Nest Wifi Mesh at a Crawling Pace

[Wonderbeef]

After suffering through recent connectivity issues, most things now stay connected. However, many of my preiphery devices (a dedicated android music player, ipad, etc) are at practically dial up speeds. When I reset, it helps for about an hour, and then it comes back again. This mesh was just bought. Looking through the threads, it seems connectivity and throttling has been an issue for two years? Is this going to get fixed or did I waste $200? 

[mark007]

Yeah I have a 1gig down 100meg up fibre connection and two nest wifi routers wired into the house. One for upstairs, the other downstairs. For the past few months my wifi network starts out at max apeed and usually stays there for about a week. It dies then over the course of a day, speeds reduce to near 0 and eventually devices disconnect and the routers/network doesnt auto reboot itself. I would have loved to tey the upcoming new nest wifi system but cant due to this.

A many videos and blogs talk about it so I would be very sad if google cant acknowledge it and say that they at least know the cause. I can only guess it might be broadcast related. I use a roon server as well as lifx bulbs connected to home assistant. Its a pure guess that some broadcasting they do, slowly clogs up the routers. I would also be happy to pitch in / collect logs to get to the bottom of it. It might mean i stick with google hardware products instead of switching to another wifi system.

[Jhonleanmel]

Hey folks,

Thanks for posting — let's see what's going on. 

Are you using a modem/router combo from your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? How many devices are dropping from the network? Also, do you have any paused devices? 

Give these steps a try:

1. If you're using a modem/router combo, set that to bridge mode to avoid double NAT issues.
2. Make sure that there is minimal to no interference (concrete, bulletproof glass, metal, mirror, etc.) and the points are no more than two rooms apart.
3. Remove any special characters in your network name and password.
4. Turn off IPv6.
5. Change your DNS server into 8.8.8.8 on the primary and 8.8.4.4 on the secondary server. Hit the save/ floppy disk icon on the upper right.
6. Unplug the power from your Google Wifi devices for 2 minutes.
7. If the issue persists, try factory resetting your network.

Let us know how it goes.

Best,

Mel

[mark007]

Hi Mel,

Thank you for your response. I had seen your responses in other threads. So i had tried setting my ISP modem to bridge mode but in that mode it loses its internet connectivity. I have no special chacters in our nest wifi pass. IPv6 is off. I have the google primary and secondaey DNS set. I need to unplug my primary nest router every time the issue occurs as all devices lose connecitivity when it crawls to a halt.

All i can suspect is a broadcast / atorm type issue thats building up over the course of a few days. Is there a way for me to read the device logsor log into a promp!t on the routers to check any of this? I am willing to help as i think its all related to thr many other threads on routers needing to also being reset on a regular basis.

I have a roon server which uses multicast and also a home assistant server which has a lifx plugin that also sends a broadcast messages every now and then to find all lifx wifi bulbs. I switched off my roon server yesterday to see if it helps but itll be a very slow process if i cant see an immediate effect in some log file on the router maybe. Inatead of trying various options whicn i think from the other threads obviously finding the root cause, is there any way for one or some of us to send logs to google after the issue occurs and a reboot has been performed. Maybe to some google networking guy, the issue might be quite clear after seeing something in the logs.

[mark007]

The roon server also sends frequent broadcast packets to find roon compatible devices. If broadcast storms are the root cause, what log can be provided to proove/disproove this. I know the last nest wifi changelog indicated some mitigation for network loops but my suspicion is it might need more work to help avoid storms but i would love to proove/disproove this with hard facts/logs from my nest router(s).

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi mark007,

Thanks for getting back to us and I'm sorry to hear that you're still having an issue with your Google Nest Wifi. We'd like to take a deeper look into this — could you fill out this form and let us know once you're done?

Thanks,
Mel

[mark007]

Thanks Mel. I have provided my feedback via the form now. I can provide help in any way via calls, logs, emails. Hoping some log can show the root cause as opposed to trial and error as each trial can take 1-2 weeks to test which as you can imagine, might take a year if theres many things to try.

[Jhonleanmel]

Hey there,

@mark007, we got your form — thanks for filling it out. Keep your lines open as our team will reach out to you via email anytime soon. 

@Wonderbeef, have you had the chance to try the steps above? If so, how was it?

Best,

Mel

[Wonderbeef]

Unfortunately this only worked for a few days, just like when I had unplugged previously. We're back down to loading images like it's 1995. Is Google working on this? Between this Nest, abruptly cancelled apps/services, and the Pixel 6, confidence in Google Products is evaporating

[Juni]

Hi Wonderbeef,

Since the steps didn't work on your end, we'd be happy to take a look into this for you. Please fill up this form with all the needed information then let me know once done.

Thanks,

Juni

[Jeff]

Hey Wonderbeef,

I'm just checking in to see if you were able to fill out the form that Juni shared. If you have had any troubles with that, just let us know.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Jeff]

Hey everyone,

It looks like we've slowed down here. We'll be closing up the thread in the next day unless anyone else has any input or needs anything else. If so, just let me know and we can keep this open a bit longer.

Thanks,
Jeff

[mark007]

Hi Jeff, I have posted here and on the other threads which talk about the nest wifi slowing/crawling to a full halt, requiring a restart. I have filled in the form but have not yet a response.

Is it possible to request any sort of statement from the engineers on your end. I am sure you aware that there are many tens of reviews/blog posts now, a small selection from a google search below, regarding these issues.

https://smarthomestarter.com/why-does-my-google-nest-wifi-keep-disconnecting-8-fixes-to-try/ 
https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/7z4wky/any_way_to_automate_a_google_wifi_restart/ 
https://9to5google.com/2022/04/14/nest-google-wifi-offline-random/

It seems from even some very technical / smart networking equipment reviewers, the various workarounds being provided do not actually solve the issue. I think if we even had a statement to say something like, 'we suspect x y or z' could be whats causing it in those customers who have tried the other workarounds like changing DNS/disabling IPv6 etc.

I truly would love to stay with the google ecosystem but its really as simple as this, if the community don't have a response from google engineers as to what might be causing them to need to move to another mesh wifi system, those customers will for sure make the move. I am a software developer and networking engineer myself and am ready and willing to provide logs to hopefully pinpoint the issue once and for all, but as I said, I have not had any response after filling in the form so my worry is all of the forms have gone into a sort of 'black hole' as nothing has come back out in reply.

Thanks you to you / Mel for helping everyone on here. I am sure, and hope you agree that we need some google engineer to really step in and engage with some of us. I think otherwise it really could cost google in the long run in terms of people moving to different ecosystems which do not exhibit this slowing down to a halt issue.

Thanks again,

Mark

[Jeff]

Hey mark007,

I understand the frustration you're feeling on this. I don't know the details of where things are right now, but I do know that internal teams are looking into the performance reports on this and other related threads. While I don't have news to share on a series of steps that lead to a resolution, I will definitely update things here when I have more to share. I do appreciate the feedback and so does the larger Google team assigned to these troubleshooting efforts.

Thanks,
Jeff

[Dan_A]

Hi folks,

I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any concerns or questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

Best,

Dan

[mark007]

Hi Dan,

I know it might be a lot to ask, but is there any possibility to get in touch with the development team to ask for an update as to what the next steps will be, and any possible timeline. I know myself and others are willing and able to provide detailed logs and even login to our environments to troubleshoot the case where the usual workarounds are not helping.

Regards,

Mark

[Dan_A]

Hi mark007,

While we don’t have a way to communicate with the development team, you can send feedback through your Home app. Also, if you wish to dig deeper with your device you can fill out the form above so that we can forward this case to our team.

Best,

Dan

[mark007]

Hi Dan,

I guess this has been the problem that a huge group of us has now tried to get a response via the forms, app feedback and now this forums but none have allowed us to get a response as to what is being done to investigate/fix this issue.

Hence my request above to somwhow break the deadlock.

Regards,

Mark

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi everyone,

@mark007, thanks for getting back to us. I have checked your case and I suggest replying to the email we sent you. Also please continue the conversation there to avoid confusion.

Best,

Mel

[EmersonB]

Hello everyone,

@mark007 I'm dropping by to ensure that everything is covered here. If you have other questions and concerns, feel free to let me know.

I appreciate the help, @Jeff, @Dan and @mel.

Thanks,
Emerson

[mark007]

Hi Emerson,

I have tried some steps provided via the email thread. Mainly to reset my WiFi network, use DMZ on my isp router to direct all traffic to my nest router ip and swap the primary and secondary nest routers. There was some device detected by the engineer, stuck in some priority mode that the reset might workaround. I will leave it for another week or so and report as to whether this has worked.

If so, hopefully the reset at least might be avoided by a bug fix in the nest routers firmware.

Regards,

Mark

[EmersonB]

Hello mark007,

Thanks for getting back to us. Sounds like a plan. Keep us posted.

Regards,
Emerson

[Jhonleanmel]

Hey folks,

I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any concerns or questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

Thanks,
Mel

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi everyone,

Just one quick final check in here since activity has slowed down. We'll be locking the thread in the next 24 hours, but if you still need help, I would be happy to keep it open. If there's more we can do, just let me know.

Thanks,
Mel