2 sky devices using Same IP address causing issues

[StaceyY123]

Hi Folks.

Wondering if anyone here can help me as googling anything does less than nothing to help.

Context / setup of equipment:

Fibre to home comes into the hall and Cat5 runs to the attic where I have the router (model SR203, 

Firmware Version7.03.0100.R).
This is then connected to a ubiquiti PoE 8 port switch. On this swith is 3 cameras. Mini pc as game server, direct connection to sons PC in his room, another direct connection down to a small 8 port tplink gigabit switch where my PC plugs into and also the Sky Q Tv box, then lastly the last thing is the Ubiquiti U6 LR as the main WiFi access hub.

I had tried to stop using the sky wifi entirely and turn it off however for some crazy reason the sky multi room boxes failed to function or connect AT ALL unless the sky Q main box was connected on the sky router using the sky SSID or via ethernet.

While going through settings for the Ubiquiti gear it gave up a warning saying that 2 devices are using the same IP of 192.168.0.1 and can see that they both use different MAC address entirely.

This evening one of the multi boxes was having trouble getting connected so wife decided to unplug the sky Q tv box to force reconnect back (usual trick to fix issues with multi box) and suddenly ALL internet in the house died for a few seconds and it dawned on me.
Both the TV box and Router trying to be the DHCP host. Now the router i appear to be able to configure to my hearts content and set it up fine but i can't find any method of any kind to locate the other sky device thats showing on the same IP.

Is there some form of web interface on the sky tv box that i can go give it a static IP and force off DHCP as its the only other thing.

Ubiquiti switch is purely passthrough no smart management done at that device and same with the wifi access point. The DHCP, SHOULD, be done by the SR203 router so can't for the life of me think how/why there would be two BSkyB devices showing as having the same IP but different MAC.

Would appreciate some help on this as can't find any documents or guides for to figure this out AT ALL and its driving me insane.

[Chrisee]

@StaceyY123 Not 100% sure what your problem is but I think you are confusing how network addressing works. The address. 192.168.0.1 is the address of your Sky hub which acts as the gateway to the internet. The hub has 3 mac addresses one for each network connection so one for the 2.4GHz wifi, a second for the 5GHz wifi and the third for the ethernet connections. That is normal. 

The function in the hub that assigns IP addresses is called the DHCP server and it is programmed to assign addresses from 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254. . Sky Q boxes cannot act as a DHCP servers so you are incorrect in that assumption. 

Sky Q mini boxes have either to use ethernet or a Sky wifi network its the way they work they cannot connect to your Ubquiti wifi. Where there is no Sky hub wifi the Sky Q main box 5GHz hotspot can be used to connect them that hotspot will have a Sky SSID. Again that is normal.

You have several options the simplest is to turn of the wifi on the Sky hub and all of the Sky Q TV boxes - the switch todo that is in the hidden engineer's menu - and connect them by ethernet either to the hub or to your Ubquiti kit. Alternatively you can have two wifi networks one for the Q boxes and one for your other kit. However you need to set the Ubquiti to use a 5GHz channel higher than ch 52 as the Sky network uses ch36 to ch52 if they use the same frequency they will interfere. Third option is to revert to Sky's wifi which acts as a mesh wifi network so the hub and TV boxes each act as a node.

Just as a last comment Ubquiti make excellent kit which is highly configurable but is not a good choice for many consumers as you need technical knowledge to manage these options.

Hope that helps.

[StaceyY123]

Yeah as mentioned before "2 devices are using the same IP of 192.168.0.1"

Because the sky hardware is fighting with itself. Both devices trying to be the DHCP master and both use the ip of 192.168.0.1 means that things on the network became completely unstable and would cause all kinds of issues.

I've eventually solved it using the Ubiquiti gear instead of trying with the sky stuff because it works better.
Got the mac details of the router itself then used Ubiquiti switch to block the other deivce entirely.
Suddenly stabality across the network and things just work again.
No idea why 2 sky devices are both trying to be the master but there we are.

As for the wifi stuff you mentioned is not required. using the software from ubiquiti to scan nearby wifi signals of not just my house but those around me it adjusted itself to work perfect so didnt have to mess with any settings, it worked it out for itself and house has been running perfectly ever since.

Infact the whole thing has only made me want to ditch the sky hardware entirely by upgrading the cloudkey pro to a dream machine pro to remove the router too haha.

[johnromiley]

Hey @StaceyY123. I think I'm having a similar issue to you. I've got 3 mac address for every sky Q device. Yesterday I blocked the ones offline. Thinking it wouldn't affect anything. Only to find my entire network and internet went down. After restarting every machine and box I could think of it was eventually my sky Q 2TB box. As soon as that was restarted the internet came back to life in seconds. My plan today is to go around all the mini boxes and get their mac address while ethernet'ed into the switch. Then go and block the others. 

I'm trying to fix this issue as soon as I plug any Sky Q equipment in it slows my internet speed from 1gb to 300mb. If you got any gem of knowledge it would be massively appreciated. 

[TimmyBGood]

@johnromiley 

Q does odd things with virtual MACs in its own 'mesh': blocking them is likely to break the television distribution.

[johnromiley]

Hey @TimmyBGood. 

You were right. Tried a few different blocks. They look to work for a bit but then it takes the whole network out. Any ideas why the sky Q boxes would be slowing down our internet so much? I've got a new 2TB sky Q box coming tomorrow but I'm at a loss after that. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@johnromiley wrote:

Any ideas why the sky Q boxes would be slowing down our internet so much?

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One suspicion is the proprietary 'Q mesh' dates from 2014-15 (released in early 2016) and never anticipated ultrafast+ or gigabit home internet connections.

[wanblue1]

Have a similar issue to this but have managed a (hopefully!) temporary workaround.

Have a Sky Q with 2 mini boxes. Live in an old house with 2ft thick walls so all are (were!) wired. Since the original SkyQ install have several TP-link Omada access points all now in range of the Sky boxes.  All were SkyQ boxese were working OK although the mini boxes were getting very hot despite being well ventilated so asked for replacement mini's.  Sky would only replace one but said I could call again after a week.

Replacement mini box was swapped life for like with no change to cables and no configuration - appeared to work straight away (I assumed would need the WPS button on the main box at least but it just worked) - however, after less than 10 seconds, the network connection to the main box failed.  

Countless attempts at network resets on the Sky box, power cycle on both Sky and router, trying wifi, ethernet and enabling/disabling DHCP reservation on the router worked for no more than 10 minutes.  Strangely, after a network reset to either wifi or ethernet, with either DHCP reservation turned off or on, the connection came up for long enough to downloading or using apps, then dropped again.

Unplugged the new box and connection became stable, plugged it back in and it was lost. The router had discrete IP's for each box (although the MAC's don't match exactly but within the range of the MAC's for each box).

Finally tried switching the new box on but unplugging the ethernet and the mini switched to wifi, using a SSID not previously used (no idea how it knew the password!) and everything became stable again.

It was almost like the ethernet connection on the new mini was trying to use the same IP as the main box.  There is now no DHCP reservation for the sky boxes on the router and network settings on all three Sky boxes are automatic.  All  three boxes had separate IP's reported by the router (seemingly random and [although probably not relevant] nowhere near each other.

It doesn't really make sence and while it works, would rather have them all wired.

Anyone got any thoughts?