Evo WiFi Controller - Active TCP Sessions

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  • MrB
    Automated Home Sr Member
    • Oct 2015
    • 80

    #16
    Just a follow up on this.

    I have multiple WiFi networks around the house for different purposes. Including a couple of extenders to get to remote parts of the house.

    The Evohome has been connected to one of the original ones in the middle of the house since the install about 18 months ago. and this had iffy signal qualities. Hence all the new Wifi and extenders.

    While looking for the reason behind this I noticed this old connection in the controller's WiFi setup and, therefore, connected it to the nearest WiFi hub which had a 100% strength signal. Just for completeness I also rebooted the main Draytek Internet Router/AP to clear all it's internal tables.

    Lo and behold the "problem" is gone. After days of running I no longer see multiple (let alone hundreds) of socket connections linked to the Evohome Controller IP.

    This leads me to believe that there is a bug in the controller's software related to timeouts of the TCP connection which it thinks are dropped but in fact are being managed by TCP flow/reconnect management. The TCP socket remains "active" but the software thinks it's an error and creates another connection to the Server without fully terminating/destroying the original socket (been there with that problem in my own software life). Theory maybe, but fits the facts.

    So "problem" closed, but something for the Evohome Controller software guys to read.

    Comment

    • paulockenden
      Automated Home Legend
      • Apr 2015
      • 1719

      #17
      Did you ever answer the question a couple of us posed about whether these numerous connections were in a TIME_WAIT state?

      Comment

      • G4RHL
        Automated Home Legend
        • Jan 2015
        • 1580

        #18
        Originally posted by MrB View Post
        Just a follow up on this.

        I have multiple WiFi networks around the house for different purposes. Including a couple of extenders to get to remote parts of the house.
        I know it is not cheap, but Netgear's Orbi system is worth looking at. It removed my need for extenders around the house, gives wider coverage outside the house and since I put it in no issues with dropped signals. What I have spent on extenders over the years is probably greater than the cost of Orbi. Possibly my original router was of poor quality (BT Home Hub 6) but then I had the same issues with its earlier version and another third party router I tried. My Evohome Control Panel would report loss of connection from time to time, despite being about a metre from the router. It has stopped doing that.

        Comment

        • MrB
          Automated Home Sr Member
          • Oct 2015
          • 80

          #19
          @paul - no. I didn't look at Wireshark before I found this WiFi issue. For now the sessions shown on the Router from the Evohome Controller are always below 5 whenever I've looked at it. Before it was a peak of 350. If I get bored I'll reconnect to the old AP and see what happens

          @G4RHL Yes, I've seen the Orbi stuff but a) I've already got all the APs and Extenders in place, B) bet it uses the same kind Mesh that Sky Q uses and that's a complete mess (or at least Sky's implementation of it) - my only resolution to that was to hard wire everything - works a treat (bar the outstanding bugs in Q).

          Comment

          • peterf
            Automated Home Guru
            • Jan 2015
            • 116

            #20
            Maybe someone will correct me but I don't think any of the recent crop of Orbi - like domestic devices operate as a mesh. I think they're all star type configurations.

            If you want a proper mesh type network you need to move up to some of the commercial offerings like Ruckus.

            Comment

            • StuartP
              Moderator
              • Feb 2004
              • 81

              #21
              The following review might be of interest:

              Dream Green House - Stylish and environmental friendly products, services and technologies for designing & building your own home.

              Comment

              • G4RHL
                Automated Home Legend
                • Jan 2015
                • 1580

                #22
                Netgear Orbi is not a mesh system.

                I can say that it works exceptionally well. For the first time ever since I have had an internet connection, and that is well before the internet if that makes sense, I am not getting connection failures with devices. I have a contented wife who no longer grumbles that her iPad has lost connection. Streaming to Apple TV or the BT box I have is no longer an issue, my Evohome Control Panel seems to connect and respond better. The Orbi consists of two units. One in my study upstairs connected to the internet and hard wired to my desktop and other controls, and the other in my lounge downstairs? I also now have a number of redundant extenders etc.plus a BT Home Hub 6 which I would not even give away - to the dustbin perhaps.

                Comment

                • paulockenden
                  Automated Home Legend
                  • Apr 2015
                  • 1719

                  #23
                  Orbi isn't mesh, but many of the others (Velop, Amplifi, Eero, etc.) are.

                  Most UK homes only need two stations, in which case the difference between mesh and star topology is moot. In fact, the dedicated back channel used by Orbi has distinct advantages.

                  Comment

                  • DBMandrake
                    Automated Home Legend
                    • Sep 2014
                    • 2361

                    #24
                    Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
                    Orbi isn't mesh, but many of the others (Velop, Amplifi, Eero, etc.) are.

                    Most UK homes only need two stations, in which case the difference between mesh and star topology is moot. In fact, the dedicated back channel used by Orbi has distinct advantages.
                    Personally I would avoid any sort of mesh or repeater system that does not use a dedicated back channel, if you care about performance.

                    Back in the days of Internet connections that were <8Mbit you could afford to halve your usable throughput from say 24Mbps to 12Mbps on then state of the art G by using a repeater, as it would still be faster than your internet connection.

                    These days with Internet connections up to 250Mbps its difficult to even reach the throughput of your internet connection for a single device connected to a single access point, unless that device had 40/80Mhz channels and multiple streams.

                    Throw a repeater into the mix and at best you're going to halve your usable throughput, and a multi-hop mesh network is going to be even worse again, unless it uses dedicated back channels.

                    Even with devices that do, you have to consider the fact that the whole reason you're placing a second access point at the other end of the house is that the signal is too weak there - which means by definition that the link between the two AP's or mesh devices will itself be relatively weak and nowhere near optimal speed. Real world performance can plummet due to the poor backbone performance this can cause unless the location of the AP's is carefully chosen.

                    If at all possible the best solution is an Ethernet backbone - even if you have to drill a couple of holes in the floor to run a cable under the floor!

                    Comment

                    • paulockenden
                      Automated Home Legend
                      • Apr 2015
                      • 1719

                      #25
                      Originally posted by DBMandrake View Post
                      Personally I would avoid any sort of mesh or repeater system that does not use a dedicated back channel, if you care about performance.
                      Well if you think about it, a true mesh can't have a dedicated back channel. A back channel only really works in a star topology.

                      Imagine a mesh where it's five hops back to the base. You're going to need five DIFFERENT channels totally dedicated to backhaul. It just won't work. There isn't enough spectrum.

                      If each station shares one single channel for this then you might as well just lump it in with the public bands and be done with it. As soon as you start sharing the backhaul between nodes you've lost the one advantage that a dedicated back channel brings.

                      P.

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