Cerbo GX - Wifi Access Point - Troubles connecting with Mac M1 and iPhone

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kyros32 asked Apr 25, '24

Cerbo GX - Wifi Access Point - Troubles connecting with Mac M1 and iPhone

Hello, community,

Lately, I am struggling with connection issues to Cerbo GX and EVCS wallbox access points. This only applies to Apple products (tested with iPhone 14, Mac M1).

With Android devices works like a charm. I hope I won't need to carry around an Android device in the future :-)

Well,

what happens. With great troubles (repeatedly being disconnected and asked for an AP password again and again) I managed to connect to AP with default passwords. Then, I cannot reach web servers of devices ie. 192.168.0.1 or 172.24.24.1 (I don't get any error - the page just does not load). I have ping around 2 000ms up to 4000 ms.

I mean... what's wrong? I have been using the same devices for commissioning for more than 2+ years. I don't think I am a BFU in regards to Victron commissioning. I experienced this again today - Cerbo GX 3.30 and EVCS 1.23. All other networks (hotspot, router, ...) work fine.

Are there any known issues? I have a suspicion that this is related to WPA/WPA/WPA3 security, because anytime I connect to Cerbo / EVCS my Mac marks it as unsecured network.

Regards, kyros32

cerbo gx wifi evcs

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Apr 25 at 07:32 PM

Both gx and evcs are running on 2.4ghz, maybe that's the reason. I also have an M2 MBP and I don't have issues

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kyros32 Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Apr 25 at 07:46 PM

Thank you, Mr. Popescu. So I understand that on Victron's side, there are no known issues in FW regarding Wifi AP at the moment.

I think 2.4 GHz is ok because I had trouble connecting directly client --> cerbo gx AP (so there is no router in the middle which could potentially be 5 Ghz only) - in such case since Mac OS sees the Wifi, it must work ok with that band also.

I will have to investigate this further because it seems like it's isolated to my devices only. Btw, I hope Czech beer is your favorite now!

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ kyros32 commented · Apr 26 at 06:36 AM

Yes, Czech beer was and will be my favorite:))

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Answer 1 · 2024-04-25T23:14:23Z

matt1309 answered · Apr 25 at 11:14 PM

Just throwing a random guess out there.

Could it be an incompatability issue with the way apple devices negotiate DHCP/request IPs? What if you manually set a static IP in wifi settings when connecting to the AP, does it work without issues then?

Not an ideal solution if it is but would at least narrow down the issue to DHCP

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nickdb ♦♦ commented · Apr 26 at 07:00 AM

DHCP is standards based, and one that hasn't changed much in a long time. MAC os, which is a linux/BSD derivative is no different to anything else.

What can happen is that it checks for internet access, and if there isn't any, it looks for another connection.

I also suggest turning private addressing off on the OS.

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matt1309 nickdb ♦♦ commented · Apr 26 at 11:02 AM

Only reason i said was I had client with issues with BT router, it turned out the private addressing causing DHCP to issue new IPs each time MAC changed. Filling DHCP table. Setting static IP resolved this for their IOS devices.

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nickdb ♦♦ matt1309 commented · Apr 26 at 12:02 PM

Private addressing does not constantly change on a network, the OS creates a virtual MAC for each wifi network, but that MAC will not change on the same network. Not unless you forget and rejoin it.

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matt1309 nickdb ♦♦ commented · Apr 26 at 01:56 PM

Must have been a bug then as it was definitely the cause. As this was definitely the cause of the issues on the BT home hub 5 when they were released with modern ios devices.

Setting static IP resolved it.

Additionally just because DHCP is standards based doesn't mean there cannot be issues with it....

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nickdb ♦♦ matt1309 commented · Apr 26 at 04:19 PM

Considering everything runs a linux kernel these days, and there have been no real changes to the stack. The probability of DHCP issues is small.

I build enormous networks, never had a DHCP issue, apart from when a smart guy put two on the same network that conflicted.

I have run into more arp issues, though, that is generally on complicated large scale systems.

Anyhoo, doubt it is related to this issue.

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matt1309 nickdb ♦♦ commented · Apr 26 at 10:01 PM

Good point things that run a Linux kernel never have any issues ever.....

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