Going from Ethernet back to WiFi connection

[Ian196]

Hi. Long story short - my Sky Q box was installed in a downstairs bedroom due to the Sky engineer refusing to route it to my living room. Sky mini installed in living room. My broadband is Virgin hub 4.0 1Gb. Due to bedroom being a WiFi dead zone, I endured months of Sky dropouts in living room. So, I got a Sky engineer out. He still couldn't maintain a connection between the main and mini boxes. He ended up using LAN cables and boosters which worked. However, I was left with trailing cables around the house which not only look untidy but are a dangerous trip hazard. See diagram. 

I invested in a Netgear WiFi extender and now have superb speeds in the bedroom where the main Q box is  So today I disconnected the boosters and cables and connected the main Sky Q and mini to my home network. BUT... the Sky dropouts started again despite my whole ground floor being swamped with excellent WiFi. The main box keeps losing connection despite being 8ft from my new wifi extender. 
What am I doing wrong and can anyone help me resolve this issue?

Cheers. 

[nigea99]

hi @Ian196 when your wifi is not SKY, SKY Q does not use your wifi  for the minis but instead a wifi signal generated by the  Q Main box 

[oldfella]

Hi @Ian196 

Afraid Q boxes will not connect reliably to 3rd party WiFi units.

Where a 3rd party mesh system is used some success can be obtained by connecting the Q boxes to the WiFi units by Ethernet

[Ian196]

Thanks @oldfella 

I did connect the main Q to the extender via Ethernet thinking it would guarantee a connection but still dropped out. 

[Ian196]

@nigea99  But doesn't it use your home WiFi to 'carry' the signal to the minis?

[oldfella]

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@Ian196 wrote:

Thanks @oldfella 

I did connect the main Q to the extender via Ethernet thinking it would guarantee a connection but still dropped out. 

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Hi @Ian196 

Did you carry out a Network reset on the main Q box with the Ethernet connected

Try a Network Reset found in Home - Settings - Setup - Network.
Highlight Status and then select Reset on the right hand side. Follow instructions to connect wired and do not carry out any WPS.    If the connection is not made and held then it is not viable and connection must be made to your router

[nigea99]

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@Ian196 wrote:

@nigea99  But doesn't it use your home WiFi to 'carry' the signal to the minis?

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No - it is a dedicated network generated by the Main Box which you cannot connect to (if you search for signals it shoud show as SKYxxxxxx )

[Ian196]

@oldfella   Hmmmmm. Not so sure I did. I'll try that tomorrow. If that works, how do I connect the minis? Via Ethernet cable to my WiFi hub (they sit next to each other). 

[oldfella]

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@Ian196 wrote:

@oldfella   Hmmmmm. Not so sure I did. I'll try that tomorrow. If that works, how do I connect the minis? Via Ethernet cable to my WiFi hub (they sit next to each other). 

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Hi @Ian196 
If you can get the main Q box working reliably then you can follow the same Network reset procedure on the minis with Ethernet connected.   Again do not carry out any WPS and wait for them to connect by Ethernet.

[Ian196]

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@nigea99 wrote:

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@Ian196 wrote:

@nigea99  But doesn't it use your home WiFi to 'carry' the signal to the minis?

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No - it is a dedicated network generated by the Main Box which you cannot connect to (if you search for signals it shoud show as SKYxxxxxx )

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@nigea99  Yeah I saw this but my main Q and mini were on different Skyxxxxxx networks 

[Ian196]

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Hi @Ian196 
If you can get the main Q box working reliably then you can follow the same Network reset procedure on the minis with Ethernet connected.   Again do not carry out any WPS and wait for them to connect by Ethernet.

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Hi @oldfella   So I carried out your recommendations but the main box connected to SKYxxxxx and the mini to my home VM network.  So I tried again but this time main box connected to VM network, mini connected to a different SKYxxxxx network. Needless to say they were losing connection. 
Any ideas? Do all boxes need to connect to either the same home network or SKYxxxxx network?

[oldfella]

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@Ian196 wrote:

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Hi @Ian196 
If you can get the main Q box working reliably then you can follow the same Network reset procedure on the minis with Ethernet connected.   Again do not carry out any WPS and wait for them to connect by Ethernet.

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Hi @oldfella   So I carried out your recommendations but the main box connected to SKYxxxxx and the mini to my home VM network.  So I tried again but this time main box connected to VM network, mini connected to a different SKYxxxxx network. Needless to say they were losing connection. 
Any ideas? Do all boxes need to connect to either the same home network or SKYxxxxx network?

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Hi @Ian196 

If you are using Ethernet connections then the Network SSID shown in your Qboxes status is irrelevant as this will refer to an historic Q mesh.

One further step that I should have mentioned was to turn off all WiFi in the Q boxes hidden menu immediately after the Network reset and successful connection.

Starting again with the main Q box exactly to what have you tried connecting the Ethernet.

[Ian196]

@oldfella  Thanks mate. It'll have to wait until next week now. Watch this space hahaha

Cheers

[Dave+Hatton]

As others have said,  unless you are using SKY supplied wifi (which I have no experience of) the SKY Q and mini form their own seperate wifi mesh network, seperate from your home wifi.

Often this mesh competes/conflicts with your own wifi (in this case virgin?) setup causing a poor experience. Make sure both wifi networks  are on different wifi channels.
Now of course you are likely to need the SKY extender for the SKY mesh as you have already mentioned poor wifi in the bedroom.

Worse, for me, if you use your virgin powered wifi network only and plug the sky boxes in to this using ethernet cables, in my experience you may have random/regular failures because the network packets used in SKYs 'equipment discover process' (which runs continually to find out if there are any minis around)  can cause 'inteligent' equipment like mesh routers to crash/fail.

I personally have found that the best setup is to have a completely seperate wired (ethernet) with dumb/unmanaged switches connecting just the SKY equipment. On my broadband router, I seperate the traffic to/from sky using a VLAN.
I understand that this isn't convienient for most people but for me I get a pretty good experience with this setup.

Hope this helps.

[Ian196]

@oldfella  @Dave+Hatton  @nigea99   Hi guys.  I have a Netgear EX7700 range extender next to my Main Q in the bedroom eradicating what once was a WiFi deadzone. This connects wirelessly to my VM hub 4.0 1Gb in the living room, giving me phenomenal WiFi speed.  I was hoping I could connect an Ethernet cable between the main Q and EX7700, thus effectively connecting 'directly' (kinda) to the VM hub 4.0 and then set up minis as per comments above.  Is this feasible? 
Cheers