WiFi Connect Issue Call to Arms

[jjz109]

Hi All - I experienced the same issue w/the WiFi signal disconnecting on my Squeezebox Radio that many of us have. My solve was to buy a WiFi extender w/Ethernet port and the radio has been flawless since. That said, I donÂ’t believe the WiFi receiver is failing as many others have concluded. My radio was rock solid for years and this issue only appeared last month right after I updated my router firmware. I also donÂ’t think a physical part in hundreds of radios could all fail simultaneously.

IÂ’m hoping some of the experts here (mherger, looking at you could PLEASE make solving this issue a priority for the community AND for mac users which to my knowledge wlanpoke does not work for. This community has kept these devices going for years so really hoping this can be fixed so it can continue for many more!

Thanks!

[Chz]

I wish that solution had worked for me. I bought a new extender, reset the Radio, plugged it in and I *still* get disconnected!

[dr_glenn]

I don't have a solution yet, but others have suggested installing wlanpoke - see my question: https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...m-until-reboot
My problem arose not with a new router, but with a new cable modem. Possibly IPv6 traffic on WiFi causes the squeezebox to lose its IP address (I fond that mine has lost its 192.168.1 address and now shows only 169.254.x.x address). If the supposition about IPv6 traffic on 2.4 GHz channel is correct, then perhaps the new modem is passing traffic from my ISP that uses IPv6 and my old modem did not receive or handle such traffic.
Anyway, connect to your router with Ethernet or install the wlanpoke fix. (I cannot install wlanpoke, because I can't SSH into mysqueezebox and I don't know why).

[POMdev]

Hi All - I experienced the same issue w/the WiFi signal disconnecting on my Squeezebox Radio that many of us have. My solve was to buy a WiFi extender w/Ethernet port and the radio has been flawless since. That said, I don’t believe the WiFi receiver is failing as many others have concluded. My radio was rock solid for years and this issue only appeared last month right after I updated my router firmware. I also don’t think a physical part in hundreds of radios could all fail simultaneously. ...

The chips are not failing in the sense that they are wearing out or becoming damaged. But the chips and their firmware are failing to handle increasingly complex signal environments coming from increased WiFi usage and new standards starting early 2020. And it is not just the Squeezebox radios suffering from this issue, other recently manufactured devices operating on the congested 2.4 gHz band are affected, although yet others don't seem to be. (Derived from this 2020 post. For more information, read the posts in the developer's Community-Build-Radio-Firmware section of this forum.)

Since that post, the problem was narrowed down to implicate WiFi-6 and mesh networking on the 2.4 gHz band. Modern routers are more and more using this technology to improve speed and coverage. The tech is supposed to be compatible with existing systems, but it evidently is not, at least for a significant number of router models and versions.

... for mac users which to my knowledge wlanpoke does not work for. ...

The mitigation script runs entirely on the radio. However, it is installed and optionally monitored using a computer. The simplified directions on this forum were written for Windows. The included directions were written for PC and linux based computers. You might try those as I understand the more recent Macs are sort of linux based. Can anyone out there help out with simplified instructions for the Mac?

[Tony T]

I’m frustrated as well, but at least I was able to solve the problem with a Wi-Fi->Ethernet dongle that I found out about here.(https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post932270). It needs to be powered, so I use this on 3 Radios that I never use as a portable. I have 1 other Radio that I use as a portable, and if playing, the connection lasts most of the day (may have to do 1 re-boot)

[mark wollschlager]

2.4 in my neighborhood is a war zone. It's not an apartment building or dense urban setting.
I can see more than 35 SSID's and almost 100 AP's all on 2.4 and most of them configured to autoscan and optimize. There are some 5gh, but since they are shorter range they play better.
Watching the channel contention in my Ubiquity console is pretty amazing, constantly shifting.
FWIW my system rescans once a day, but i have had to manually force it some times when my squeezebox looses connection from just feet away from the AP.
People keep adding more AP's and mesh nodes in an attempt to 'win', but it just messes things up more.
My next door neighbor has 5 mesh ap's in a 1500sf house.
Using a wired connection to Radio or receiver is the only real solution.