[MT1300 Beryl] Repeater mode not reliably connecting to wifi

Technical Support for Routers
1

Just got the new MT1300 and tried to set it up this weekend. Trying to connect to an existing WPA2 wifi network at home has not worked consistently. Trying to connect to either a 2.4 or 5 Ghz wifi connection processes for about 30 seconds then gives up with an “ERROR: time out” message in the webgui.

Logs in the shell show things like this:
Sun Jan 24 18:35:24 2021 user.info : [ 617] gl-sdk>> bIsSaved=0, ssid=#######, encryption=psk2, bssid=#######, wds=0, device=mt7615e2, identity=, channel=11
Sun Jan 24 18:35:25 2021 user.info : [ 2894] gl-wifi-core>> bIsStaEnabled=1
Sun Jan 24 18:35:50 2021 user.info : [ 623] gl-sdk>> wifi_join return=-5, channel=-1
Sun Jan 24 18:35:50 2021 user.info : [ 1849] gl-wifi-core>> Restart wifi…
Sun Jan 24 18:35:51 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device ‘ra0’ link is down
Sun Jan 24 18:36:03 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device ‘ra0’ link is up
Sun Jan 24 18:36:54 2021 user.info : [ 617] gl-sdk>> bIsSaved=0, ssid=#######, encryption=psk2, bssid=#######, wds=0, device=mt7615e5, identity=, channel=40
Sun Jan 24 18:36:54 2021 user.info : [ 2894] gl-wifi-core>> bIsStaEnabled=1
Sun Jan 24 18:37:00 2021 user.info : [ 623] gl-sdk>> wifi_join return=0, channel=-1
Sun Jan 24 18:37:00 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device ‘ra0’ link is down
Sun Jan 24 18:37:12 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device ‘ra0’ link is up
Sun Jan 24 18:37:13 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device ‘apcli0’ link is up
Sun Jan 24 18:37:13 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Interface ‘wwan’ is enabled
Sun Jan 24 18:37:13 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Interface ‘wwan’ has link connectivity
Sun Jan 24 18:37:13 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Interface ‘wwan’ is setting up now
Sun Jan 24 18:37:13 2021 daemon.notice netifd: wwan (15297): udhcpc: started, v1.30.1
Sun Jan 24 18:37:13 2021 daemon.notice netifd: wwan (15297): udhcpc: sending discover
Sun Jan 24 18:37:16 2021 daemon.notice netifd: wwan (15297): udhcpc: sending discover
Sun Jan 24 18:37:20 2021 daemon.notice netifd: wwan (15297): udhcpc: sending discover
Sun Jan 24 18:38:23 2021 user.info : Function:main Line:30 auto repeater switch not be opened
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 user.info : [ 617] gl-sdk>> bIsSaved=0, ssid=#######, encryption=psk2, bssid=#######, wds=0, device=mt7615e2, identity=, channel=11
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device ‘apcli0’ link is down
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Interface ‘wwan’ has link connectivity loss
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 daemon.notice netifd: wwan (15297): udhcpc: read error: Network is down, reopening socket
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 user.info : [ 2894] gl-wifi-core>> bIsStaEnabled=1
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 daemon.notice netifd: wwan (15297): udhcpc: received SIGTERM
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Interface ‘wwan’ is now down
Sun Jan 24 18:39:42 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Interface ‘wwan’ is disabled

Once in a very great while, for no apparent reason, it will not time-out and successfully connect (this is probably 1 in 20+ tries). I can’t replicate why it works these times. Connecting an ethernet cable to the WAN works just fine, but obviously I don’t want to depend on that.

There are no different firmware versions to try to see if that’s the issue. I’ve tried connecting to my home wifi (Unifi APs) and a shared wifi connection from my iPhone. Nothing works. Any other suggestions?

2

From the log seems that it is connected but cannot get IP address from the main router.

3

I’ve got the same problem. Is there any solution?

4

I tried resetting it, connecting to different WiFi networks (both 2.4 and 5.0), and any other suggestions I found and could never get it to reliably work and connect. Connecting directly to Ethernet and using it as a hotspot worked fine, but that’s not the reason I got it. Considering other people are presumably using it as a WiFi repeater successfully, I’m guessing mine (and maybe yours?) was defective. I returned it for a refund. May try buying another in the future if it continues to have a good track record. If you figure out a solution, I’d love to hear it!

5

Resurrecting this a bit as I also have a similar issue, and had hoped this would be fixed on the latest 3.203 firmware (but it isn’t).

I have a UniFi UDM and can’t get my new Beryl to connect to it at all over WiFi. Nothing funky set up on it, just pretty standard WPA2 (not even a particularly long password). I get the same “ERROR: time out” pop up box as mentioned by the OP.

However, I can get it to connect to my iPhone 13 (as a hotspot) and everything seems to work ok (although it drops the connection after a few minutes - but that feels like a different flavour of issue).

Any ideas how to troubleshoot? Does the Beryl just not like UniFi gear? (which would be a bit weird as I’ve had no other issues with any of my ton of other devices) As a lot of places (hotels, cafes, etc.) use UniFi gear, I can see this as being a bit of a deal breaker (and a reason for me to send this back to Amazon). Would be a shame!

6

After it display timeout, if you wait a while will it show connected?

Also can you check in your UniFi settings (I never use) and check if they have an option like Rogue AP?

If you have then turn it off.

8

Thanks @alzhao for your suggestions. I’ll give that a try (leaving it for a few minutes).

I can’t find anything related to a “rogue AP” setting in the UniFi menus - although they’re not super transparent so I might be missing it (I’ll check again). I would normally get an alert and something in the event log for something like that though.

9

There are some discussion of “Rogue AP” in their forum.

https://community.ui.com/questions/Rogue-Access-Point-detected/5221ca8c-859b-41bb-8f0f-ad50c02c80e1