No wifi connection to a Fritz repeater 310 or 450E

[Uwe-Kaditz]

My Wemos D1 mini is always connecting to my Fritz-Box 7490 without problems, it needs just sometimes a few seconds.
I tried to connect the Wemos to my Fritz repeater but it always failed to get the WLAN connection.

I already modified the ESPeasy software (wifi.ino) to play around with different waiting times after wifi.begin and/or wifi.status, but no success.

Anyone encountered a similar problem with a repeater?

Some more information:
latest ESPeasy v2.3.0
2.5 GHz wifi
SSID is visible
WPA2 (CCMP)
Password consist of 20 numbers (no characters )

[grovkillen]

What SSID are you using?

And 2.4GHz WiFi I imagine.

[Uwe-Kaditz]

You are right, it's a 2.4 GHz wifi network.
The SSID consists of characters and a minus sign.

[TD-er]

I use the Fritz Repeater 1750e (the more advanced version of these repeaters) and these just work fine.
Do you have the latest firmware installed on these repeaters?

Also make sure you're not using the upper channels, setting "Wireless auto channel including channel 12/13 (2.4 GHz frequency band)".

How are these repeaters "connected" to the network?
I have the repeaters wired, so they act as accesspoint, not really a repeater.

[Uwe-Kaditz]

The repeaters are updated to the latest firmware 6.92, the Fritz box is running with version 6.93
The channel an all units is fixed to 9.
They are connected to the Fritz box via wfi, acting as real repeaters.
I also tried the new Mesh repeater method provided by the latest Fritz firmware update, but the same result.

I added some debug information and used the highest debug level to get the log data below

01:05:31.145 rll��|�l�|�l�b|����r�b�b��nn�lnn���bp��lrlrlp�n��l��bn�|l��b��nn�l��l`�nnl`nr���nb�lr��nb�l�l���p��l��n��U
01:05:31.431 INIT : Booting version: v2.0.0-dev12-Mue
01:05:31.431 INIT : Warm boot #2
01:05:31.431 FS : Mounting...
01:05:31.501 FS : Mount successful, used 75802 bytes of 2949250
01:05:31.567 INIT : Free RAM:25560
01:05:31.567 INIT : SPI not enabled
01:05:31.567 WIFI : Connecting My-FRITZssid Attempts: 250
01:05:31.567 WIFI : Wait 0.5s after Disconnect...
01:05:32.071 WIFI : Wait after begin...
01:05:32.071 ESP8266WiFiSTAClass::begin(...)
01:05:32.071 wifi_station_set_config_current
01:05:32.071 wifi_station_connect
01:05:32.071 f r0, wifi_set_channel
01:05:32.071 wifi_station_dhcpc_start
01:05:34.185 scandone
01:05:35.073 state: 0 -> 2 (b0)
01:05:36.075 state: 2 -> 0 (2)
01:05:36.075 reconnect
01:05:36.075 f 0
01:05:38.205 scandone
01:05:38.205 state: 0 -> 2 (b0)
01:05:39.207 state: 2 -> 0 (2)
01:05:39.207 reconnect
01:05:39.207 f -180
01:05:41.339 scandone
01:05:41.339 state: 0 -> 2 (b0)
01:05:42.341 state: 2 -> 0 (2)
01:05:42.341 reconnect
01:05:42.341 f r0
01:05:42.571 scandone

01:05:42.575 WIFI : Wait 0.5s after Disconnect...
01:05:43.086 WIFI : Wait after begin...
01:05:43.086 ESP8266WiFiSTAClass::begin(...)
01:05:43.086 wifi_station_set_config_current
01:05:43.086 wifi_station_connect
01:05:43.086 f 0, wifi_set_channel
01:05:43.086 wifi_station_dhcpc_start
01:05:45.203 scandone
01:05:46.089 state: 0 -> 2 (b0)
01:05:47.091 state: 2 -> 0 (2)
01:05:47.091 reconnect
01:05:47.091 f -180
01:05:49.225 scandone
01:05:49.225 state: 0 -> 2 (b0)
01:05:50.226 state: 2 -> 0 (2)
01:05:50.226 reconnect
01:05:50.226 f r0
01:05:52.358 scandone
01:05:52.358 state: 0 -> 2 (b0)
01:05:53.360 state: 2 -> 0 (2)
01:05:53.360 reconnect
01:05:53.360 f 0,
01:05:53.606 scandone

01:05:53.610 WIFI : Wait 0.5s after Disconnect...
01:05:54.121 WIFI : Wait after begin...

[mrwee]

From a pure Wi-Fi perspective channel 9 isn't good. You should stick to so-called non-overlapping channels which normally means channel 1, 6 or 11 depending on how much interference you have from other Wi-Fi where you live.

[TD-er]

Can you try -just for test- to first give the router accesspoint (which will work with ESPeasy?) the SSID-name of the repeaters, then connect, then rename the router to its original SSID and switch the repeaters on again.

Just to see if it will work when accessing a known accesspoint. (repeater)

[Uwe-Kaditz]

In my house I use in sum 3 repeaters from AVM and the Fritz box, also from AVM.

Over the weekend, I made an interesting discovery.
The Wemos work well with the older models of the AVM devices, manufactured in 2013.
These devices are the Fritz box 7490 and a repeater 310. There serial number start with D.

The Wemos cannot connect to the two other devices, another repeater 310 and a repeater 450E manufactured in 2014 and 2017 (serial number start with F resp. J).
I already asked AVM if there were some hardware changes between 2013 and 2014.

[Uwe-Kaditz]

Changing the wifi channel from 9 to 6 did not change anything.

[TD-er]

That's interesting.
I still have an unopened 1750e repeater manufactured in 2017, which I will test later this evening.
The other ones are definitely older.

[Uwe-Kaditz]

I got the answers from AVM but no solution.
Here are the answers (I'm sorry they are in German):

Ihre Supportanfrage zu FRITZ!WLAN Repeater 310 mit der Ticket-ID 1641030

19. Jan., 15:23 CET
Ihre beiden FRITZ!WLAN Repeater 310 haben den gleichen Seriennummern-Kreis, ich gehe daher nicht davon aus, dass es hier einen relevanten technischen Unterschied gäbe.
Und um ehrlich zu sein, selbst wenn, ist uns keine Ursache seitens unserer Hardware bekannt, die ein solches Fehlerbild hervorrufen würde.
WLAN basiert auf Industriestandards, und Ihre AVM-Hardware erfüllt diese Standards.
Gerne leite ich alle zusammengetragenen Details zu dieser Problematik weiter.
Sollten uns ähnliche Kommunikationsprobleme an solchen Geräten auffallen, hätten wir hier einen ersten Analyseansatz und Vergleichsdaten.
Störeinflüsse durch externe Faktoren oder infolge von Fehlkonfigurationen sind in den Analysedaten leider nicht immer vollständig einzufangen und können daher u.U. unentdeckt bleiben.
Sollte Ihnen zwischenzeitlich die Beseitigung oder Abminderung der Störung gelingen, würden wir uns über eine Rückmeldung freuen.
Bitte teilen Sie uns in diesem Fall mit, durch welche Maßnahmen Sie dies erreichen konnten.

Freundliche Grüße aus Berlin
AVM Support

18. Jan., 16:53 CET
Aus den Daten ist lediglich ersichtlich, dass der Wemos-WLAN-Client kontinuierlich die Verbindung trennt (der Client antwortet nicht).
Dabei ist evtl. auch das Signal an dieser Stelle zu schlecht (er also außer Reichweite). (Note: Client is 2m away from the repeater!)
Wir gehen davon aus, dass die Lösung des Verbindungsproblems hier weiterhin nur über das Endgerät, die Positionierung und Optimierung des WLAN-Netzes an sich zu suchen ist.
Im Repeater selber gibt es keine weiteren Konfigurationsmöglichkeiten dazu.
Gerne behalten wir hier aber die Augen offen, sollten uns ähnliche Anfragen bezüglich dieser Geräte erreichen.
Bisher haben wir keine (negative) Erfahrung dazu gemacht, weshalb ich Ihnen leider auch, quasi außerhalb unserer regulären Support-Wege, keine Tipps dazu geben kann.

Freundliche Grüße aus Berlin
AVM Support

[TD-er]

They claim the device does disconnects, but I have some Wemos D1 mini's here and one of them has had a stable connection for over 19 days now.
Connected to the Fritzbox 1750E repeater. (not used as repeater, but as accesspoint)

So it is still possible the connection is lost, but the question remains why.
It is not due to default behavior of the firmware.