Squeezebox Radio keeps losing wireless connection and won't reconnect - any ideas?

[superstar19]

I have 4 Squeezebox Radios in my house connected to my WiFi network. After months of frustration with them mysteriously losing their WiFi connection, I was relieved to find this thread and the relatively simple and cost effective suggestion of using a Vonets WiFi bridge to work around this problem. So I purchased a VAP11N-300 adapter for each radio and used the SB radio power supply to power both the adapter and radio as others suggested.

Although this initially worked, I've had problems with the durability/reliability of these adapters. Sometimes after a day or two, or a few weeks, or even a month or more, an adapter will suddenly quit working. When this happens they don't seem to power up any longer, no lights come on, and power is no longer passed through to the SB radio. I wonder if maybe the radio draws a little more power than the adapter was meant to handle and eventually it burns up/wears out something inside the adapter?

Anyway, I've had Amazon replace several of them as "defective" so I think over time I've tried a total of 7 different adapters and 5 of them have eventually quit working. I'm getting frustrated again because I can't keep replacing these adapters. I was curious what other people's experience has been with these adapters? Have they been more reliable for you? Is the "G" version (VAP11G-300) better? Does anyone have any recommendations for a similar adapter that might last longer?

The Vonets that I referenced earlier up thread that died was the VAP11N-300. I'm about 2weeks+ into the replacement with no issue (knock on wood), but I think it's like Tony T said and these are just cheap electronics.

[nkat]

Are you sure the 2nd extender is connecting to your Main WiFi Router (not the other extender, in daisy chained fashion)? That could happen if you are using the SAME SSID for all.....

Thanks. Yes, I am sure. The extenders each show a different SSID but are connected wirelessly on the same network back to the router.

[castor_fou]

I am trying to use @POMdev wlanpoke to monitor my squeezebox radio.
Starting just with one.

wlanpoke is running on my squeezebox radio:

# pwp
root       749  0.8  1.2   2796   752 ?        S    14:29   0:01 /bin/sh /etc/wlanpoke/wlanpoke.sh -vt -l 8

However not a lot is logged on LMS server:

2020-11-28T14:02:38+0100 Squeezebox Cuisine.252_063 Link Statistics

I would have expected to see additional entries in 1121.log when starti,ng/stopping wlanpoke.
I suspect something is not working properly.

log files on radio seem to be created as expected:

# ll /var/log
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root             0 Nov 28 14:30 .
drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root             0 Nov 28 14:29 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            15 Nov 28 14:30 ip.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         32963 Nov 28 14:31 messages
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          3517 Nov 28 14:31 stats.txt
drwxr-x---    2 root     root             0 Nov 28 14:29 watchdog
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            13 Nov 28 14:30 wgw.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          7158 Nov 28 14:31 wlanerr.log
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           245 Nov 28 14:31 wping.txt

Where do I see the overall disconnect/reconnect events?
My radio is loosing connection it doesn't seem to try to reconnect.

thanks for your help.

G.

[castor_fou]

Answereing to myself.
I have just monitored a second radio with wlanpoke.
Cuisine (kitchen) and Sdb (Bathroom)

1121.log file is slowly growing.
After 1 hour, my radios are still playing, and I see entries such as

grep failed 1121.log

2020-11-28T15:35:10+0100 Squeezebox Cuisine.252_063 192.168.50.1  ping failed eth1 AR6000 802.11g ESSID:"MUSIC" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 28:C6:8E:B3:D4:BD Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity=0/3 Retry:on Encryption key:off Link Quality:26/94 Signal level:-69 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:6 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
2020-11-28T15:35:52+0100 Squeezebox Cuisine.252_063 failed 2020-11-28T15:35:10+0100 reset 2020-11-28T15:35:30+0100 up 2020-11-28T15:35:49+0100 eth1 AR6000 802.11g ESSID:"MUSIC" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 28:C6:8E:B3:D4:BD Bit Rate=24 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity=0/3 Retry:on Encryption key:off Link Quality:26/94 Signal level:-69 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:2 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 PING 192.168.50.1 (192.168.50.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 192.168.50.1: seq=0 ttl=64 time=64.466 ms --- 192.168.50.1 ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 64.466/64.466/64.466 ms
2020-11-28T15:35:18+0100 Squeezebox SdB.253_063 192.168.50.1  ping failed eth1 AR6000 802.11g ESSID:"MUSIC" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 28:C6:8E:B3:D4:BD Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity=0/3 Retry:on Encryption key:off Link Quality:40/94 Signal level:-55 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:15 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
2020-11-28T15:35:59+0100 Squeezebox SdB.253_063 failed 2020-11-28T15:35:18+0100 reset 2020-11-28T15:35:38+0100 up 2020-11-28T15:35:56+0100 eth1 AR6000 802.11g ESSID:"MUSIC" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 28:C6:8E:B3:D4:BD Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity=0/3 Retry:on Encryption key:off Link Quality:40/94 Signal level:-55 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 PING 192.168.50.1 (192.168.50.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 192.168.50.1: seq=0 ttl=64 time=8.255 ms --- 192.168.50.1 ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 8.255/8.255/8.255 ms

guillaume@htpc-arctic:~$ grep failed 1121.log |wc
     18    1206   10394

Is it correct to read it as 18 failures/reconnections happened?

I am connected to my old router (I have used for 5 years without any issues) setup as an AP. I cannot connect to my new wifi6 asus router: as described in this thread: https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post996148

[castor_fou]

I have tried to setup logrotate.
I would like 1 1121.log per day. To monitor number of disconnection/connection following some change of wifi parameters.

Here is my config file of logrotate:

guillaume@htpc-arctic:~$ cat /etc/logrotate.d/wlanpoke 
/home/guillaume/wlanpoke/1121.log {
  copytruncate
  daily
  rotate 31
  create 644 guillaume guillaume
}

I will report any progress if it can help someone.

[jsclarke]

FWIW- I have 5 squeezebox radios spread throughout the house. Within the last month, all of them will disconnect from WiFi- they show full strength WiFi signal but when I do a network check they report a DNS registration error. I moved 2 to wired ethernet on the same net- and the problems went away. I had been using a Google Mesh WiFi net.

Yesterday, I upgraded to EERO 6 Pro. All radios initially connected and worked. But by this morning all dropped their connection. Power cycling got them back for just a few minutes.

I also have a Grace "Mondo" radio- and it's hanging in there attaching and working OK (so far).

So given all of the previous posts I guess this is "the end of the line" for this once great product, unless they're hard-wired to ethernet.

What is strange is, this happened to all of them, abruptly, within a month. The only thing "new" on our network at this time are 2 iPhone 12's?

Anyway good luck everyone.

[Paul Webster]

The only thing "new" on our network at this time are 2 iPhone 12's?

and possibly a pushed firmware update into your routers.

Adding a small WiFi to Ethernet dongle or a Powerline adapter (pair) is another way to keep them going.

There are a few other threads about turning off new features in WiFi6 / Mesh routers to keep things working for the ancient kit.

[Tony T]

So given all of the previous posts I guess this is "the end of the line" for this once great product, unless they're hard-wired to ethernet.

What is strange is, this happened to all of them, abruptly, within a month. The only thing "new" on our network at this time are 2 iPhone 12's?

Anyway good luck everyone.

I thought the same, but then I found out about the. Vonets Ethernet dongle on this forum (thanks!)
For me, the problem was interface from neighbors that the old WiFi chip in the SB Radio couldn’t handle.

This is the post that saved my SB Radios : https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post932270

[nkat]

[QUOTE=nkat;995063]I had success with Vonets but after 2 burning out [suspect the wrong power supply for the first one, poor quality after that] I have switched to TP Link RE 205 and 305 Range Extenders."

I found the problem with the VONETS and a couple of other dongles. The SB wall power supply pushes out 18v and the VONETS is a 5-15v input unit, typically using a 5v power supply - see the first inside page of the VONETS manual.

Now to try and fix the SBR not working with the range extender's ethernet connection....

[Tony T]

I had success with Vonets but after 2 burning out [suspect the wrong power supply for the first one, poor quality after that] I have switched to TP Link RE 205 and 305 Range Extenders."

I found the problem with the VONETS and a couple of other dongles. The SB wall power supply pushes out 18v and the VONETS is a 5-15v input unit, typically using a 5v power supply - see the first inside page of the VONETS manual.

Now to try and fix the SBR not working with the range extender's ethernet connection....

The 18v SB Radio and 5-15v Vonets was noted in the post I linked above. I would expect the 3v above spec (5-15v is quite a wide range, btw) to immediately burn out the Vonets, not after weeks or months of connection. The Vonets are cheap units, but so far, working for me on 3 Radios.