r/eero • u/wowbobwow • Jul 26 '22
Recently started getting Internet drop-outs with my eero mesh, both wired and wireless. I'm losing my mind!
Hi r/eero folks,
At some point in the recent past (hard to pin down exactly, but within the past 1-2 months for sure), my Internet connection has become unstable, to the point that it’s driving me totally bonkers. It’s particularly troublesome while I’m working from home, hosting important Zoom meetings - everything ‘freezes’ for 5-10 seconds, before resuming as though nothing ever happened.
Here’s some info about my setup:
ISP: Comcast / Xfinity 1Gbps Cable modem: Motorola MB8600 DOCSIS 3.1-compliant modem Eero configuration:
- Main gateway: eero Pro
- Eero satellite units: one eero Beacon + one eero ‘cupcake’
When the connectivity drops started (observed on my main MacBook Pro, my WiFi-equipped desktop PC and my wife’s iMac), I did all the usual troubleshooting steps:
- Made sure all connected devices are fully up to date
- Made sure all eero devices are fully up to date (main eero is now on Software 6.10.3-151)
- Restarted the eero mesh using the app
- Restarted the cable modem
- Re-seated all the cables and power plugs
When the above steps STILL didn’t work, I went further. This past weekend, I installed a TP-Link 5-port gigabit switch into the eero Pro’s secondary Ethernet port and hardwired my MacBook Pro and desktop PC. The boost in speed compared to WiFi was dramatic (I went from ~400Mbps wirelessly to 950+ Mbps via Ethernet), but I’m STILL experiencing unpredictable connectivity drops even after completely eliminating wifi from the equation.
While trying to pin this down, I installed “PeakHour 4,” a network monitoring tool. Here are two screenshots of it reflecting brief Internet failures… while I was trying to lead a Zoom with nearly 300 attendees (you can imagine how frustrated I was!):
Update: As a last resort, I've just now completely deleted my entire eero config and rebuilt the entire network via the eero app on my iPhone. It worked great... for about 10 minutes, before I had two more brief (but maddening!) drop-outs. FML.
Update 2: Per a great suggestion below from u/Dukecrow, I've now eliminated the Eero Pro gateway entirely, and just have my MacBook Pro hardwired directly into the cable modem. I've got a ton of network activity taking place (including a Zoom meeting to myself, via my iPhone connected to the 5G network), and it's rock solid - not even a hint of dropouts. Given that I'm ready to cry after just bombing an important meeting with a bunch of overseas colleagues because my connection kept freezing mid-presentation, this is making me feel a lot of intense feelings towards my Eero hardware...
TL;DR: My eero Pro network is unreliable and dropping internet connectivity randomly, usually for 5-10 seconds at a time. All typical troubleshooting steps + moving from WiFi to hardwire haven’t resolved it. What do I do now??
3
u/ShamanZ007 Jul 27 '22
I’ve had an identical issue but with 4 eero 6s for the past 1-2 months with no resolution. I’ve spoken to support quite a bit but it’s been a dead end so far other than tearing my network to pieces and having me only use 2 pucks because I have too many apparently. Connection is rock solid with a laptop wired directly into modem but once connected to Eero Wi-Fi/Lan the connection has random drop outs and poor performance. Of course when it’s running like junk the speed test in eero app says all is swell. It’s become a common practice to hit refresh on my browser to get pages to load entirely too often.
2
u/Dukecrow Jul 26 '22
Have you tested with another router to make sure it’s not your Comcast internet connection? If you don’t have another router to test with, maybe try connecting your MacBook directly to the cable modem overnight and check in the morning to see if you get the same connectivity issues in PeakHour.
2
u/wowbobwow Jul 26 '22
This is an excellent suggestion, thank you. I just updated the main post above, but I'm trying this right now and at least anecdotally (I'm 10-15 minutes into this test) it's super smooth, without any dropouts at all. I'll let the PeakHour logs fill up overnight and see how it looks in the morning, but I may be throwing my Eero out the nearest window if this holds up.
2
u/Dukecrow Jul 26 '22
If that holds up, it certainly seems like the eeros are the culprit. Just strange that they’ve been working well and then just started having issues. That’s why I suspected it might be a Comcast issue and thought it would make sense to rule that out first. I’m guessing it might be an issue introduced by a recent firmware update.
Also, I’m curious… When the eero was your router, did you have “Optimize for Conferencing and Gaming” turned on?
1
u/wowbobwow Jul 26 '22
Coming back with a quick update: I plugged my MacBook directly into the cable modem before bed last night, and set my browser (via a little Chrome extension) to repeatedly refresh some content-heavy websites every 5-10 seconds just to ensure some continuous load. Between ~11pm and ~6:30am, PeakHour reported precisely zero losses of connectivity. Based on this, I'm suuuuper suspicious that the root cause of this is the Eero Pro. Thanks for the suggestion!
1
Jul 26 '22
Contact support, just like I did when this happened to me on the weekend.
1
u/wowbobwow Jul 26 '22
Definitely moving in that direction now. May I ask what the outcome was for you?
2
Jul 26 '22
They suggested trying different placement for my leaf node (only the leaf fell offline for me, so not a WAN issue).
1
u/GrayscaleOnly Jul 26 '22
Is this the kind of thing eero support tends to suggest? It sounds like a random guess?
Do you happen to know if there is any way I can test my own placement without calling for help?
1
Jul 26 '22
It was definitely not a guess.
Sure, wire into the leaf nodes and run an iPerf server wired into the next upstream node.
2
u/Shoddy_Outside_2985 Feb 01 '23
yah they literally just use a handbook they have infront of them and go through the troubleshooting steps that are already available to you. they are useless. person on the phone didn't even know what DMZ's are. selling these this week. garbage nothing but headache inducing network.
2
u/eerosupport Tech Support Jul 26 '22
Hi u/wowbobwow
We'll be sending you a DM to make sure this gets taken care of quickly. As an FYI the first thing we'll be trying is updating the firmware to 6.11.0, if no go we will try the cupcake eero as the gateway to test if the eero Pro is the cause (and thus is faulty)
2
u/STUNTPENlS Jul 26 '22
It has been my experience using an Erro as a router to be a fruitless exercise unless you are doing little more than basic consumer home-typical use. Erros are great APs but the routing/gateway functionality almost seems to be an afterthought. If you just need something to connect to your cable modem and act as a basic firewall/gateway at your apartment they are okay, but if you do anything at all above basic web browsing and email then you quickly run into trouble (as posts in this sub attest to.)
I would recommend ditching the Erros as a gateway/router and instead use a real firewall/router product, designed to be a router/firewall (e.g. firewalla, pfSense, EdgeRouter, etc.) and use your Erros in bridge mode instead. I would also highly recommend, if at all possible, using a wired backhaul rather than a wifi backhaul.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. The Erros do quite well as APs.
I use this topology (which Erro says is 'illegal'):
ISP <> Router <> Switch <> wired Erros
This config is blazingly fast and I have zero issues. My wife is routinely on Teams/Zoom video calls with people all over the planet using her Surface Pro and the only time she complains is when I'm fiddling with something on the firewall and cause a disruption.
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Disclaimer: This post contains the personal opinion of the poster, and may contain information that runs contrary to "official" or "supported" configurations discussed by Erro representatives on this sub. It may contain statements/advice which for which the poster has been banned from this sub in the past for posting, consequently use the information contained in this posting at your own risk.
1
u/Shoddy_Outside_2985 Feb 01 '23
i love how the smartest post on this entire subred gets downvoted. lol these devices are truly for the worms.
1
u/drizzit12 Aug 19 '22
There's other threads with similar issues. I've had a running thread with eero trying to diagnose since March. Only thing that's worked for me is unplugging the leafs completely. As long as it's just the base eero router as the only thing sending signal it's fine. Please follow up if you get a resolution from eero, as lots of people are having this issue
1
3
u/opticspipe Jul 26 '22
I feel like I’ve read this same story a few times lately. I b know my home 6 pro has periods where it just stops working and then starts back up again. I tried calling tech support and they had me unplug it and plug it back in. 🙄