Google Wifi (Pucks) not showing as wired.

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

Hello,

Thank you in advance for the help. I have been stumped with the issue and I am at a loss.

So I have been trying to get a nest wifi to work as wired, but the connection on the router keeps saying mesh even though it is connected via ethernet. I have checked the home and the old wifi app and it is the same issue. When I then test the internet on said wired device I am only getting 10% compared when next to the main hub, so I know the wired connection is not working.

To help with my connection:
modem - primary puck - Switch (d-link DGS-105) - puck 

The wired puck just says mesh. The switch is showing that it is connected to a 1000mbs device (aka a router) but for whatever reason the puck is not using the wired ethernet. The ethernet switch is plugged into the WAN port and I am just lost as to why its not working!

Can anyone help?

Thanks

Eloy

[MichaelP]

Hello @Eloy-Rodriguez 

It sure looks like everything is connected properly. I assume your primary puck's WAN Ethernet port is connected to the modem and the LAN Ethernet port is connected to your Ethernet switch. I would try to test each component of this setup in isolation to try to narrow down where the issue may be. First, I would connect the secondary puck directly to the primary puck's LAN Ethernet port – if necessary, it can be in the same room during this test. Make sure it shows as wired in the app. If it doesn't, swap out the cable. If that still doesn't work, then connect another device using those cables and see if they work properly. We're trying to make sure the cables and the primary puck's LAN Ethernet port are working properly. If that does work, then add the switch back in and test using known-good cables (again, placing things near each other for now can make this easier). If that doesn't work, try swapping cables and testing with another device (e.g., a computer with an Ethernet port) to verify the switch is working properly, etc. I know this sort of configuration works, because I have it working here (albeit with Linksys switches).

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

Hello @MichaelP, thank you! I will do some more testing, as it did used to work but it appears to have stopped recently. I know the switch is working because I have an another device connected to the switch and it appears to be working fine. 

I am guessing potentially it could be the cable, as we are in the Middle East and a portion of the cable runs outdoors under direct sunlight, so potentially with summer the heat degraded the cable and the signal being received at the puck. 

I have someone coming to test the cable on weekend and I will update accordingly, if its the cable its a simple fix. If its not the cable I wonder if there would be any other thoughts?

[MichaelP]

Yeah, if it used to work, but stopped, then something has broken somewhere. Testing it with a short known-good cable will help verify that the ports are working. That will increase suspicion of the long cable that goes outside.

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

Sadly, I have brought them together and tried some good working cables with various different routers. None of them are coming up as wired but only staying as mesh. 

Are there any other thoughts to this? 

[MichaelP]

Hello @Eloy-Rodriguez 

That's not a great sign, honestly. Do you have any other devices that have an Ethernet port, like a laptop or desktop computer? I would try to connect something like that directly to the LAN port on your primary puck using a known-good cat5e Ethernet cable (Cat6 cables can be too stiff to connect properly due to where the ports are on the pucks, so use a more flexible Cat5 or Cat5e cable instead). If that doesn't work, then it's possible the LAN port on the primary puck has failed.

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

Well I have a speaker wired via ethernet to the switch and it works great as a wired connection. So I know the switch works and the LAN on the primary puck works. I also tired using the LAN from another puck into the WAN on another puck to see if it would get a wired a connection, sadly they always stay as mesh no matter what I do. 

[MichaelP]

Well, so here's the thing – if that switch is connected to other pucks via Ethernet, and those pucks are part of the mesh, then anything connected to that switch will still work, even if the primary puck's LAN port has gone bad. This works because the traffic goes through the switch and then back out to one of the mesh-connected pucks, and then over the mesh back to the primary. It's a nice bit of redundancy, but it can make a test like this misleading. So, I would try connecting that Ethernet speaker (which, I assume, doesn't have WiFi at all, or it hasn't been configured with your WiFi network's password) directly to the LAN port on the primary puck. We need a very tightly controlled test to narrow things down.

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

Yep I understand, there is no other puck connected to the primary puck switch. So clarify it is:

Primary puck - switch - (switch connects to ethernet speaker & other puck). I have 4 other pucks which are connected via mesh.
So I tried primary puck - secondary puck (mesh connection) - LAN to another puck WAN and this WAN still did not show a wired connection. I then tried this set up with other pucks to check if it is an issue with one puck.

So to summarise I have tried:

Primary puck - switch - secondary puck (tried multiple pucks) none will connect via wired and stay as mesh connection
Primary puck - secondary puck (mesh connection) - ethernet connection to third puck (stays as a mesh connection)
Primary puck - switch - other ethernet device (works as expected)
Primary puck - secondary puck (mesh connection) - ethernet device (works as expected)

It really appears like google pucks will not connect via a wired connection 

[MichaelP]

I know Google WiFi units support connection back to the primary via a switched Ethernet network – that's how my system here works, and many others have done it.

One thing I know won't work is connecting one mesh puck to another via Ethernet. I mean, it doesn't break anything, but it doesn't help much, either, and can cause unexpected behavior.

If you've connected a secondary puck directly to the LAN port on the primary puck without the switch in place, and that didn't show as wired (and you've tried other cables), then I'm running out of ideas. That is the simplest configuration, and should work. 

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

I am trying a last ditch attempt and buying a new set of cables to try instead of what I currently have. As I thought maybe it was the ethernet cables I tried using (a new set of ethernet cables is cheaper than a new mesh!) If that doesn't work, it is bye bye google pucks and I'll invest into another mesh network 😞

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

So final update - I bought new cables and still does not work as a wired connection. Even tried direct from primary puck to a secondary puck and still does not work 😞 Is there any way at all to get google support on this to fix this? Or is this just another let down from google technology?

[MichaelP]

Hello @Eloy-Rodriguez 

Connecting directly from primary puck's LAN port to a secondary puck is probably the most important test you can do, since it eliminates many variables. If that's not working, but we know the primary's LAN port is still working (based on the other tests you've done), and you've used different cables (not Cat6), then that starts to point to the Ethernet port on the secondary. But, there are two ports, and you should be able to use either one for this. I would power it off before trying the other one, but they should both work. So, I would try that before giving up entirely.

You can always reach out to Google support to see if they can find anything interesting from your system. That will require some patience on your part, though, since they will need to walk through a number of steps in their playbook.

[Jeff]

Hi Eloy-Rodriguez,

I just wanted to jump in real fast to see if you saw MichaelP's latest reply and to see if you still needed some help on this or if you were able to get it sorted out. If you are still needing some help, just let us know and we'll be happy to continue helping.

Thanks,
Jeff

[Jeff]

Hey Eloy-Rodriguez,

I just wanted to follow up once more to see if you were still needing some help here. If so, just let us know.

Thanks,
Jeff

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

I managed to speak to online support who helped diagnose the start of the issue. It is all fixed now thank you

[Jhonleanmel]

Hey there, 

Awesome — glad to hear that and thanks for getting back to us. It looks like we can consider this one complete, so I will lock the thread shortly unless I can help out with anything else. 

Best, 
Mel

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi everyone.

As we got our resolution here, I'm going to mark this thread as resolved. I'll be locking this thread if we won't hear back from you in 24 hrs. Should that happen, feel free to create a new one if you have more questions or have other concerns in the future.

Cheers,
Mel

[Eloy-Rodriguez]

To add I tried direct from switch and also direct off the google wifi router and none of them are coming as connection via cable only mesh