Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect
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@RickyBaker You sure its unrelated?
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The think he was investigating when he found it was unrelated but it sure seems related to this!
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@stephenw10 yep yep that’s why I asked
layer2 loops point to a bigger issue -
@michmoor not 100% sure it's unrelated. I have static IP's assigned to all the AP's and never an issue, so something "not good" is happening that I don't understand. However I unplugged the offending port and still experiencing very slow load times (if at all). Also feels like the STP should have affectively taken care of it if that was the issue (effectively turning it off) the AP was in MESH mode anyways. I'll report when I figure something out...
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@RickyBaker said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
AP was in MESH mode
Hmm, that could create a loop.
Or at least end up routing traffic poorly. I would always avoid WiFi mesh if at all possible.
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@stephenw10 I understand that theory but I just assumed that when the port was shut off to network traffic (but still sending power) it simply switched from broadcasting a full signal to simply repeating a nearby signal. Perhaps this is an inaccurate assumption.
Haven't found the source of anything yet but there's something colliding/suboptimal going on here
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It could behave like that but Mesh can be tricky! I have seen it do weird stuff with some vendors. Like for example prefer using multiple wireless hops when a local wired connection was available resulting in terrible throughput.
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@stephenw10 STP should have effectively turned off the port anyways, though i suppose crazy Mesh activity might have still caused problems, sure, but i'm still experiencing issues and the ethernet cord to the offending AP is completely unplugged (not to mention my VSSL zone audio amplifier/streamer and Home Assistant RPi are also unplugged...)
I guess i need some good data from wireshark, i'll try for that tonight.
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@RickyBaker personally I would simplify (wired only single path), then slowly rebuild.
Having dual paths, relying devices to block it and then expecting optimal throughput is overly optimistic imo.
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@RickyBaker How many AP's and what channels are you using?
You will run into trouble if you reuse channels on adjacent AP's, giving a ton of interference. Also, with as many 14 clients that you have on one channel 2.4Ghz, I'm not surprised you see all those retries. -
@Patch said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
@RickyBaker personally I would simplify (wired only single path), then slowly rebuild.
Do you mean just one AP at first? not devices? I'm not sure how to kick everything off....would essentially be easier to just start over from scratch (shudder).
@Gblenn said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
@RickyBaker How many AP's and what channels are you using?
6 AP's i'm not sure about channel but I can check later today. I plan on doing extensive testing on my only wired desktop.
I also fired up Wireshark before I left for work...I don't have much experience with it, can anybody suggest what I should be doing with it when I get home? what to look for? Any tutorial on using it to troubleshoot an issue such as mine?
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@RickyBaker said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
6 AP's i'm not sure about channel but I can check later today. I plan on doing extensive testing on my only wired desktop.
Ok, so with that many AP's I'm guessing we are talking about quite an area to cover? Several floors perhaps?
I think you need to do some radio planning...If you have an Android device there are plenty of apps that will help you map out what channels are in use, and to some extent how much they are used. Unifi has an App that is quite good called WiFiman (probably available on iOS as well, but not sure what functions you get there).
That will help you select channels on your AP's based on what you neighbours are using, or not using rather. I have selected the busiest channel for my AP in the basement since it's somewhat shielded from others AP's. And the one on the top floor "sees" most of my neighbours, so it's on the channel where I see the lowest number of SSID's, and/or the lowest signal strength from others.On 2.4 Ghz you essentially only have three channels that are not overlapping, ch 1, 6 and 11. Depending on how your AP's are located in relation to each other you can try to use e.g. Channel 1 on two AP's that are far away from each other. So if you had them in a long corridor for example, you would use channels 1, 6 and 11, and then 1, 6 and 11. That way each channel is only used twice and by AP's that are as far away from each other as possible.
On 5 Ghz you have way more spectrum to play with, but also there you need to watch for overlaps. So with your 80Mhz bandwidth that you use, you are looking at channels 36, 52, 100, 116, 132 and 149.
But since some channels in the upper range are used by radar, the AP may detect that and try to change. So a similar reuse pattern as on 2.4 can be used with only the lower channels. -
@RickyBaker yes
Start as simple as possible and then build up your network. I would concentrate on the double paths reported by your switch.I assume you run a unifi network application to optimise channel selection and minimise crosstalk.
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@Gblenn said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
Ok, so with that many AP's I'm guessing we are talking about quite an area to cover? Several floors perhaps?
I think you need to do some radio planning...@Patch said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
I assume you run a unifi network application to optimise channel selection and minimise crosstalk.
Well kind of, I live in Chicago so my house is straight up, so mostly it's 1 on each floor (doubled up on 1st/main and one in the garage). I run the Unifi Controller in a docker on my Unraid server and I THINK that that runs a channel optimization algorithm but this is a great thing to check, thank you both.
HOWEVER, I opened up my one hard wired PC and was having the same issue opening webpages. I could google things with zero latency but as soon as I clicked on a link it took an inordinate amt of time. So, I apologize for the red herring, but it's not a wifi thing.
My wife relocated the laptop i was running Wireguard on and I was unable to locate it during my down time last night. Hoping to find it tonight so if you have any suggestions of what to look for (or any other logs to look at/post) please do pass it on...
Not sure if this information is important but devices on my IoT VLAN get booted and reconnect frequently (As shown in that screenshot above). When sitting in my kitchen my Google Hub Max regularly shows animation of it "reconnecting" and sometimes I get a notification that one of my Nest Cams is offline, but by the time I click through the picture shows up. Not sure if this behavior gives anyone any ideas.
Also I was able to very smoothly watch a ton of Netflix last night so the internet seems fine. it's some kind of DNS translation? or multiple problems?
edit: I should also report that internet HAS worked fine in the past, was really exacerbated when my parents came but my wife is saying it started before that....
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@RickyBaker Perhaps a long shot, and probably not related, but somehow I get a feeling it resembles some problems I had when running KEA DHCP. Have you changed to that at some point?
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@Gblenn Yeah i think that was brought up when i was troubleshooting this other DNS issue but I'll double check, thank you for the suggestion:
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/187510/dns_probe_finished_nxdomain-sporadically-for-anywhere-from-30secs-to-10min-works-flawlessly-at-all-other-times/174?_=1744398908972
Spoiler alert, i solved that problem by disabling IP6 with "do-ip6: no" in the advanced settings of the DNSResolver...
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@Gblenn said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
@RickyBaker Perhaps a long shot, and probably not related, but somehow I get a feeling it resembles some problems I had when running KEA DHCP. Have you changed to that at some point?
so you're suggesting reverting the KEA change? and using the old method? (Just clarifying)
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@RickyBaker looking in the logs for frequent DHCP restarts would be worth checking
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@RickyBaker this sounds like a broadcast storm
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@Gblenn said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
KEA DHCP
So you're suggesting reverting this?
@Patch said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
@RickyBaker looking in the logs for frequent DHCP restarts would be worth checking
There were no instances of the word "restart" in the dhcp log and 16 in the System Log but mostly for php-fhm whatever that is...
general - https://pastebin.com/uCUtJS6h
dhcp - https://pastebin.com/ZenrdC5Y
dnsresolver - https://pastebin.com/MaVHpXYzSorry for all the delays, it's very difficult to make these pastes with poor internet. fwiw accessing things in my LAN is very fast. Also, as I'm loading these logs into Pastebin. I can get, say, 2 in and uploaded but then it'll freeze up and say that pastebin can't be reached for a few minutes. Then a few minutes later it'll work fine....for a few minutes.
@JonathanLee said in Network becomes totally unusable when my parents connect:
this sounds like a broadcast storm
Does the above still sound like a broadcast storm? I've never heard of this term...will be googling now but if there are any other logs I can post to confirm this I would be happy to provide...
