Weird WiFi problem in the M3

[davidmc]

Hi all

Not sure if anyone else is having this problem. My WiFi on the M3 drops in and out of connectivity. Even with full bars.

Causing a problem trying to download new firmware and nav maps.

Video below shows my phone tethered so get full signal. I also have a small repeater in the car and this is also doing the same.

Not sure on the issue. Tried different channels 1, 6 & 11. Tried 2.4 & 5 GHz. Passwords on and off. Change names, reset etc!

 

[linux-works]

check your router/AP's dhcp log to make sure its getting an ip addr and not getting rejected or getting a dupe.

also, repeaters can sometimes confuse things if they use the same ssid and just retransmit the signal. if its possible to not have the repeater on, that would simplify the situation, at least.

 

[davidmc]

check your router/AP's dhcp log to make sure its getting an ip addr and not getting rejected or getting a dupe.

also, repeaters can sometimes confuse things if they use the same ssid and just retransmit the signal. if its possible to not have the repeater on, that would simplify the situation, at least.

Thanks with the reply. In the vid it's tethered to my phone so not sure why it would do it with that?

Will have a look at the Repeater, but I have it set to a different SSID so the car locks in to that. Will keep tinkering

 

[NewbieT]

Interference? If you tether your phone away from your house e.g. Tesco car park does it do the same thing?

 

[davidmc]

Interference? If you tether your phone away from your house e.g. Tesco car park does it do the same thing?

It does, been playing with the settings on both my phone and repeater but just constantly drops in and out. I'll start all over again and use completely different settings to see if something is causing a conflict.

 

[fancealot]

Still waiting for my M3, but I thought I could chip in, probably teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here but have you done a re-boot of the system? It could clear out any glitches that may be why it's dropping out all the time.

 

[linux-works]

maybe a dumb question, but how far is your repeater from the wifi antenna(s) in the car?

there is a thing called 'being too close' (in RF sense).

for 5.8, its hard to be too close unless you are right on top. for 5.8 testing, I usually keep things at least 2 or 3 feet apart (about 1 meter). for 2.4ghz, I use the same distance or even double that (2meters).

its a shame we can't get access to the logs inside the car. my method is always to do a 'tail -F foo.log' and watch it at both ends as the comms start and then fail. if there is a flap (interface going up and down) or oscillation (connect/disconnect between 'fighting' APs) you'd see it in someone's log.

 

[linux-works]

oh, also, when you say you 'tried channels', does that mean you manually forced one side to not change is wifi channel?

that's almost always counter-productive. wifi implementations, today, do their best to find free channels and not overload any one area of spectrum. things work best when they are allowed to auto-configure, as much as possible. that means not locking down tx power, etc.

the other area that sometimes causes problems is country codes. I doubt you forced a country-code, but that's also something I would check. if one side is set to CN (china, example) and the other is US, that's not 100% identical.

 

[davidmc]

Well I found the problem. OpenWRT was not saving the Master AP to channel 1, 6 or 11 and set as Auto. After many frustrating hours I got it to stick to channel 1. The Auto was setting it as channel 13 and the M3 does not like that channel.

Thanks all for the help

 

[dakaix]

Well I found the problem. OpenWRT was not saving the Master AP to channel 1, 6 or 11 and set as Auto. After many frustrating hours I got it to stick to channel 1. The Auto was setting it as channel 13 and the M3 does not like that channel.

Thanks all for the help

Try setting the radio country to US in OpenWRT, that should stop it from trying to use Channel 13 as that frequency isn’t permitted under their spectrum allocation.