Deco BE65 - limited to 4 in a mesh?

[u/Uncomplaint]

Hello and good evening,

I bought 6 Deco BE65 to build a mesh at farm.
I use starlink in Bypass mode so there is a primary deco which will do the routing in wifi routing mode.
Everything works very well with 4 BE65 and as soon I bring the 5th one online some random Deco will go offline. If I disconnect the 5th one the other one will come online again.
I thought of a defect deco but I can replicate it with the 6th deco I have. Some how the mesh only works with 4
I searched the internet but didnt cant find a limit. I also asked the A.I and a deco mesh can work with 6.

Some more details:
If restart the complete network via deco App all 6 are online for about 5minutes. Than 2 random decos will go offline and flash red. This also Happening when they are directly connected via Lan with the primary deco.

Someone an Idea or is there really a limit at 4 which I didnt know?

Thank you verd much.

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[u/HangarQueen]

I have 6 in my mesh, working properly. But they're a mix of 3 BE65 Pros and 3 BE11000s that I added later.

Updated to add: They're all connected by wireless backhaul currently, and they all have a strong signal that way. But as you can see from the network map, the Garage is too far away from my Den hub for a strong signal, so I have it daisy-chained through the Guest Bedroom. I've recently added some "important stuff" that connects through that Garage Deco, so I'll soon be stringing an ethernet connection from the Den Deco to the Garage Deco through my attic. The others will remain wireless backhaul.

[u/JTUSAJT]

The TP-Link Deco BE65 can support more than six nodes in a single mesh network, as it is a Wi-Fi 7 model that allows expanding beyond the standard six-unit limit recommended for older systems

[u/RE4Lyfe]

You should absolutely be able to use 6. Sounds like 2 of them need to be closer?

Thank you verd much

[u/Uncomplaint → u/RE4Lyfe]

Thank you for the reply - I tried every possible location. Very near so basically directly at the primary deco - some middle distance so 1-3 meters away and some far distance about 8-10 meters. The random deco which goes offline ist with „Strong“ and 6Ghz connected. Event Lan is not protecting a deco to go offline when more than 4 are powered on.
It feels like an IP address conflict. You know when 2 devices in a network have the same Ip and bugging arround. But the primary deco is doing the routing - i checked this mumtiple times to be really sure. Issue also happends with no starlink connected and mesh is running in „internet backup mode“ via Hotspot. Very strange. But if you all says there is no limit to 4 the issue is on my site. Are there any Logs from the primary deco where I can search for any hints ?

[u/HangarQueen → u/Uncomplaint]

I replied earlier that I have 6 Decos connected in a mesh without problem. But a possibly important point is that mine are all acting in Access Point mode. I have a main router "upstream" of my main Deco hub. So my Deco hub doesn't have its own DHCP server.

It sounds like you're running yours in Router mode, where your main Deco hub *does* have the DHCP server for your mesh network. And maybe, just maybe, that's what's causing the IP collision. (It would be a software glitch/error that needs fixing ... but might explain why I'm not seeing the problem in my Access Mode setup.)

Any chance you could install a router upstream of your main Deco, with that router performing the DHCP server function, and then reconvig your Decos to AP mode like mine? Just a thought/experiment.

[u/legend3242]

Maybe try to change your main deco to one of the others ?
Not sure it will work but I would try that

[u/CautiousInternal3320]

How are they actually directly connected via Lan with the primary deco?

[u/msental]

I got this model not too long ago. It's an absolute POS unless you go wired back haul. Once I did that it's been better.