[TriLUG] Weird WiFi router behavior

[David Both via TriLUG]

I have identified some very weird WiFi router behavior a couple days 
ago. The good thing is that everything is working now, but here is the 
rest of the story.

<Long story warning>

So my wife and I have different devices. She has an iPhone (very old) 
and an iPad (fairly new). I have a Kindle Fire HDX and a Samsung S5. 
Until a few months ago, all of these devices worked fine, including all 
Apps and email access to my own server. I used a TP-Link TL-WR940N 
wireless router plugged directly into my Time Warner Business Class 
modem/router, an Arris that has never given me one bit of trouble. As 
opposed to the previous Ubee I had before complaining, but that is 
another story.

Sometime late last year, all of the apple devices started experiencing 
problems. They would not update email from my server. Two local TV 
station apps would not connect at all. The N&O app (no comments, please) 
on the iPad would frequently crash and the occasional reboot was 
required to recover. Except that once or twice a month, her email app 
would sync up. Facebook and other apps all worked fine. No change 
regardless of distance from the wireless router.

None of my Android devices experienced any of these problems and neither 
did my laptop. In fact, I added my wife's email account to my laptop and 
my Kindle so she could access email while we were away from home. Or 
downstairs and away from the computers.

All of these symptoms remained unchanged no matter where we were or what 
WiFi routers we were connected to or what local providers.

We went to the Apple store and the same symptoms were experienced there. 
Identical for both sets of devices. Apple failed, Android worked. They 
wanted to replace her iPad (for a fee) but their devices experienced the 
same problems.

So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I added SquirrelMail to my 
server so that my wife could access her email via web interface without 
having to use my Kindle.

Two days ago, I installed a TP-Link AC 1900 Gigabit WiFi router 
downstairs since the signal from the existing router was fairly weak 
down there, and I also wanted the 5GHz and Guest capabilities that the 
AC1900 provides. Not to mention the touchscreen setup. I connected the 
WAN port of the new router to one of the 4 Ethernet ports on the old 
router since there were not any ports left on the TWBC modem/router.

After configuring my wife's Apple devices to use the new wireless 
router, all of the problems have disappeared. Everything works normally 
and as expected now. All of the strange symptoms no longer occur. I 
still need to test her iPad on other wireless routers and ISPs, but I 
suspect it will work fine there, too.

So the questions I have are: why? How could something like this occur? 
Anyone else have a similar experience?

-- 


*********************************************************
David P. Both, RHCE
Millennium Technology Consulting LLC
Raleigh, NC, USA
919-389-8678

dboth at millennium-technology.com

www.millennium-technology.com
www.databook.bz - Home of the DataBook for Linux
DataBook is a Registered Trademark of David Both
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