Why is my Unifi network routing everything to a single AP

[Elvis 3375]

I had to reset everything due to a memory failure in a Gen2 Cloud Key Plus.  All the clients are working are getting signal, but they are all attaching to one AP.  I have been messing with all of the settings and resetting stuff, but the topography keeps looking like this.  Help please!

 

 

[Bevo 13612]

Make sure all your wires are connected properly and your system is plugged into a working outlet. Turn your system off, wait 10 seconds, and turn your system back on.

Edited January 10 by Bevo

[pacman 7380]

Safe to assume those other APs are closer in proximity to some of the devices than the one AP?

Are all APs running updated firmware?

Did you check the devices to verify they are going through that 1 AP? It's possible the topology ap is not correct.

 

 

[Elvis 3375]

12 hours ago, pacman said:

Safe to assume those other APs are closer in proximity to some of the devices than the one AP?

Are all APs running updated firmware?

Did you check the devices to verify they are going through that 1 AP? It's possible the topology ap is not correct.

 

 

I have 3 APs.  One in the hallway that is in the middle of the house.  One in my office in the front of the house.  One in the living room at the back of the house.  

Everything was working fine until my console (cloud key) lost it's marbles for some reason.  I had to reset the cloud key gen 2 gateway and all of the hardware and reconfigure everything yesterday.  Now the system sees all 3 APs, but devices only connect to one of them (hall AP in the middle.)

The Unifi software is how I normally look at the network topogrophy.

I can easily see which wifi network it's connected to (I have 4 wifi networks with different passwords, one for each family member so I can kill their wifi if I want to).  The client to wifi network is correct in the Unifi console topogrophy.  

To the question above:

How do you check inside the client to see which AP it is connected to?

[MonkeyDoughnut 10373]

Have you tried rebooting/restarting the Hall AP to see if clients switch over the the other 2 APs? 

[Francisco 2.0 32432]

One hypothesis; your AP's are close enough to each other than your clients are still connected to a single AP vs roaming to the nearest, because of signal overlap (and your AP's are broadcasting at higher transmit levels).  When you brought everything back on line, all of your devices attached to the first AP they saw, and the signal was strong enough there was no reason to roam to a different AP.

In a multi AP environment (Cisco, Aruba or Meraki I'm familar with) the controller will turn down the power on the AP's automatically if they detect each other, minimizing the overlap.  

Also, I have a similar setup at the house (just under 4000 sq, including the garage, all Meraki gear) with 4 access points (one upstairs, one at south end of home, one north end, and the last in the garage).  What I did on the 2.4 side only the three first floor AP's are broadcasting.(Channels 1, 6 and 11).   On the 5GHz side, I spaced the channels far enough from each other to eliminate the overlap, then further reduced the power on each.  By doing those two things, I'm forcing a device on the 2.4 side to attach to one of the 3 AP's--pick one, any one, but only one of the three.  On the 5GHz side, I turned down the power enough that a device on our first floor will barely connect, if at all, to the AP on the second floor.  

[Native Horn 3516]

It's because you touch your router at night.

[Elvis 3375]

3 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Have you tried rebooting/restarting the Hall AP to see if clients switch over the the other 2 APs? 

I tried that.  All clients stayed online throughout the restart.  They just moved out of the topography into "open space" and didn't attach to the other APs.  When the Hall AP came back on they all moved right back to it.  I don't know what it's doing, but I have fewer bars on my laptop now than before the reset.

 

Also, my cloud key just lost it's marbles again.  I loaded a backup config that was confirmed good.  Now none of the devices are adopted.  Luckily the network is still up and all the wifis are working.  

 

I think the cloud key is dying.  I don't understand this.  I had a 1st gen cloud key that died after 3 years and now this 2nd gen cloud key plus is dying after 2 years.  Why is solid state equipment in a ventilated rackmount closet fucking up so frequently?  Most of my stuff lasts a very long time because I oversize it and under utilize it.

[Elvis 3375]

18 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

One hypothesis; your AP's are close enough to each other than your clients are still connected to a single AP vs roaming to the nearest, because of signal overlap (and your AP's are broadcasting at higher transmit levels).  When you brought everything back on line, all of your devices attached to the first AP they saw, and the signal was strong enough there was no reason to roam to a different AP.

In a multi AP environment (Cisco, Aruba or Meraki I'm familar with) the controller will turn down the power on the AP's automatically if they detect each other, minimizing the overlap.  

Also, I have a similar setup at the house (just under 4000 sq, including the garage, all Meraki gear) with 4 access points (one upstairs, one at south end of home, one north end, and the last in the garage).  What I did on the 2.4 side only the three first floor AP's are broadcasting.(Channels 1, 6 and 11).   On the 5GHz side, I spaced the channels far enough from each other to eliminate the overlap, then further reduced the power on each.  By doing those two things, I'm forcing a device on the 2.4 side to attach to one of the 3 AP's--pick one, any one, but only one of the three.  On the 5GHz side, I turned down the power enough that a device on our first floor will barely connect, if at all, to the AP on the second floor.  

This seams like a good answer and I will try this.  Unfortunately my controller is retarded.  

 

I don't want to manually reset everything and reprogram the network again if the controller (cloud key) is going to keep borking.  (2 of my APs are on the ceiling and kind of PIA to reset).  Plus the risk of losing the whole network.  I guess I'll order a new one and then redo everything.

[Gravy Train 974]

Settings --> WiFi, then examine your SSIDs.  Do you have multiple SSIDs configured and do they belong to an AP Group?

Recent versions of UI's Network Manager now has a "Radio Manager" option on the left side, where you allocate AP devices, band segmentation, and AP Groups.  Things have probably shuffled around a bit (if you updated recently) and you'll may need to re-enable to reconfigure the APs.

[Revolution512 1498]

Is the blue light on?

[Spur08 382]

My USG has been shitting all over itself the past few years as well.  Oddly enough, a new power cord ended up fixing the problem...at least until it did it again and I needed another new power cord.

 

I like Ubiquiti Unifi for all the APs throughout the house, but I'm starting to think that managing the system is A. beyond my skillset and B. likely more money than I want to invest over the multiple years.  The problem is, I'm not sure what I would pivot too that is both consistent and can provide enough wifi coverage across my house/property.