Brain-Check Needed: Unifi deployment with ongoing connectivity issues
Forgive me if there's some fragmentation to this. I'm a long-time tech professional (Sysadmin) but have never focused on networking, and my head hurts banging it against this problem.
I'm setting up a network for a rural church near me that is trying to get something more reliable than the collection of unmanaged Arista APs and power-line networking devices broadcasting their own networks too. The parts list:
- Ubiquiti UniFi Pro PoE 24-Port Gigabit Managed PoE Network Switch with SFP+
- Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine Pro
- Ubiquiti UniFi U7 Pro Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Access Point
- Ubiquiti UniFi U7 Lite Dual-Band Wireless Access Point
Along with cabinet, UPS, cables, and other accessories.
All the cable runs have been made and test OK and the hardware mounted and shows in the console. All devices are updated to the latest stable firmware. Internet is via Comcast, and I haven't ruled Comcast out as a culprit. The problem is...
The Problem
Both LAN and WAN connectivity drops frequently.
At the location, connected to the new wireless networks it can take a few minutes for the connected device to report there's internet available over the connection. Until then it'll say whatever variant of "Connected but no internet" is appropriate for the device (Windows laptops and Android phones mostly in my testing).
I keep strong and stable connection with the UDM/site when hardwired to the UDM or the Switch, connecting to is using the UDM's gateway IP, but internet still tends to drop.
Connected using the UI app or in a browser at unifi.ui.com either there at the location or remotely I see the network showing UP in Site Manager, but connecting to that specific network it usually times out a couple times before it connects. This makes me think it's related to internet, but, besides reporting high latency (30ms instead of the typical 10-15ms) once or twice each day, the UDM never reports upstream WAN/Internet issues and uptime on the internet connection is 100%.
Last Friday I deleted all the Networks and WiFi profiles I'd configured in Unifi and recreated them, in case I'd messed something up there, but the symptoms persist.
A friend mentioned some bug related to the captive portal configuration had given him similar symptoms on his own network, and suggested the portal may need to be configured and then deleted to undo the bug, but that hasn't helped.
What should I check? What issue am I missing? Help me, Obi Wan. You're my only hope!