WiFi Access Point Thingymabobs

[Marv]

Where's Beany to dish out the IT advice these days? He normally posts useful shit so the rest of us can just sit back

Things I'd try, if you haven't already...

> Log into your Virgin router (username and password should be on the sticker on the back) if it's not in the front page of the web interface for your router, there should be somewhere in the web interface where it shows what devices are connected. If the switch you put in your picture is managed, then it should be listed as a connected device with a name (Netgear in the name) and and IP address.

> If there is an IP address for the Netgear switch, copy and paste this into another tab in your browser. I'm guessing the switch will also have a username and password, which will also be printed onto the back of the switch. So find that, get into the web interface on the switch and in there, you again should see somewhere where you can see the connected devices to the switch. Is there anything in there? If they are connected, the Wireless Access Points should be listed with names and IP addresses too.

> If your Netgear switch isn't listed as a connected device on your router, then you need to verify the cabling. From your picture, I'm guessing you can't tell which one runs from the router to the switch? If you can tell which one comes across from the router, I'd get a laptop, disable the wifi and plug the cable in. Once plugged in, if the cable is working well then you should be able to connect to the internet, despite your wifi being disconnected.

I'm not familiar with the brand of Wireless Access Points you have, but I'm guessing they have some sort of web management interface? I'd also investigate on how to connect to that.

The switch should have loads of little lights flashing lights on it, where the cables plug in, or possibly smaller lights relating to each port in another area of the switch. If there's no lights, then it's not connecting to the devices.

None of the above will solve your problems, but may highlight if there's something not connected or help you get to the bottom of why it's not working.

[Jimexpl]

The recent other thread on IT related matters reminded me that the forum hivemind may be able to help me with an issue I have...

As you know we've recently moved in to the new place and Virgin media fibre broadband is all hooked up... in the study. This doesn't really reach all that far - not bad on the ground floor but the kitchen is L/G with absolutely no reception and upstairs barely much better.

Happily the previous owner installed a switch and ethernet routing to unifi access points on the walls in various rooms. I have plugged in the Ethernet cable to the switch which should in theory distribute the feed to the access points but despite downloading the Unifi app I haven't had any success in getting them to show as visible / connect to them.

Any ideas or do I have to get "a man" to come and help?

You need a unifi access point manager / cloud key when there's more than one unifi point - is there one?

I can do an OV9 special rate to send "a man" round, but we need to know if an additional bit of kit needs buying.

Hmmm I'm not sure about that - I've put a picture of the switch living in the cupboard in the lounge below. Could it be incorporated as part of this or something separate?

The seller said he used "broadband buyer to manage the system" and that I may want to download the unifi app but that was it!

I think broadbandbuyer offer their own cloud services for a monthly fee to manage the access points, which will be with the previous owner.

What I expect needs doing is a purchase of one of these - https://uk.store.ui.com/uk/en/category/ ... ateway-max
Factory reset each access point, plug in the cloud gateway, then set it up as a new system.
It's not difficult, just time consuming, and occasionally the access points can get stuck after a factory resent and need a bit of TLC to get on the network.
Send me a PM with your number if you want someone to come round. Next week is a bit mad with installs and an engineer away in Belgium on training, but we might have time on Friday afternoon.

[Ascender]

I'm still not sure why he needed to have "broadband buyer" doing anything for him, but I guess its a managed cloud service.

Like others have said, I'd be doing a full hardware reset on all devices and then setting them up from scratch via the Unifi network app/manager/gui. Is it not something you can just download and run on a PC if you don't have a dedicated unified controller box? I don't think you necessarily need a cloud gateway do you?

I'm pretty sure these APs will keep working if you take away the management element, but your router is probably using a different DHCP range. If that's a managed switch it might also be doing network-type things, so get into the management link for that.

Like Marv says, you can then see what's connected, but I"d be wiping everything and starting again because you'll be fighting a losing battle of trying to untangle the previous setup.

Back to basics, reset switch, reset the APs, download the unifi network app, leave the router dishing out the DHCP range, with the switch being "dumb" and you should get an AP up and be sorted.

[Beany]

I'm not weighing in because the state of home networking has changed a lot since I did it professionally, and even I had to take some time out to get my head around mesh networking when I set up my little mesh to make my WiFi doorbell work so for once, I'm not comfy giving advice as I suspect I'd be about ten years behind at best

I will say don't pay over the odds for WiFi 7 - most hardware doesn't even meet the full WiFi 7 standard, and use alternate verification to claim it does. It's a fucking joke.

[Jimexpl]

This this is a typical house network/AV and lighting panel that we deal with. Our junior engineer was organising them ready to terminate earlier this week. Just 32 pairs of speaker cables to go at this point...

[GG.]

Ok so we seem to be cooking on gas. Broadband buyer seem to host the unifi controller function in the cloud and I've re-set all the access points and they've now been adopted onto a new controller as it were. Now have fast wifi all round the house which is great.

Only one of the access points threw a wobbly and gave me an error when trying to adopt it so just troubleshooting that one now.

ETA: they provided an alternative prompt for that one so looks like we're all done. They charged £70 set up fee for this but to be honest I'm very happy to have had them walk me through the process and vastly cheaper than starting again.

I now just wonder if I can merge my Ethernet based CCTV based system with the current switch...

[Marv]

I now just wonder if I can merge my Ethernet based CCTV based system with the current switch...

When I ran a Ethernet cable to my garage into a relatively cheap switch and plugged in my CCTV cameras in to the switch everything auto-negotiated and the cameras appeared on my NVR like magic. Hopefully you find it similarly easy!

[GG.]

If I were setting up from scratch I'd go for something like Unifi with ethernet cabling, but since I wasn't I got a set of Netgear Orbis (main plus 3 satellites) which I'd say is not as good as I expected based on the reviews and pricing.

Thing is, if you've inherited a system then you're always going to be uncertain about it; it might be that it's not too expensive to replace the access points and main router because the cabling is already in place. So I'd consider that as an option; if you set it up then you're always going to be better placed to fix something later on.

I haven't fully counted up the access points but there may be c. 6/7 and with the cost of the switch I think it would end up being a >£1,000 bill so keen to try and retain the existing kit if I can. Hopefully it can all be fully reset and repurposed even if that involves me getting an engineer out to look at it.

My second issue is that I can't easily get a dish installed for Sky TV... owing to local restrictions I can't mount on the front of the house and the rear aspects are all blocked by trees so the only option is all the way up on the flat roof of a dormer and I may still be asked to (re)move it if it is visible from the road and someone complains... I've been quoted another grand to install that so its not really a gamble I want to take.

On that basis I'm looking at cable / streaming TV options from Sky and Virgin but they're all crap these days and don't offer any recording function so for things like F1 they seem hopeless and you're just reliant on the streams being available (which according to threads online, they often aren't)...

Sky now do sky stream that uses your internet and doesn't need a dish. The downside is that it wont record live telly.

ETA - Have you contracted with Virgin for the Internet - is SKY Fibre available in your area?

Very annoyed with Sky - I called them up and went through their nonsense to get a quote for moving across to Sky steam and they would only give me the full priced version which was a £40 "setup" fee and £80 a month for the same package I'm currently paying £50 odd quid a month for with better functionality around recording on Sky Q. For a new customer they'd do £20 setup fee and £55 a month for the same package.

On that basis I told them to cancel everything - not impressed after 12 years contracted to them. Stupidly it then seems from what is flashing up on the website that I'd be able to re-contract on a new customer basis so I'm not really sure what this achieves other than annoying their long term customers.

[dinny_g]

It's part of their game unfortunately - Despite being a "Diamond" customer, every 2 years I have to go through the:

• Call them up, say I want to reduce services

• they say let me see what I can do

• they then offer me the same services for a £20 discount

• I accept and we continue for anther 2 years

They really have a "What are you going to do - leave us" attitude which sucks.

They've been getting clever with bundling streaming services in though - I get Netflix for £4.99 because I have Sky Movies but then I also get Paramount + and Disney + because I have sky movies. If I try to cancel Sky Movies, I'll need to pay full price for Netflix and then then buy Paramount, disney etc.

I also have TNT sport for the football but I get Discovery + and HBO Max bundled and I can't get TNT sports without Sky Sports etc so have to keep that etc.

[GG.]

Yes I get that rigmarole but they actually just shrugged their shoulders and said unless I took Sky Glass and a TV I don't want/need they couldn't shave anything off the price and I actually went through and cancelled everything!

[jamcg]

It's part of their game unfortunately - Despite being a "Diamond" customer, every 2 years I have to go through the:

• Call them up, say I want to reduce services

• they say let me see what I can do

• they then offer me the same services for a £20 discount

• I accept and we continue for anther 2 years

They really have a "What are you going to do - leave us" attitude which sucks.

They've been getting clever with bundling streaming services in though - I get Netflix for £4.99 because I have Sky Movies but then I also get Paramount + and Disney + because I have sky movies. If I try to cancel Sky Movies, I'll need to pay full price for Netflix and then then buy Paramount, disney etc.

I also have TNT sport for the football but I get Discovery + and HBO Max bundled and I can't get TNT sports without Sky Sports etc so have to keep that etc.

If you actually cancel you get even better offers- and if you are prepared to go a month or two without their service you get even better offers still to come back

[GG.]

Yes that's the plan - will send their Sky Q box back to them and then will contract as a new customer for Sky stream as its doesn't really look economical to get the F1 any other way - its seemingly c.£30 a month through Now TV and as Dinny says, Sky bundle Disney plus and Netflix as well.

[Mito Man]

I got the Sky Glass tv as it worked out barely more than buying a new TV when they had some special almost 2 years ago and I think Netflix is half price with Sky in general. Only paid channel I watch is the discovery stuff. For the F1 I stream off my PS4 via my parents Sky Q account. And in 12 months time the contract is finished so I’ll just start over and get another tv