Sky Q and Deco MESH system problems

[burgosburgos]

Hi,

I have an SR203 Sky Hub, one main Sky Q box and One Sky Q min box. My house has solid concrete walls and Wifi coverage is flaky at best so I had a booster to ‘bridge’ to the mini box. Still however, there are parts of the house without Wifi.

To combat this, I’ve installed a Deco PX50 mesh system which uses a powerline ‘backhaul’ connection (PLC) and is set to run in access point mode so as not to conflict with the Sky router functions (ie no double NAT, DHCP conflict etc)

Before I connect the Sky Q boxes (so Sky router cabled into main PX50, 2 x PX50 nodes via PLC and 1 x X50 node via WiFi) my WiFi coverage is excellent, and speeds are stable throughout. I’ve unplugged the Sky booster as, under this configuration, it’s just not needed. Job done - that's exactly why I bought the Deco system!

However, when I then set up the main Sky Q box via the powerline connection of one of the PX50 units, various devices (usually phones and an MBP) lose internet connectivity despite showing a healthy connection to the Deco mesh. Unplug the ethernet from the Sky Q box and the other devices reconnect. This happens without fail to the extent that if I want to watch TV, I plug the Sky Q box in and if I want internet, I unplug it. (Obviously Sky TV from the dish still works regardless)

Additionally, when I plug the Sky Q mini box into the second PX50 node, that node goes into a 'reboot loop'. This involves the Sky Q mini box having connection to both the main Q box and the internet (via its own proprietary Sky network) for a few seconds before losing that connection. A few seconds later the PX50 node drops out and begins to reboot. Once that has reconnected the Sky Q mini box also reconnects for a few seconds before dropping out again and the cycle repeats. However, if I run a long ethernet cable from the main Deco unit to the Sky Q mini box the connection is rock solid (tested for several hours without issue)

For reference, all Sky products have WiFi disabled (both 2.4 and 5GHz). I’ve done this for two reasons; firstly, to force the Q boxes to use the ethernet backhaul function of the Deco system and secondly to rule out two different Wifi networks interfering with one another.

In desperation, I’ve killed the Deco system entirely (factory reset, turned off and put back in its box!) and tried to re-establish the Sky Q ‘mesh’ as originally installed (all Wifi settings turned back on obviously) but the main Sky Q box fails to connect to the Sky Hub!

Does anyone have any ideas?

I’m currently set up with the Deco mesh version as above and am unplugging the Q box whenever I need a reliable online connection. I have a Sky engineer coming on Sunday and I'm pretty sure they'll say 'we don't support third party mesh systems' but will also be unable to guarantee full WiFi coverage.

I'm no network engineer but I'm no mug either so I'd love to know if there's something I'm missing that will solve this problem prior to the engineer telling me there's nothing they can do!  Or is it just a case of all parties getting to absolve themselves of responsibility because 'we don't support third party products', and I just have to suck it up!

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[deedeegumball]

So i dont know if your problem is exactly the same as mine but we had a few devices that used random Mac Addresses to "hide" their identity. namely our android phones.. I could see a list of them in my deco with a little warning next to them. when i turned them off to just show their actual Mac addresses all my network disconnecting stopped. Hope this helps someone even if it doesnt fix your issue.

[Chrisee]

@burgosburgos Sky Q boxes do have some pecularities when it comes to networking but on the surface your are doing everything correctly. If the three Sky boxes are really connected only by ethernet with WiFi fully disabled your set up should work. To do that you will have needed to access the engineer's menu on each TV box (settings, 0,0,1 before select) and disable both bands. 

Honestly my advice would be to switch from Sky Q to Sky Stream where the pucks are simple WiFi clients which work with any WiFi - my own set up uses a Deco system in Access point mode with my 3 pucks and a Glass TV giving a totally solid experience. Q was great when it was introduced but now causes a lot if issues with modern networks.