Steam Deck unable to connect to home WiFi network through my Range Extender (with manual fix)

[DigGumPig]

I have a mesh network setup at home. WiFi router + Range extender both configured to broadcast the same SSID and frequencies.

The Main Router is a NOW Hub 2 (comes free from the ISP)
The Range Extender is a TP-link RE650
I live in the UK
My Steam Deck is currently on SteamOS 3.5.7 and is on the Stable Channel

The problem is, if i go upstairs where the range extender has a much stronger signal than the router downstairs, Steam Deck will automatically try to connect to it but will never manage to do so. On the contrary, if i go downstairs where the Router's signal is stronger, Steam Deck connects to WiFi without issues.

I have tried all manner of fixes including: Disabling 2.4GHz and leaving 5GHz on. The opposite. Disabling WiFi power management on Steam Deck. Changing SSID names so they are different for every WiFi band. Manually enabling iPV6 automatic configuration within Steam Deck's wifi settings.
Nothing worked.

Until i decided to try and configure the connection manually in Desktop Mode.
Now it connects to my range extender and my router without issues or connectivity drops. WiFi power management i kept on because turning it off significantly impacts battery life.

So what i did was:

1. Go into Desktop Mode
2. Tap the WiFi icon on the bottom right corner
3. Tap Configure Network Connections (two sticks with dots icon at top right corner)
4. Pressed Add New Connection (+ icon on bottom center)
5. Select WiFi then press Create
6. In the newly opened window on the Wi-Fi tab i selected my SSID(your wifi name) from the drop down menu.
7. Then in the next Wi-Fi Security tab i selected WPA/WPA2 Personal which was assigned automatically (yours may be WPA3 Personal if your router supports it)
8. In the password box i typed in my WiFi password
9. Go into the IPv4 tab and in Method select "Manual"
10. There is an empty rectangular space(column) at the bottom and to the right is a "+ Add" button, press that.
11. Inside the rectangular space a blank entry line will appear where you can type in "Address" "Netmask" and "Gateway"
12. Under the Address bar, type in a local IP address for your Steam Deck to be used by your router. My router would always allocate 192.168.0.60 because no other device on the network uses it so i put that in. If you can't connect using this address, try changing 192.168.0.xx (where the xx change to any number between 10-254)
13. Now double click Netmask where you should type in 255.255.255.0
14. Now double click Gateway. This is where you will need to type in your Main Router's local IP address. This is the address you would normally use to sign into the router through your internet browser to configure settings. This IP address is usually printed physically somewhere on your Main Router and will usually(but not necessarily) be either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 (make sure to type in the correct address, this is important)
15. Press Save at the bottom left.

My IPv6 configuration defaulted to Ignored which is what i left it at. I suppose you can try automatic if you encounter issues. Even with it set to Ignored, Steam Deck seems to allocate an IPv6 address without issues.

I suspect the issue may have been caused by Steam Deck's inability to properly configure the gateway address when connecting through my Range Extender. Or it's inability to properly configure an IPv6 address when connecting through the range extender. I could see that the range extender was connecting to the Steam Deck just fine as well as allocating a local IP (IPv4) address to it. When i went over to my Steam Deck to check the Connection Details i saw that there was no Gateway IP nor IPv6 address information.

Anyway, whatever the underlying issue is, i hope it gets resolved at some point.

I had WiFi issues day one out of the box with my Steam Deck. I was unable to complete the initial setup because Steam Deck would constantly disconnect from the Main Router and try to reconnect to the Range extender during initial setup. Then when i managed to get to the Home Screen and download my first game "Alan Wake's American Nightmare" onto the Steam Deck i was greeted with an error message about missing shaders. When i finally got the connection back online, the game downloaded the shader pre-cache files and the game ran just fine.

Steam Deck being such an Online dependant device i find it pretty surprising to have so many WiFi related issues.

Hopefully this can at least help anyone who has the same or similar problem.

Best of luck !

[DigGumPig]

The most recent stable SteamOS update 3.5.17 reverted my manual WiFi IPv4 configurations to "Automatic" and yet again my Steam Deck stopped connecting to WiFi through my Range Extender

basically had to redo the steps listed in my post

[🐱Meow🐱]

the support is not helping to send info to steam gaming mode software

[DigGumPig]

The latest Stable SteamOS 3.5.19 does not affect manual IPv4 configuration which is good.

[Munkey]

Hero

[jeremyh88.jh]

You absolutely saved my steam deck experience, I can't say tank you enough!!!

[DigGumPig]

Originally posted by jeremyh88.jh:

You absolutely saved my steam deck experience, I can't say tank you enough!!!

Happy to know it helped !

[thejerrams]

Thanks for the help!

[DigGumPig]

Originally posted by thejerrams:

Thanks for the help!

Welcome. Glad it worked!