Help - one Firewall 2 AP's

[yodabug]

Hi,

Im head-to-wall banging today and I'd appreciate some help.

My setup is different I'll admit for a home user.

I have one Smoothwall Express device, two wifi AP's and 3 unmanaged 8 port switches.

Main Router/Gateway = Smoothwall express
WiFi router # 1 (existing) = Netgear R6300 v1 in AP mode (lan bridged through Wan adaptor)
WiFi router #2 (trying to addin for more coverage) = TPLink Archer C7

I once during this day saw BOTH mac's of the R6300 and the Archer C7 in Inssider using the same SSID's. BUT, my devices were NOT switching to the TPLink router when I got close enough to get a far stronger signal from it than the R6300. So, of course I messed around some more and now the TPLink does not even show up in the device list using Inssider--it's like the wireless radios are not working or some such thing...

Can anyone give me a step-by-0step for setting this up? On the Archer I have bridged to lan for the WAN port but there is also a repeater function and there is no CLEAR documentation that I can find on which to use or both, one or the other......

I have done this before a few times using enterprise ubiquiti's but seriously those just work-this, this residential nightmare mixed vernaculer non-standard spaghetti mish mash is frustrating indeed.

Any help would be welcome. I'm not new at this so I can take instructions well:-)

[Lantis]

You don't want repeater in this case, what you have set up is right.

To diagnose why your wifi is no longer starting, can you please start by sharing what configuration you have set currently?
If you have any system logs you can provide after saving the connection settings, these would also be helpful.

Roaming doesn't work smoothly the way you have it configured. Clients tend to cling to the weaker signal for dear life rather than migrate.
There is an 802.11r mode you can setup manually which can resolve this, but both routers would need to be running an Openwrt derivative (e.g. Gargoyle). I expect also a custom version would need to be compiled to get the full wpad package.

Without doing this, all you can hope for is each client will handle its own roaming as best it can.
You can try setting "disassoc_low_ack=1" to help.

[yodabug]

Actually, I went back to scratch-reset to defaults-left in gateway mode WAN is completely disabled (I didn't see this menu at all, at all before the default reset, and in hindsight I am not one hundred percent certain that I reset to defaults after the firmware upgrade to Gargoyle---oops:-)set lan ip to same subnet as my home network and set 5ghz/2ghz ssid's to match my other AP, set 5ghz on both AP's to same channel, same for 2ghz, disabled DHCP on the new AP (existing already has DHCP disabled)..set the new AP up with a reserved DHCP IP on the gateway/router and saved all that and rebooted.

I still couldn't connect properly, I was getting the connection but couldn't surf...so I turned off the other AP - the existing one - and then I could connect no troubles to the new TPLink AP and surf and all was well, then I turned the existing AP back on and rebooted all other network devices including switches.

After all that it seems to be working fine--I can see a 2-3 second "blip" where it is authorizing the "switched to network" but when walking around with my laptop and inssider running I don't seem to actually lose the connection and I can clearly see one AP disconnecting and the other connecting.

and now my favorite reading/smoking bathroom has full bars!!!! yayyyyyyyy

My wife said I was crazy to do all that just so I could surf while I shat but hey a mans gotta have some fun!

SO, I am a HAPPY EX-frustrated camper right now.

Thanks for your response.