I've been having nothing but problems with my extender so I did a factory reset. Once done, I logged into my extender to start a new admin account, HOWEVER, when I put in my username and password (twice) I then answer the two security questions, I am not able to continue because the next button at the bottom of the page is grayed out!
Nothing appears to be wrong with my input information as there are no errors or red boxes around any of the answers. What gives!
Remember...I successfully logged in to mywifiext to start the input phase so I don't know why I can input everything but the website won't let me continue!
Hi @SAG1, it is possible that the device was not successfully reset to factory defaults. Please make sure that you have completed the reset so that it clears out the previous login settings.
I retried it the next day and it went through without a hitch. Odd?
The only problem is the extender is still not doing what I want. I have two Access Point wifi routers at opposit ends of my home (will call them Main and Basement) and I was trying to get the extender to connect to the Basement AP to extend the signal in that area, but no matter what I did the extender refused to connect to the Basement AP and would only connect to the Main AP, even though I would reset the extender and re-do the settings while next to the Basement AP.
Unless there is something I'm doing wrong, I give up and will look for a different mesh extender to see if I can get it to connect to the Basement AP.
Hi @SAG1, thanks for the update. Do you have other wireless devices that can connect to the Basement AP using the same wireless settings (SSID and password)? Also, make sure that you do not have any access control setting enabled (ie MAC filtering) on any of the access points if that's an available feature. What error message are you getting during setup?
To answer your question. Yes all my security cameras in range, connect with no issue to the Basement AP and as I move around in my home, my cell phone will switch from Main to Basement with no issues. And yes, I have just two networks, running on each AP. Regular and Guest. Both AP's have the same SSID names and passwords for each network.
I set up the Netgear Extender to broadcast the Guest network (2.4 & 5g) and seems to help with expanding the coverage but since it refuses to connect to the Basement AP which is much much closer, the signal coming from the Extender is not as good.
I've reset the extender several time but with no luck.
As far as error messages during Extender setup...there are none other than not allowing me to continue that one time I tried a reset.
It's very frustrating, considering the cost of this exten
Hi @SAG1, thanks for responding. You can try turning off the other AP if that is an option before setting up the extender and make sure that it only connects to the basement AP. Also, what firmware version is the extender?
I will try that to see if I can get the extender to stop connecting to the main AP.
As for the firware...I don't know without going through a lot of troubles getting it to connect to mywifiext, but I do know that I updated it about 2 months ago.
I tried your suggestion and turned off the Main AP, leaving only the Basement AP active. I then hit the reset on the extender and held it in for 60 seconds to make sure it totally reset.
I then went into Myextext to setup the extender again. After going through the wizard, the extender then booted up and eventually I got two green lights showing it is connected to the Basement AP...or so I think.
When I opened my Wifi router settings, the Netgear extender was not listed??? So even though the extender shows that it is connected to the Basement AP (the Main is still not on at this point) there is no indication in the wifi router that the extender is connected to the Basement AP even though the extender clearly shows the green lights that indicate it is.
I then re-activated the Main AP, and after it was fully booted up and running, I went into the Main wifi settings but the extender still didn't show in its list of connected devices. So now I have no clue what the heck is going on.
On the one hand the extender clearly shows that it is connected to something, but now there is no indication in either AP that it is connected to them.
I've tried rebooting the extender several times to see if it eventually shows up in either AP but nothing.
Just about ready to throw this extender away...and go for a different manufacturer. Sorry NetGear, but your product appears to be very unreliable, at least for me.
Hi @SAG1, are your AP's connected to a main WiFi router? If so, the extender may show up on the attached devices list on the main router instead of just the access points. May we know the model number of the AP's and which one is configured to be the router (DHCP server)?
Also, while the main AP is off, can your devices connect to the extender and go online?
You said..."are your AP's connected to a main WiFi router?"
No, both Ubiquity Unifi AP's are connected by Cat5 cable to my router which is not broadcasting Wifi. The reason is that my 3 computers in my home are all wired directly to the router with Cat5 cable. The two AP's were purchased to provide WiFi and are only for my Wifi devices including my security cameras.
You said..."May we know the model number of the AP's and which one is configured to be the router (DHCP server)?"
I have two Ubiquity Unifi AP AC LR Access Points. Main and Basement. Neither is configured as the router...as I mentioned, they are both directly connected by Cat5 cable to my main TP-Link router.
You said..."Also, while the main AP is off, can your devices connect to the extender and go online?" The devices in question are my two security cameras, one in the garage and one outside at the driveway that were too far from either AP to get consistant signals. As far as I know, they appear to be working just fine when I turn the Main AP off. This would indicate that they are in fact connected to the Extender which must be connected to the Basement AP.
Very frustrating that the Extender just simply refuses to stay connected to the Basement even after reboots, resets, moving it closer to the Basement, etc.
Hi @SAG1, thanks for the clarification. In any scenario, were you able to confirm if the extender shows up on the main TP-Link router's attached device list? Does turning the main AP on introduce any issue (other than the extender not showing up on either the main AP or basement AP)? As what you've mentioned, the two security cameras did appear to be connected and online. You can also try accessing http://mywifiext.local to check if the security cameras appear as connected devices to the extender.
After weeks of having this issue, I was able to get the wifi router support to uncover the problem. Apparently there is a setting in the router that was conflicting with the extender and not letting it connect to the AP that I wanted it to connect to.
After disabling this setting, the Extender is now (so far) connecting to the correct AP.
