem isn't enough, I have to remove the 1st one as well
• All of the above is repeatable multiple times. It doesn't matter what order I set up extenders in. 1st one works, 2nd one breaks everything!

Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreaciated. What am I missing or doing wrong? Any ideas on what has changed from my previous set up when all extenders were on separate IP addresses?

many thanks!!

[plemans]

When you're setting them up, are you using the same ssid's for the extender and the router?

If so this will cause issues if the extenders are connecting to each other. 

I usually only recommend having a single extender with the same ssid as the router. as you add more than 1, change the ssid's so they aren't connecting to each other and looping. 

[Max13]

Thanks for the reply. I can try that (will have to wait till tomorrow).

My only concern is that I want a single Wifi network that devices (mobiles etc) can connect to seemlessly and I don't have to drop one weak connection to pick up another stronger signal. With multiple SSIDs won't they effectively be separate and require manual switching to move between them?

If that is a solution that's necesary, then I'm confused how I had it working before. My main Router SSID is 'The Matrix' and that's what I previously used on all 3 extenders succesfully.  Either way I think it's a good idea to try it and see if it then 'works'. At the very least it will show what the problem is...if not, how I avoided it before

Thanks

[plemans]

If the extenders are far enough away from each other that they can't pick each others signal up, it works fine. its when there's a strong enough overlap and they start connecting to each other that you get issues. Maybe something changed in your environment or a firmware update optimized the power/wireless setup enough to cause them to pick each other up. 

[Max13]

I ended up just resorting to having 1 extender on the same SSID and the others on different ones. That works fine with only downside being it's not truly seemless when using mobile devices around the house. Anything fixed I've connect to whichever SSID is closest. A bit annoying that I used to have a seemless single SSID across 3 extenders but not a terrible compromise and I just couldn't face messing around trying to get it to work anymore! 

[plemans]

When you're needing to run that many extenders, its a great idea to upgrade to a mesh network that is designed to run with that setup. the "mesh" extenders are a hybrid and basically designed for just a router and single extender. Past that, the route you're currently using is advised or upgrading.