Mesh Network and WiFi Issue Discovered and Fixed

setsailsoon

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LifeTime Supporter
TFP Guide
Oct 25, 2015
5,184
Palm City/FL
Pool Size
25000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
Folks,

Just want to document a problem I had last week that may help somebody else. About a month ago I had to replace the Intellicenter antenna and that was solved easily with generic parts from Engenius. Then a few days ago I got the "offline" display and lost all phone control just before I was planning to use the spa. These things always happen at the worst time! So here's what happened and how I fixed it:
  • Started with red "offline" message and no connection. Worked fine 24/7 for weeks prior.
  • We'd had trouble with our Comcast internet about that same time and they got it running but at pretty slow speeds around 30 Mbps. We pay for high speed and it normally runs 200-300 Mbps. Also we had some new WiFi connections appear on phone and laptop connections menus. They had the same name but with a -2.4 or -5.0 at the end.
  • I disconnected and de-powered all the mesh base and 3 satellites
  • Then logged in to the main comcast router using their default address 10.0.0.1 Other services may have a different address but it's easy to find by Googling "Service Brand router login"
  • In the configuration software the cable modem/router has to be changed to enable "Bridge Mode" for many mesh routers so their signals won't interfere with the cable modem's signal. In this mode the WiFi router inside the cable modem is turned off and you get the connection to the mesh router through an Ethernet cable.
  • What happened to me was the Comcast technician reset their modem and it disabled "Bridge Mode" since that's the default. So even after they fixed the signal to our house the interference between the Comcast cable modem and my Mesh routers reduced the speed by a factor of 10.
  • I changed the setting back to enable "Bridge Mode" then plugged in the mesh base unit and everything started working at high speed.
  • Intellicenter didn't work right away though. I had to reboot it then it automatically connected with no further action.
Now everything works great and we're headed out to the spa.

I hope this may be helpful to somebody else with a mesh system using Intellicenter and probably other WiFi connected automation systems

Chris
 
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