Network woes.

I posted the other day about changing to a LAN connection, after our upstairs router had died and took the inverter off-the-air. Mrs G convinced me that we still needed a second wifi network in the house, as she didn't have enough signal in her office.

So I bought a TP-Link RE315 extender, set it to Access Point mode, set the SSID to the same as the old router's network and put it in the loft (where we have a network switch and the inverter).

The inverter found the network fine - 86% strength.

But of course, I'm now in the hell where I can't get the inverter to connect. I've read lots of threads here, have switched off the TP-Link's 5GHz network (which had a different name anyway, FWIW). I downgraded from 802.11b/g/n to just b/g. I've restarted things in order, but no luck. I've quadruple checked the passphrase, etc etc etc.

I can still go for a wired connection, but I'll be honest, it makes me nervous to shut the system down and mess with the DIP switches.

Other than get someone in, what are my options?

Thanks.

Questions

Is the extender connected to main network via LAN or wifi?

If inverter thinks it is connected to network, is that just the connection to the extender or can it see main network.

Can you connect phone or tablet to extender and see if that gets internet access?

Does inverter in your main routers 'connected devices'?

[unknown] a TP-Link RE315

IMHO the TP-Link WA854RE would have been a better choice, cheaper and easier to set up. The RE315 will be fine, just work logically, and follow the instructions. Check on your router and on the extender for the list of connected devices.

JeremyGooch Definitely do the hard wired Ethernet connection if you can.

I had connection issues when after changing my broadband supplier & a new router (even though I used the same SSID & PW on the new router as the old one). Spent nearly a day on the phone to GE Tech before I got it sorted & back online via WiFi. After that experience I decided to hard wire my Gen 2 3.6kW Hybrid inverter, Zappi car charger & Eddi solar diverter with an Cat 6 ethernet cable for a more stable connection & easier re-connection in the future for a another new router / service provider.
All three devices are in my attached garage so quite close together. I installed a Cat6 cable from our new FritzBox router in our lounge to a plug & play TP-Link 5 port Gigabit Switch which I located located in the garage. Inverter, Zappi & Eddi were wired back to the switch inside the garage. All cables were hand made & tested by me before connection with a specially purchased RJ45 crimping kit (£28) & 50m of Cat 6 cable (£20).
As it turned out the GE Inverter was "sort of" the easiest to do. I won't lie, changing the DIP switch on my Gen 2 Inverter was not that easy due to it being where it is on the underside of the inverter & having to lay on my back upside down to see the damn thing was not fun. That said it turned out to be fairly easy to do & it fired up & connected as soon as I powered it all back up without any issues.
However, the Zappi & Eddi were a different story. They would not connect & the App was frozen. After a week of fiddling & aborted calls to ME tech I was still no further forward. Then on a pure whim I decided to slow down the Fritzbox port speed serving the cable to the switch, Gen 2 Inverter, Zappi & Eddi from 1Gigabit/sec to 100mbit/sec. Bingo, the Zappi & Eddi sprang back into life & the Gen 2 Inverter was also still working fine. It seems the ME products needed a 100bit/sec port speed whereas the GE Inverter was OK with either speed. Of course nowhere in the ME instructions does it say this & no one on their forum could help either.

I'm no network or computer whiz kid but I managed to do all the work on my own with only a few references to YT vids & GE info. Definitely worth doing & definitely a DIY solution if you are confident enough to do it. Just make sure everything is turned off & isolated before you start unscrewing anything.

[unknown] I had connection issues when after changing my broadband supplier & a new router (even though I used the same SSID & PW on the new router as the old one).

I wonder if this has something to do with the mac address - this thought has just occurred to me?

If you go onto the admin page for your inverter and search for wifi, you get a table of wifi the inverter can find
(if I can paste an image in I will!!).

In that table there is a column called BSSID which looks like it contains a mac address (and for me ties up with the 2.4GhZ MAC address).

So if this is also used when looking for your system, the fact that the SSID and PWD are the same would probably not be enough because the BSSID would change.

This also means I think that usual advice to keep the SSID/PWD the same would possibly not work because of this (have people been able to put a new router in with the same details ok?)

CGoode I had connection issues when after changing my broadband supplier & a new router (even though I used the same SSID & PW on the new router as the old one).

I wonder if this has something to do with the mac address - this thought has just occurred to me?

If you go onto the admin page for your inverter and search for wifi, you get a table of wifi the inverter can find
(if I can paste an image in I will!!).

In that table there is a column called BSSID which looks like it contains a mac address (and for me ties up with the 2.4GhZ MAC address).

So if this is also used when looking for your system, the fact that the SSID and PWD are the same would probably not be enough because the BSSID would change.

This also means I think that usual advice to keep the SSID/PWD the same would possibly not work because of this (have people been able to put a new router in with the same details ok?)

Hi - thanks for the replies. Slightly tardy response due to having been away for a few days.

@Rtidey

Is the extender connected to main network via LAN or wifi?

LAN - it's in Access Point mode.

If inverter thinks it is connected to network, is that just the connection to the extender or can it see main network.

I can't 100% tell if the inverter thinks it's connected or not. I think I ought to be able to browse the internet if connected to the inverter, which I can't, so I don't think it's connected.

Can you connect phone or tablet to extender and see if that gets internet access?

Yep - all works fine for other devices.

Does inverter in your main routers 'connected devices'?

Nope. :-(

@CGoode Thank you. I would definitely prefer a wired connection and have a cable all ready to go. I'll re-watch the YT videos to see how confident I am with the order of switching the system off and back on again safely.