HardwareGoogle

The Nest Wifi+ Mesh – all the lockups since I’ve had it

I’d mentioned that my Nest Wifi + Mesh has been notoriously unreliable, and now I’ve found some logging evidence that shows it. I will note I’m pretty sure there are two items listed below where it did not lock up, and one time where it did that I can find no logging for.

TL;DR – I’m just going to keep this as a running log of how unstable this is on a network that was down for 14 minutes over three years (minus the Christmas bombing).

In at least two of the lockups below I have pinged the unit from the LAN side and it has not responded. The LAN side is connected to a gigabit switch and not cross wired. At least one of the times I have connected to the fiber modem and pinged back to the WAN side, and it has also been down. Both sides of the unit are separated – there is no physical connection from my LAN to the fiber modem except through the Nest Wifi + Mesh.

In one of the lockups as I recall the SSID went away. I may be mistaken on this one.

The general lockup scenario is that the unit claims it’s lost internet (in the logs). Generally happens at 4ish AM because I wake up to a dead house. Pinging the internal IP fails. Unplugging ethernet (WAN and LAN) and plugging it back in fails to do anything. The only solution is to pull the power from the Nest Wifi base unit and plug it back in.

Using the app while connected to the network does not pull anything.

As a product that runs my home automation, Nest Aware services, etc, this is remarkably not useful. So here’s a running log of every time the unit claims it went down as reported by Google Home app. As I do not have a replacement Wi-Fi picked out yet, I’m probably going to slap this on a smart plug that runs off the Wi-Fi my fiber modem can provide so I can turn it off and back on again.

All the logged Nest Wifi lockups

Saturday July 9, 2022

Nest Mesh + Wifi lockups
4am

This one is odd because I was home most of the time, and I can tell you I would have noticed if the network was down. Why it logged itself down, no clue. I suspect it was actually down less than an hour at around 4am.

Tuesday July 19. 2022 (10 days)

Nest Mesh + Wifi lockups
12am

According to the log it was down for over two days. It was not.

Thursday July 28 2022 (8/9 days)

Nest Mesh + Wifi lockups
10:30pm

It claims to have gone down about 10:30pm… oddly so did I. Ping tests responded on the LAN this time I believe, the WAN showed power but this is the one I got the strange email from AT&T that there was a problem with a device on my network.

August 3, 2022 (6 days)

Nest Mesh + Wifi lockups
4am

I was up late last night. Once again decided to read using Perfect Viewer, my Samsung S6 Tablet, using a SMB connection over WiFi to my desktop. Once again a lockup shortly after I went to bed.

August 4, 2022

I opened a case with Google. Told them my network setup. I have been advised to change my LAN IP for some reason… I’ve asked why. This is the default 192.168.78.x range that it applies, I have no equipment on this side of the fence that passes out DHCP, so should be no issues with whatever private IP I wanted to use and this is the private IP Google wants to use.

I’ve asked what that could possibly do since the whole unit goes offline, including the WAN.

Not being a bitch here, just trying to figure out if there’s a known bug in that.

I’ve followed darksparda4’s advice from the comments and turned off “preferred activities” on the hope that it’s a bug in the QoS logic that’s causing lockups. I’d enabled that right after setting up because Kim’s desk was at extreme range and her primary use case is video conferencing. I don’t think we ever needed it because the coverage was fine.

I have not rebooted the unit, not applied changed LAN as I’d like to know what they think that could possibly do. I was also instructed to change my DNS servers to ones that my ISP provides or to Google’s 8.8.8.8…. also things that should not have any effect (8.8.8.8 is my fallback if 1.1.1.1 fails). They keep mentioning “complex networks” and nope, this isn’t complex.

Flat as can be.

August 12, 2022

I saw notices that the Mesh was either good signal, weak, or offline. A few hours later the unit locked up again.

This was the end of bothering with this. It was not stable, would lock up once every week and a day. I kept getting performative IT support from Google such as “change your DNS,” and “define the LAN as something different.” Yeah, no… with everything back to default other than the SSID name and password I am done. It’s going to go to work to see if it can function as just a small office’s router (loaner).

August 23, 2022

August 23, 2022 Nest Wifi + Mesh lockup

Future / previous Nest Wifi + Mesh articles

The Home test

Day 1 – initial impressions
Week 1 – the first lockup
Week 3 – the thing operated ok
Week 5 – Yikes, it’s so unreliable I’m going to replace it
Week 6 – Playing with Family Safety / restricted while trying to fix the thing
Week 6+ – all the lockups I’ve had with the unit
Week 7 – after a suggestion from a reader lockups appear to have resolved – yeah, no, they didn’t 15 hours later
Week 7 – have removed the unit from my network and purchased a different brand router because it just wasn’t stable

After giving up, the corporate test
Day 1 – initial impressions in commercial world (day 55)
Day 7 – locks up with next to no usage, no devices connected (day 62) – this one contains a possible retraction
Sometime after day 7 – soapbox, I am on it.
Day 21 – Mesh unit disappears, two reboots later it’s back (day 83)
Day 30 or so, giving up

Related to the product line

The Nest Wifi Pro having issues – how utterly shocking


Product links: Amazon, Google Nest Store

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Paul E King

Paul King started with GoodAndEVO in 2011, which merged with Pocketables, and as of 2018 he's evidently the owner. He lives in Nashville, works at a film production company, is married with two kids. Facebook | Twitter | Donate | More posts by Paul | Subscribe to Paul's posts

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