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Took a while to narrow this issue down but I think I figured out why I've been experiencing sudden loss of internet on WiFi. Thing is I don't know how to stop the problem.

At any given moment my internet will stop working and even though it says I'm connected to WiFi I cannot ping my AP (gateway). For a while I did have trouble getting assigned a weird IP address but using static settings helped with that. Now it looks like I'm losing connectivity because I typically sit halfway between my AP and my extender and my laptop will switch between them briefly, cutting off my connection for 30-ish seconds. Not a long time but annoying as hell when I'm online gaming.

Here's some output from dmesg that led me to this conclusion (redacted MAC addresses):

[13251.232642] wlp0s20f3: disconnect from AP <router> for new auth to <extender>
[13251.235765] wlp0s20f3: authenticate with <extender>
[13251.238107] wlp0s20f3: send auth to <extender> (try 1/3)
[13251.362369] wlp0s20f3: send auth to <extender> (try 2/3)
[13251.364122] wlp0s20f3: authenticated
[13251.366350] wlp0s20f3: associate with <extender> (try 1/3)
[13251.374040] wlp0s20f3: RX ReassocResp from <extender> (capab=0x1511 status=0 aid=2)
[13251.375858] wlp0s20f3: associated
[13251.384640] wlp0s20f3: Limiting TX power to 127 (127 - 0) dBm as advertised by <extender>
[13282.385850] wlp0s20f3: disconnect from AP <extender> for new auth to <router>
[13282.388230] wlp0s20f3: authenticate with <router>
[13282.389970] wlp0s20f3: send auth to <router> (try 1/3)
[13282.420120] wlp0s20f3: authenticated
[13282.426298] wlp0s20f3: associate with <router> (try 1/3)
[13282.444244] wlp0s20f3: RX ReassocResp from <router> (capab=0x1411 status=0 aid=7)
[13282.447382] wlp0s20f3: associated
[13282.524622] wlp0s20f3: Limiting TX power to 27 (30 - 3) dBm as advertised by <router>

Is there a way for me to adjust the threshold for switching APs? Or if not is there a way to manually switch between them (I mostly use the router)?

TastyWheat
  • 163

1 Answers1

5

Set the BSSID of the router in the wireless connection script.

Basic service set identifiers (BSSID) is used to describe sections of a wireless local area network or WLAN. It recognizes the access point or router because it has a unique address which creates the wireless network. BSSID identifies the basic service sets that are 48-bit labels and conforms to MAC-48 conventions.

The easiest way to obtain the BSSID of your router, is to connect to it, then use the iwconfig command. The "Access Point" is the BSSID.

Then go to the active Wi-Fi connection profile, pop up the arrow at the end of the BSSID field, and you'll probably see that address already populated. Just select it. In the future, that Wi-Fi connection profile will only connect to your router, not the extender.

If you have more than one Wi-Fi adapter, you can also set "MAC Address" or "Device" to the MAC address of the specific Wi-Fi adapter, if you wish. That will lock that Wi-Fi connection profile to only use that adapter.

$ iwconfig

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"redacted"

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

          Bit Rate=144.4 Mb/s   Tx-Power=22 dBm

          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=70/70  Signal level=-40 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:26   Missed beacon:0


lo        no wireless extensions.

Using Wi-Fi Settings...

enter image description here

Or using nm-connection-editor in the terminal...

enter image description here

Update #1:

To prioritize connection settings...

enter image description here

heynnema
  • 70,711
  • I suggest that you explain what the BSSID is and how to find it for the router. – chili555 Jun 27 '20 at 15:48
  • @chili555 Good idea. Done. – heynnema Jun 27 '20 at 15:57
  • This does fix my specific problem of being in between the two APs and switching randomly. However, if I do want to use the extender I have to manually switch to it. I can't tweak the algo somehow? I have only minor hangups with compiling from source. – TastyWheat Jul 05 '20 at 15:42
  • @TastyWheat Please see Update #1 in my answer. That should solve it for you. If it's helpful, please remember to accept it by clicking on the checkmark icon that appears just to the left of my answer. Thanks! – heynnema Jul 05 '20 at 16:03
  • @TastyWheat Status please... – heynnema Jul 08 '20 at 13:33
  • @TastyWheat Status please... – heynnema Jul 12 '20 at 01:57
  • I'll try your suggestion this afternoon and for the record setting the BSSID alone didn't prevent loss of connectivity. Switching APs randomly may have been a red herring. – TastyWheat Aug 21 '20 at 15:02
  • I do think setting the priority is also necessary. Doing everything else didn't seem to solve the issue. I'm having other WiFi frustrations but I'll consider this issue solved. – TastyWheat Aug 29 '20 at 20:07
  • Although I did accept this as the best answer (and it is because it's the only answer). I eventually had more issues with losing connection. I switched to the 2.4G access point and I've had no issues. – TastyWheat Nov 08 '21 at 20:05