Help needed to sort wifi problem: in numpty language

We were changed over to fibre 2 weeks ago. All seemed to go well, and we checked that there was a signal in our gîte too. Anyway we had people arrive the next day and they didn’t say there was an issue with it the whole week they were here.

Anyway new people arrived on Saturday, and today they said they couldn’t access the internet and hadn’t been able to since they arrived

We went to try, and the connection shows up, the speed looks fine, but if yiu try to do anything nothing happens.

We tried our usual turn everything off and start again, but still nothing.

What to do next?

The set up is that we have a net-gear box attached to our livebox that feeds through to a TP link router in the gîte. Beyond being able to read the labels on these boxes I am incapable of anything technical!

I guess there is a button, a setting or some techie thing we should have done. But what & how?

All clues and ideas welcome.

(Our side of the livebox is fine!)

Have you recently had a new Livebox?

Yes, new one came with the Fibre comnection

So the 2 boxes are not talking to one another properly.

Possibly a problem with the ip address on the TP-Link box being in a different range to the Livebox.

Can you connect to the Livebox and make a note of your ip address - then connect to the TP-Link box and again make a note of your ip address.

Do you normally connect with iPhone, ipad, android phone or PC/Laptop?

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All of the above….since it’s a gîte people have range of kit. And we use android phones, ipad, pc and windows laptop.

I will ask gîte people tomorrow if I can go in and check. I think I know how to find it.

Thanks.

I am wondering if the new Livebox came with a 192.168.1.1 address and the TP-Link may be in the 192.169.0.xxx range.

If you can log on to the admin part of the TP-Link - you may need to change the gateway address to the one of the Livebox new ip address.

Either way it should be easy enough to sort.

To me this appears to be an unusual setup.
The Livebox acts as a combined router, switch and DHCP server.
Its the DHCP server functionality of the Livebox that assigns IP addresses to any devices on your network which is done dynamically. What this means is that the IP address associated with a specific device can change each time the device is connected / disconnected from your network.

May I suggest downloaded from Play store and installing onto an Android tablet “Network Scanner” version 2.6.1 by developer First Row. This will enable you to analyse your network in real-time and will show for each connected device the IP address AND the MAC number (MAC numbers are unique to each device).
It may also be useful to post the model numbers of your NetGear box and TP-Link router.
One last question - did your TP-Link router come their Omada software / app?

Sorry I hadn’t spotted TP-Link is in use in the gite - where I mention Netgear above, it should have read TP-Link, I will edit it.

Ok, two things to try tomorrow! Not that I actually understand many of the words, but I will try.

The reason we have this set up is to separate the gîte - there is a different password on the TP router which is in a different building. It seemed the easiest way to keep our stuff out of harm’s way.

If you were starting from scratch now you would add a “Guest Network” whereby a modern router can transmit 2 or more Wi-Fi networks - these seem quite common now but weren’t a few years ago.

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Is the router in the gite connected to the Livebox by Ethernet?

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At the risk of implying you’re a bit thick … You have reconnected the second router thingy to the new Livebox? You’ll always see a wifi signal that doesn’t mean anything. But a cable not fully connected could be a really simple solution - and it happens to us all

This is what I was wondering. How exactly does the TP-Link router connect to the Livebox?

Good question! Another thing to look at tomorrow. This was installed in 2013, and has worked perfectly since so we have completely forgotten how it was put together! It must be a cable as there are several metres of stone between them, but I can!t think where.

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Hello helpful people…

I have found what I think are the IP addresses. Livebox says 192.168.1.14, router 192.168.1.1. And TP link says 192.168.0.102 , router 192.168.0.1. So router numbers not the same

And there are cables; this is the set up. First photo is our side. Second is in the gîte

Does this identify possible problem better?

Yes I think it does.

Your old router that was replaced probably had the address 192.168.0.1.

I think they both need to have 192.168.0.xx. Or 192.168.1.xx. - so either 1 or 0 in the middle.

I think the gateway address will be 192.168. 1.1 on the Orange Livebox.

If possible log into the admin panels on the TP-Link and netgear and change their address and gateway address to be in the 182.168.1.xx range. (or more simply log into the Livebox only and change its address to 192.168.0.1) - then switch of all of the routers, switch on Livebox, wait 2 mins, then Netgear, then TP-Link.

The Livebox default IP address is 192.168.1.1

The network is 192.168.1.0/24 (so IP addresses on that network run from 192.168.1.1 through to 192.168.1.254 - or 192.168.1.x where discussed below)

The Livebox has a DHCP server (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) which will assign an IP address automatically to anything plugged in or connecting via Wi-Fi - the default range is (I think) 192.168.1.10 through to 192.168.1.240.

The Livebox has a few Ethernet ports to plug devices in on the LAN - it looks as though one of those is a Netgear Ethernet switch (top photo), there is another Ethernet switch in the gîte (2nd photo) - into which I assume the TP-Link plugs (3rd photo).

Have you checked that all other devices which plug into the two Ethernet switches work (and if you are able to check that they have IP addresses in the 192.168.1.10 to 192.168.1.240 range)

IF the TP-Link has a “WAN” port and a group of “LAN” ports there are two possibilities but I’ll assume that one of the LAN ports plugs into the Netgear (and ultimately to the Livebox).

The TP-Link needs to be configured with a static address (in the 192.168.1.x network) on it’s LAN interface - use something either in the 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.9 range or 192.168.1.241 to 192.168.1.254 range, it doesn’t matter as long as nothing else has the same address.

Make sure that the DHCP server on the TP-Link is disabled.

The other configuration would be that the TP-Link WAN port is plugged into the Livebox LAN - this would work but involves double NAT and there really isn’t a lot to be gained by the extra complexity unless you have a specific reason to set it up that way.

In that case you would have the TP-Link WAN protocol set to “DHCP” and the TP-Link LAN must be a different sub-net - i.e 192.168.anything-but-1.x, and you would leave the DHCP server on the TP-Link enabled.

Note that you might need to restore the TP-Link to factory settings so that you can talk to it and change the settings to fit in with your network.

Hope that helps.

Thank you both. This makes my head hurt, so I will have another cup of coffee and then go and see if I can make sense of this in tiny baby steps.

Sadly neither OH nor I have any techie aptitude, so this is going to be interesting.

You said the problem was clients could connect to the gite WiFi but got no actual Internet connection.

Is your own WiFi (from the Livebox) connecting?

What is plugged into the Netgear switch in the gite - there look to be five cables, one of which is the TP-Link, one will need to go back to the Livebox/house end Netgear switch so what are the other three?

Usually the Ethernet ports have little lights to show the connection is active - are these lit up for the cable between the gite TP-Link and the gite Netgear, and from the gite Netgear to the house Netgear or Livebox?

Actually - I can see that the link light IS on at the TP-Link end, and it also appears that it’s the TP-Link WAN port that connects back to everything else.

That’s useful because it means that you should be able to connect to the TP-Link Wi-Fi signal and get at the its web interface if you connect a laptop or tablet.

Yes the wifi on our side is fine, and next door it says that there’s a signal but can’t actually do anything.

I know for a techie person it might be bizarre that I have no clue of our system…but it works (worked) so never thought to ask.

It seems that what we have is that plugged into livebox is a cable labelled gîte, which has a light on it. (The cables on the netgear box next to the livebox are labelled bureau/salle de jeux and salon so I guess this is for the ethernet ports tucked somewhere in our house and can be ignored).

In the gîte the cables from the netgear box are not labelled, apart from red tape on the one which I presume goes back to the house.

And no lights on back, just on front

There is nothing apart from the TP link router plugged in that side, but there is an ethernet port in the bedroom. The TP link router is plugged into a port in the séjour


None of which helps me, but might be meaningful to you all.