Poor Wifi Connectivity?

Hello everyone. I've recently picked up the R2, and I'm still learning how to use it. While I've been able to connect my computer to it through my wifi network a couple of times, the R2 often will not connect to my network. When I check the network setting it simply does not list my network in the list of available wifi connections.

Does anyone know anything I could do about this?

 

@SolS Is this a home network, or a work/public network you are trying to connect to? One other way you can use to locate your network on the printer is using the Network Connection tab in the Settings page of your web dashboard. You can still access it even if the printer is not connected to a Wifi network by making sure it's in Hotspot mode (Utilities/Network in LCD screen).

In the Settings screen on the dashboard, the Network Connection tab is located here:

 

I've noticed that the WiFi reception is pretty weak. I went through a bout of just not being able to pick up my home WiFi (I live in an apartment building) because the neighbors seemed stronger and even if my AP showed up on the list, it wouldn't reliably connect. I ultimately had to hunt around for a less used segment of the channel space where it could get through (and it's just across the hall on the far side of the room).

I eventually threw in the towel and hooked up an ethernet cable. Either way, putting that PI next to all sorts of stepper motor drivers probably makes for a noise rich environment.

What I'd like to see:

1) Some way to just flat out disable the WiFi if I'm running wired, instead of contributing to the noise in my apartment building by running in hotspot mode

2) guidance as to whether OctoPrint would detect an alternate 5GHz WiFi USB dongle and/or properly represent it on the LCD or via web interface.

 

I ask because I'm pretty sure I have a couple of those dongles laying around somewhere, so it really wouldn't cost much more than fing where I put them.

Of course, I have negative hardware karma, and even touching the inside of the electronics bin will probably cause irreparable damage.

 

Trust me: you have no idea of the scope of my hardware bungling.

It isn't that I don't understand what needs to be done. I know how it all works. But, it's better for all involved if I don't touch anything.

 

@AllenMcAfee it's a my home network. It has shown up on the list of available networks a few times and I have connected to it successfully in the past, it's just not consistently available in the connections list.

I'll consider the dongle, but for now I'll probably work with a LAN cable, since the R2 is close enough to my (old fashioned) laptop. Thanks for the tips guys.

 

I once had mine not show my network in the connections list. Not only did it not list my network, but also not the alias for the same network. Cycled printer power and it came back. Strange. Next time it happened, I change the channel that my AP was using, assuming interference from neighbors. Worked for a while.

When I got to the point to where it'd see my network and either not connect or connect and drop, I finally threw in the towel and used cat-5 instead.

 

I'd like to try using an ethernet cable to talk to the R2. I connected the cable from my computer to the printer and turned off the WiFi on the computer. If I type in the 192...... printer address in my browser I just see I'm not connected to the internet. Am I not doing some simple thing right? The R2 instructions say you can use the ethernet to talk to your WiFi but that sounds like odd wording. I'll keep poking around but this thread is the first one I came across on the topic.

 

Oh yeah, I guess I remember that setup from long ago. Thanks for reminding me. I haven't used ethernet in ages:-(

 

The printer's been working on WiFi but I'm running a test length of ethernet cable from my router to the computer just to see if some intermittent slowing I've seen can be helped. (Theres a LOT of WiFi in the neighborhood, so ... I don't know) While I had the ethernet cable here I thought I'd play with it on the printer and of course it didn't work without a switch or router. What was I thinking? Not thinking I guess. That's it
Now I'm assuming when I plug my computer ethernet into my router/WiFi box I can turn off the computer's WiFi and it will still be connected to the WiFi printer because they're talking to the same router. Let's see what Jeff learns this time

 

Since it'll be a different network adapter from the WiFi, the router is almost certainly going to assign it a different address from what you've used on WiFi

 

Actually it's working great! I just plugged in a 100 ft Cat 5 cable from my router/WiFi box to my Mac and turned off the Mac's WiFi. It's talking to the printer fine. Not only that, but the Octoprint page loads in about 1/2 second. It used to take about 30 seconds... My speedtest.net results seem better, too, but they've been quite variable so I'll need to wait a while and test some more. The printer, though is a huge change. WAY faster loading of Octoprint. At my other house I was using my Apple TimeCapsule as my WiFi hub on a Cox 10 meg service and it was great. At my new location I'm renting their latest modem for a while and I've had three of them here, plus techs out looking at the connection, plus calls..... Now with the ethernet improvement it's looking like maybe it's not the service itself, but these modems don't like my devices...? Or something in the neighborhood, or house, ... The signal strength looks full. Anyway, it's been fast enough for printing, but the loading of Octoprint is a real eye opener. I was just thinking the Raspberry Pi setup was that slow. It loads in a blink now.
I had the same WiFi or internet problems with my Windows laptop and Mac desktop and iPhone, so I'm ruling out viruses,etc.
I guess I'll run this Cat 5 cable under the house and keep using it.
Thanks for your comments and help. I'm learning and relearning things here.

 

I rarely use WiFi when I have wired as an option. WiFi just isn't as fast or reliable, and it doesn't drop out when the neighbor uses a microwave over.

 

I just realized I've connected my computer to the router with Cat 5, but the printer's still on WiFi, so the speedup of Octoprint has to do with the WiFi to computer connection and not the WiFi to printer connection.

Hmmmmm......

I have my TimeCapsule connected to the computer by ethernet, but I turned off the WiFi in the TimeCapsule and after learning the hard way, I also put it in "bridge mode" where it disables some "DHCP and NAT" feature that was apparently fighting with the WiFi router and causing grief.

Now I have to think about why the Octoprint loading changed so much with WiFi still in the loop, but only at one interface. And I need to keep testing the internet speed for a while and make sure that's holding up.