The Unifi UAP-AC-M access point in my garage stopped working a few weeks ago. Or, the device didn’t stop working, it still showed up in the Unifi controller and I could ping it. But it stopped providing Wi-Fi connectivity — my phone connected, but got no network access…

I remembered experiencing this before — the VLANs for user and guest Wi-Fi wasn’t allowed through the D-Link switch. I had simply not configured them, but why was it failing now?

Trying to log into the switch — I found that it no longer got an IP from the DHCP server. By all accounts; it looked like the switch had been reset.

After my Wi-Fi mapping adventure — I found a few spots with low Wi-Fi signal. Both kids’ rooms on the 2nd floor only had mediocre signal, at -67 and -68 dBm 2.4 GHz, and the side garden had -71 dBm — which is terrible!

I also discovered that Mona’s side of the bed had much worse Wi-Fi signal than my side. This was because I had a clear line of sight to the UAP-AC-IW in the den, but the signal to Mona’s side had to go through a wall and her wardrobe…

Simply not acceptable, something had to be done!

Shortly after I upgraded my Unifi access points from 4.3.28 to 5.43.43; I started getting timeout issues. Not all devices, but some; the Raspberry Pi driving our DAKboard, and both our Netatmo air quality sensors.

It took me a while to understand what was happening, and I didn’t immediately relate it to the firmware upgrade.

Ever since I ran a underground CAT6 to my garage — my Unifi UAP-AC-M access point have been acting strange…

I initially noticed that whenever I was close to the garage; I would loose internet connectivity for a few seconds. At first I just thought it was an area with poor coverage, but looking at the signal strengths that didn’t make any sense.

I walked around my house, and garden — measuring the Wi-Fi signal. Here are the results 👇