r/UNIFI

Putting this here because the UI forums move slowly and I want other UNAS 2 owners to be able to find this when they search.

TL;DR: The UNAS 2's 2.5GbE port is a USB-attached Realtek RTL8156 running r8152 v2.17.2 dated 2023-09-05. Mine has been dropping the link during sustained SMB/SCP transfers for weeks, and has now degraded to the point where it can't negotiate gigabit at boot. Support ticket has been silent for days.

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The hardware design

It's not a PCIe NIC. It's USB. Confirmed:

$ ethtool -i eth0
driver: r8152
version: v2.17.2 (2023/09/05)

$ lsusb -t
Port 1: Dev 2, Driver=r8152, 5000M

For a device whose entire job is moving files over a network, putting the NIC on the USB bus is a choice. USB NICs have smaller queues, more CPU involvement in packet handling, and less robust error recovery than PCIe. When something goes wrong, a wedged USB NIC can take the whole USB subsystem with it — which is exactly what I'm seeing.

Symptoms under sustained load

Multi-TB SMB or SCP transfer:

• Throughput collapses, stalls for minutes
• /var/log/kern.log fills with r8152 ... carrier off / carrier on
• SMB sessions disconnect
• Recovery requires power cycle (soft reboot doesn't always work)

Reproduced with multiple cables, switch ports, and clients. Every other 2.5G device on the same USW-Flex-2.5G is fine.

It got worse

After more troubleshooting, the NIC stopped negotiating gigabit at boot. Driver is now explicitly giving up:

r8152 4-1.1:1.0 eth0: autoneg retry 3/3 for higher speed (total 3, linked at 100Mbps)
r8152 4-1.1:1.0 eth0: autoneg retry exhausted, accepting 100Mbps

Switch port is set to auto-negotiate. Every other device on that switch hits its rated speed. The driver tried three times and gave up.

Any attempt to force speed via ethtool -s hangs the device hard enough to require a power cycle. (Pretty sure this is the USB-NIC-takes-USB-stack- with-it problem.)

The driver age

r8152 v2.17.2 from September 2023. Upstream has had multiple releases since with fixes for RTL8156 autoneg and USB stall recovery. The driver is baked into UniFi's kernel image — you can't update it via apt. The vendor controls it.

What I've tried

• Disabling offloads (tso/gso/gro/tx/rx/sg) — temporary relief, then failed
• Forcing 1GbE — held a few hours under load, then failed
• Cable swaps, switch port swaps, STP changes — no change
• UI support ticket — escalated days ago, crickets

For other UNAS 2 owners

If you're seeing weird stalls, drops, or speed issues, check yours:

ethtool -i eth0
lsusb -t
dmesg | grep r8152
ethtool eth0

Curious how many people are running into this. The forum threads I've found suggest a lot of "I gave up and RMA'd" but no actual fix.

Where I'm at

Filing RMA. The driver-level autoneg failure makes it pretty hard for Ubiquiti to argue this is a cable problem. Posting here mostly so the next person Googling UNAS 2 carrier off r8152 finds something useful instead of three months of "have you tried a different cable" replies.

https://preview.redd.it/i6qgjfh6yg2h1.jpg?width=2704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e67ee8b53188d54cb81e45bc5b3dfe632d3eb0ac

That would be good, I chose them because they don't have a fan. Would they be good for getting started with UniFi?

A few weeks ago I asked a bunch of questions in here about upgrading from a Deco mesh system to a Unifi because the Deco kept disconnecting devices even though on paper it should have been able to handle the load easily.

Got a lot of great advice and I've been using the Dream Router 7 for a couple of weeks now, and it's easily the best router I've ever had. Second place isn't even close. I haven't had a disconnect since I got it set up, and the level of control and information it gives about everything that's happening with the network is phenomenal.

I probably wouldn't have pulled the trigger without the advice from you all, so, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Hey unifi crew

I've got a client who has had pretty much every one of his U6LRs fail. Seem to be the only AP we've done which fails almost guaranteed. They've been replaced under warranty but we have one that has failed for a second time and is out of warranty.

I have U7 LR in stock, however performance looks lesser than the U6 variant, and I also have U7 Lite but they're out the question. Should I switch to the U7 LR or should I just quote for a U7 Pro as a replacement?

I'm looking to replace my FTTP (EE in the UK) kit with a Unifi system and would like some feedback on my selection...

• Cloud Gateway Fibre
• U7 Pro XG access point, powered over PoE+ from:
• Switch Flex 2.5G PoE

Plan is to install the UCG-Fiber on the wall (with the magnetic mount) next to the fibre CPE box. USW-Flex-2.5G-8-PoE (also wall mounted in a built-in wardrobe) will be in another room on the same floor (I already have a Cat6e cable going there) to replace a Netgear 8-port 1G switch. The U7-Pro-XG would be powered over PoE+ from the Flex, and mounted nearby on the ceiling. I also have a Flex Mini in the same room as the UCG-Fibre would be, which I'd power via PoE from that device.

Setup is intended to service a mix of mainly 1G ethernet and various Wi-Fi clients, with the ability to segment some WFH laptops.

Any comments from the Reddit hivemind?

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I have a usw pro hd 24 poe switch and two u7 pro AP’s. I have a verizon router at 192.168.0.1 subnet. I am trying to move my dhcp from my pihole to my switch. Is it possible to do that without a unifi gateway? Goal is to have dhcp on the switch. Home subnet would be preferred on the 192.168.0.x, but if there is no way and i have to change the subnet, thats fine with me. FYI, i have created the vlan for .10.x subnet and i have the inter vlan also created. I also created a port profile “All” and enable it on the uplink. I also have a static route on the verizon router going to the switch ip and vlan gateway. But its not working. Anytime i move a port to the new vlan, they do get ip from the dhcp, but i’m not able to access them, neither are they able to access the internet. Any help would be much appreciated. I’d like to know where I’m doing wrong.

TIA

I am going to be installing a Tower UPS for a small business and the location of this device will be somewhat visible to customers and the white is going to stand out. I'd like to spray paint the unit (owner has approved) matte black as the area this device will live in is already a 'dark/low light' area so the black will help the device blend in.

I'm assuming that any black matte spray paint for plastic will work, but I won't be installing this for a few weeks and the hardware has not arrived so I have some time to come up with a plan.

I know people have painted their cameras, but I never have, so I'm looking for some feedback from those that have gone through this process or a similar process.

Thanks.

I have an inherited setup in our house.

Fiber comes in on a Nokia Router

Then 24 PoE 250W Ubiquiti Switch
Ubiquiti Cloud Key UCk G2 Plus
5 AC Lites
Hard wired ethernet throughout the house

Everything runs great, I got the cloud key only so that I could manage issues away from home as I did not have a dedicated IP.

Now I have a dedicated IP and wondered if I should change anything in my console setup. They just turned on the IP yesterday and all is well here on the LAN, but I remembered vaguely that there there are things I was unable to do with my console setup w/o a dedicated IP. so really I am just checking in on this.

Thanks very much

Howdy. Looking for some advice.

I've got a client with 5 locations and we currently have site-to-site VPNs setup where all 4 of their retail locations have a tunnel back to their main office. We are currently using SonicWall at all 5 locations, have SSL VPN enabled on the SonicWall at the office, and have it setup where the SSL VPN connection to the main office also allows access to all the retail locations.

Example:

Main office is x.x.120.1

Retail location #1 is x.x.121.1

Retail location #2 is x.x.122.1

Etc

SSL VPN connection to main office x.x.120.1 allows access to x.x.120.1 LAN traffic but also VPN traffic to 121.1, 122.1, etc.

We are replacing the SonicWall with a UDM Pro at the main office and I'm wanting to recreate this same setup using WireGuard, however it looks like the site-to-site VPN wizard is a bit more limited that what I'm use to seeing on SonicWall. There no option to choose what network addresses/objects you want to add to sending side of the VPN tunnel and it just defaults to all your LAN addresses.

I've seen something on Reddit about adding the addresses to the tunnel config via SSH but was wondering if there's any other option beside that.

Hi everyone,

I have a Windows Server 2016 VM running on a Hyper-V host, and on this VM I already have the latest UniFi Network Application (controller) installed and fully working.

I’m now trying to upgrade/install the new UniFi OS Server on the same machine, but I’m running into an issue where the installer fails due to WSL not being available/supported on this system.

My main concern is that I want to move to UniFi OS Server without losing any existing controller data, sites, or device configurations.

Has anyone successfully done this upgrade path on Windows Server 2016 (or a similar setup)?

• Is there any supported or working way to install WSL on Server 2016 to make this work?
• Or is the only real option to migrate the UniFi Network Application data to a different OS (like Windows Server 2022 or Linux) and then restore it there? (This would be my last option, but I’d prefer to keep it working on Windows Server 2016 if possible)

Any advice or real-world experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

This is a consistent problem I have been seeing with Wifiman Desktop installed on a HP Windows laptop. In fact, installed on multiple laptops. Randomly, but normally after clean booting I find I have no internet access on the laptop. WiFi is connected but no access to anything. When I hover over the WiFi symbol in the taskbar I see two wifi networks connected, the second is a Wireguard network (Pictured).

If I go into task manager I see Wireguard is running, if I kill wireguard then connectivity is restored.

Now, I haven't installed wireguard or anything else that relies on it except Wifiman so it has to be that. Previously, before using Wifiman I have used Tailscale and never had this issue, it seems to be related to Wifiman's implementation. I have observed this behaviour on multiple laptops.

Has anyone else seen this? Any ideas how to stop it occurring?

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I just got a used UAP-AC-M. I did the 10s reset (a couple of times). plugged into PoE (data + power). However, it does not show "for adoption" in the unifi AP list permanently. It flashes for a split second "for adoption" and disappears and will flash again in 15 seconds or so. What is going on?

I installed my APs nearly 10 years ago. At that time I had a working Unify controller running to set up multiple WLANs/VLANs.

As this was basically a fire and forget situation I now find myself in a bit of a pickle.

Of course silly me did not save the config (in contrast to my EdgeRouter where I did it).

The older Controller setup seems to have issues with modern Java environments, so I cannot use it to access the APs.

And of course, a current controller lacks credentials or whatever to prove more than a basic view of the APs.

Is there a way to get the APs into the new controller without resetting the APs, basically loosing my old WLAN/VLAN setup?

In our warehouse we have rows of stacked pallets with wine bottles. Our inventory app is simply RDP connected to a local server, and when signal is lost for a few seconds it leads to problems, like having to wait 10 minutes for something to unblock.

Our vendor told us "your wifi is the problem, you need to fix it" and refuse to acknowladge that using RDP is just a terrible design decision.

Anyway we use a bunch of Unifi U6+ spread around the warehouses. People move around pretty fast as they're driving pallet stackers. Our handheld devices are Skorpio X5 which have "802.11ac and 802.11r/k/v for fast roaming". But there seems to frequently be a few seconds gap when switching from one AP to the other. Also if they go into a "tunnel" between two full rows of pallets, signal is often atroucious there.

I thought more APs were the answer but gemini seems to no think so. And in fact wherever I installed more thinking it would solve the issue for the location, it may help a bit but I still get reports that sometimes the app still blocks.

What should I do?

I had 4 U6-LR died inside a year, all 4 replaced by U. all 4 replacement died inside next year .. it is hard/expensive to return them to U so easier to purchase new equipment but just trying to see if anyone else had issues with LR's?! I have bunch of lite's, U7 outdoor, u6 mesh, u7 pro wall ... not a single failure in years but these LR's every single one died (4 out of 4 two times so 8 in total) ... and I even set their power to medium as someone somewhere said they overheat on high so I set them to medium for 2.4ghz and low for 5ghz and they still could not survive a year ?! mounted inside (living room, hallway ... ) on the ceiling .. good high quality cable ..

I myself won't be getting any more LR's, first 'cause of this experience of them duying, second as while they were working I seen that the high power does not solve coverage problem due to heavy fat wall's so a lite or u7prowall or u6prowall get the job done even better.. instead of LR's .... but I am interested to know if anyone else had bad experience with them or I'm just that unlucky (I do have 2 OOOOLD unsupported LR's that are 2.4GHz only that work for over a decade)

My home network is working fine, and has not been messed around with since I installed it when the UCG Max come out. So it’s been running since about October 2024

The software has been evolving and updating along the way. When I access it now I see many features and settings i don’t remember or have set.

Is it worth resetting these gateways and setting up fresh every couple of years to utilize any new features that have been added or changed along the way.

I’d don’t have it very complicated it would involve setting up a couple of wireless networks and a couple of VLANs i have configured.

So now and then is it worth erasing and starting fresh and not restore back from a backup?