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HUB5 and old Mac Book Pro

BillBudd
Superfast

Hi, I have the new HUB5 and have noticed that I cannot connect my ageing (2015) Mac Book Pro to the 5ghz network.  All works well on the 2.4ghz network.  Other devices also connect OK with the 5ghz network.

Bill

 

I do not work for VM. Services: 2 x HD TV (+ Sky Sports, BT sport), x2 Tivo boxes (WiFi) Hub5 1gb, Talk Weekend Phone on IP, o2 Mobile SIM on iPhone, unlimited data, texts & minutes.
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

jbrennand
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Ageing !!! 2015 is positively youthful for a MBP 🙂 I still use my 12" mid-2012 MBP - which I still regard as the sweet spot for any laptop.... ever !

That said.. I dont use the Hub5 - I use an old SH2 in modem mode with my own Apple router and wireless equipment.

One thing you could try is below ...but one caveat is... as the Hub5 is not officially released yet - it is revealing a lot of pre-release firmware glitches - notably not being able to do or maintain the process below - without reverting to factory. But try it and see if it helps.
____________________________

If you haven't done this already - try it first - it helps sort some Hub3/4/5 wifi issues for some devices.

Go into the Hub’s settings. Type in  http://192.168.0.1  into your web browser’s url box and login with settings password on the Hub's base sticker (or your own if you changed it). Then in Advanced>wireless signal >smart wifi - tick the disable “channel optimisation” box or “Smart Wifi” box and save settings.  May be different pathways and wording on the 3 Hub types)

Then, go to advanced>wireless signal>security, rename the 2.4 & 5 GHz network ssid's.  Just type over to change 'em to whatever you like and something that will differentiate them (e.g - Billybud_2 & Billybud_5) Try to avoid spaces and periods in the SSID names as they can cause issues with certain devices. Use the same password for simplicity,  Then, apply settings and restart the Hub.  Your 2 wifi networks will now be clearly separated - and you can then select the network you want each device to connect to… individually from the "available networks" list on each of your devices. 

Note all your wifi devices will need re-connecting to the new SSID's and passwords.
All things being equal, 5 GHz is always better/faster and subject to less congestion/interference (and is better for iDevice speeds than the 2.4 one - although the 2.4 one has the better "range" and will be needed when the 5 GHz drops out of range and some older/cheaper/dumber devices can only use this one. 

You should also use a wifi analyser App (or Airport Utility on iOS) to check which 2.4 channels are being heavily used around you and move yours to one of numbers 1,6,11 that is least so, but it wont help if there is other interference.
See if these changes help - you will lose any “seamless roaming” benefits but it may not matter and you can always change the settings back by doing a " pinhole factory reset " if you prefer the way it was - or it doesn’t help.


--------------------
John
--------------------

I do not work for VM. My services: HD TV on VIP (+ Sky Sports & Movies & BT sport), x3 V6 boxes (1 wired, 2 on WiFi) Hub5 in modem mode with Apple Airport Extreme Router +2 Airport Express's & TP-Link Archer C64 WAP. On Volt 350Mbps, Talk Anytime Phone, x2 Mobile SIM only iPhones.

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6 REPLIES 6

jbrennand
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Ageing !!! 2015 is positively youthful for a MBP 🙂 I still use my 12" mid-2012 MBP - which I still regard as the sweet spot for any laptop.... ever !

That said.. I dont use the Hub5 - I use an old SH2 in modem mode with my own Apple router and wireless equipment.

One thing you could try is below ...but one caveat is... as the Hub5 is not officially released yet - it is revealing a lot of pre-release firmware glitches - notably not being able to do or maintain the process below - without reverting to factory. But try it and see if it helps.
____________________________

If you haven't done this already - try it first - it helps sort some Hub3/4/5 wifi issues for some devices.

Go into the Hub’s settings. Type in  http://192.168.0.1  into your web browser’s url box and login with settings password on the Hub's base sticker (or your own if you changed it). Then in Advanced>wireless signal >smart wifi - tick the disable “channel optimisation” box or “Smart Wifi” box and save settings.  May be different pathways and wording on the 3 Hub types)

Then, go to advanced>wireless signal>security, rename the 2.4 & 5 GHz network ssid's.  Just type over to change 'em to whatever you like and something that will differentiate them (e.g - Billybud_2 & Billybud_5) Try to avoid spaces and periods in the SSID names as they can cause issues with certain devices. Use the same password for simplicity,  Then, apply settings and restart the Hub.  Your 2 wifi networks will now be clearly separated - and you can then select the network you want each device to connect to… individually from the "available networks" list on each of your devices. 

Note all your wifi devices will need re-connecting to the new SSID's and passwords.
All things being equal, 5 GHz is always better/faster and subject to less congestion/interference (and is better for iDevice speeds than the 2.4 one - although the 2.4 one has the better "range" and will be needed when the 5 GHz drops out of range and some older/cheaper/dumber devices can only use this one. 

You should also use a wifi analyser App (or Airport Utility on iOS) to check which 2.4 channels are being heavily used around you and move yours to one of numbers 1,6,11 that is least so, but it wont help if there is other interference.
See if these changes help - you will lose any “seamless roaming” benefits but it may not matter and you can always change the settings back by doing a " pinhole factory reset " if you prefer the way it was - or it doesn’t help.


--------------------
John
--------------------

I do not work for VM. My services: HD TV on VIP (+ Sky Sports & Movies & BT sport), x3 V6 boxes (1 wired, 2 on WiFi) Hub5 in modem mode with Apple Airport Extreme Router +2 Airport Express's & TP-Link Archer C64 WAP. On Volt 350Mbps, Talk Anytime Phone, x2 Mobile SIM only iPhones.

Tudor
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

It’s possible that the MBP does not support PMF and the hub5 has it turned on.


Tudor
There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who don't and F people out of 10 who do not understand hexadecimal c1a2a285948293859940d9a49385a2

jbrennand
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@Tudor wrote:

It’s possible that the MBP does not support PMF and the hub5 has it turned on.


Oooo... what is PMF Tudor ? 😎


--------------------
John
--------------------

I do not work for VM. My services: HD TV on VIP (+ Sky Sports & Movies & BT sport), x3 V6 boxes (1 wired, 2 on WiFi) Hub5 in modem mode with Apple Airport Extreme Router +2 Airport Express's & TP-Link Archer C64 WAP. On Volt 350Mbps, Talk Anytime Phone, x2 Mobile SIM only iPhones.

Thanks for that John. I have performed all of your suggestions. Channel optimisation is off, SSID's have been renamed. The scan function of the Mac Book suggests best channels for both the 2.4 and 5 networks which I have adopted.

Cheers, Bill
I do not work for VM. Services: 2 x HD TV (+ Sky Sports, BT sport), x2 Tivo boxes (WiFi) Hub5 1gb, Talk Weekend Phone on IP, o2 Mobile SIM on iPhone, unlimited data, texts & minutes.

Tudor
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

"Oooo... what is PMF Tudor ?"

PMF is Protected Management Frame. Needs a lot of reading to fully understand it, but from memory it’s something that must be on for WiFi 6 and WPA3. It can be set on for other WiFi protocols, but is known to cause problems. My router has setting to enable/disable or let device choose.

Here is a short explanation:

https://www.wi-fi.org/knowledge-center/faq/what-are-protected-management-frames

I doubt VM know anything about them.


Tudor
There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who don't and F people out of 10 who do not understand hexadecimal c1a2a285948293859940d9a49385a2

HI,

Oddly my Mac Book Pro now connects OK.  I did a router re-boot today to fix an issue with the network log, thought I would try again to connect and lo and behold it worked!

Cheers,

 

Bill

 

I do not work for VM. Services: 2 x HD TV (+ Sky Sports, BT sport), x2 Tivo boxes (WiFi) Hub5 1gb, Talk Weekend Phone on IP, o2 Mobile SIM on iPhone, unlimited data, texts & minutes.