Google Mesh Wi-Fi help

Have you tried swapping power supplies?
The blue light is just the unit booting up.

Can you plug an ethernet cable into the router and then download over that.... See what happens.

I've had no issues with large, fast downloads so far.

Hmmmm, no. Good idea re trying a different power supply…

The whole router resets (not just the mesh), so no connectivity via Wi-Fi or Ethernet

When the Google router resets the VM Hub doesn’t, so I’m 99% sure the problem is all Google mesh related

The whole router resets (not just the mesh), so no connectivity via Wi-Fi or Ethernet

Which is it? The mesh resetting only or the VM router too?

Process of elimination. Start by switching the VM hub back to router mode, test that via wired and wireless.

If that works, try the mesh in access point mode (routing still being done by the VM hub).

If that works turn the VM hub back to modem mode and the mesh to router mode and test again.

I'm not familiar with Google mesh. Are you suggesting there's a separate Google router?

The mesh will be handling DHCP etc (ie acting as the router) if he's got the VM hub set to modem mode.

What I mean is,

The OP is describing "the Google router" as crashing. Is that a separate device from the pucks, or is one puck a master and the other slaves?

I'm assuming the VM hub is connected by Ethernet to one Google mesh node, and it's that particular node which is crashing and the rest are fine. Is that correct?

If they're all identical, can they be swapped around?

Ahh, gotcha. The mesh is made up of 1 or more identical nodes, normally one of those nodes is the master node connected via ethernet which the others then connect to.

So yeah, good suggestion to swap around the nodes, maybe when start with just one connected.

Thanks all- yes the Google nodes/pucks are all identical but one is set to Router mode

VM Hub works fine when in router mode but doesn’t have the range to cover the house, hence me buying the Google jobbies a few years ago. They were fine initially so I’m a bit puzzled why they’ve started playing up.

I don’t think it’s possible to have the VM Hub as the router and the Google mesh also working? I think the mesh only works if one of the nodes/pucks is in router mode

I’m assuming the VM hub is connected by Ethernet to one Google mesh node, and it’s that particular node which is crashing and the rest are fine. Is that correct?

If they’re all identical, can they be swapped around?

yep that’s kind of right. Although when the router node resets obviously the other nodes go offline too (they flash orange). I have swapped them round but kept the power supplies in the same place- will try swapping those round too

There should be an option of access point mode on most mesh systems, this means they essentially act as a WiFi mesh extender. Looks like it could be called bridge mode on the Google mesh.

The whole router resets (not just the mesh), so no connectivity via Wi-Fi or Ethernet

I actually meant for you to connect your laptop to the Google master via cable and try the download [not using WiFi]
That will show if it's the WiFi causing the problem or it just the size of the download.

You can have the VM in router mode but you then end up double NATing.

Could you try using a different puck as the primary node? Will need another full reset to do that though.

Does it crash if you hard wire to the primary node?

Swapping PSUs is a good shout. It's unlikely but plausible that it's not getting enough juice when running flat out.

Is it possible to check for firmware upgrades? "Crashing when xferring large files" sounds like the sort of thing that might get patched out.

I don’t think it’s possible to have the VM Hub as the router and the Google mesh also working? I think the mesh only works if one of the nodes/pucks is in router mode

I don't know about that, but you really don't want two routers routering.

(also, I'm struggling to think of a scenario where "set up the VM Hub to do more stuff" is the correct solution 😁)

The correct answers is to change ISP but that is not always possible 🤪.

The v1 WiFi is old now, you'd have thought this sort of behaviour would be long fixed. One thing you can do is use a'router' nice from the nest WiFi set as primary then the older ones as remotes. The newer (but not latest) model is more powerful.

Firmware is auto updated. Don't think you can trigger a manual update.

VM are usually quite good about changing the hub to the latest version. If yours is a Hub3 they have a problem in the chipset and you might want to change to Hub 4 or 5.

Iirc the google mesh system doesn’t support a access point mode. Your stuck with a full reset & swapping out the router puck, obviously swap psu’s at the same time.

Hi all,

Thanks so much for the replies - I've spent the last few days working through the troubleshooting suggestions. Every time I thought I had it fixed, it broke again!

On the last crash, the router puck was flashing blue for over an hour so I figured that puck is probably toast. I think I've managed to get it all working via 2 factory resets of everything (inc VM Hub and all pucks), using a different puck as the router (with a different psu). No crashes after 2 days and plenty of large downloads, so fingers crossed....

The VM Hub worked absolutely fine as a standalone router when I tried that, so it was definitely the Google mesh system where the problem sat.

I was tempted to buy a Nest Wifi to use as the primary router, as they're obviously better performing than the v1 WiFi pucks. I'll see how things go before doing that.

Thanks everyone!

Cheers for getting back to us.