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Official Magic Box discussion thread


lilotimz

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Ok so my issue now is I had a Magic Box Gold worked great till a few months ago.  Now it only sporadically broadcasts the Band 41 signal.  I have Signal Check Pro and also verify from other people that have Sprint in my office building.  Sometimes when I reset it or reboot it it will broadcast a Band 41 signal after an hour or more (sometimes even 2-4 hours later).  The box has GPS locked, LTE is connected, everything is fine but no devices connected.

After a few months of this I finally chatted with Sprint last week and they sent me another box, granted they only sent me a Gen2 but I figured if it at least works it is better than nothing.  I get it set up today wait a few hours and this one still doesn't broadcast a signal and on this one the GPS doesn't lock either.  I call them and ask, and they say the box looks like it is working fine on their end, but my phone does not detect that signal at all.  I even turned off Band 25 and Band 26 in my LTE settings on my Note 8 and restarted the phone and it will only connect to a Band 41 tower outside the building only.

 

So for kicks and giggles I got back out the Magic Box Gold and put it another window, and it booted up just fine connected and says there is 1 device connected though my phone still does not show it as a signal at all.  I still connect to an outside Band 25 tower.  So I don't know what device in the office is connecting to it, but now I'm starting to think maybe something is wrong with my phone not seeing the signal.  So i'm going to factory reset my phone tonight and see what happens.

 

Would love to keep my Gold one and send back the other they gave me if it was just my phone, but it is weird if it was just my phone.

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Ok update.  I factory reset my phone and the Magic Box Gold still does not broadcast a signal to it.  I took it home set it up in my house, still no dice for the last 2-3 days that it has been on at either place.  

The Gen 2 Magic Box works fine but took about 3-4 hours before broadcasting the first time, then when I come into the office in the morning my phone will not connect to it no matter how many times I restart the phone or cycle airplane mode, but the Gen 2 was broadcasting the signal consistently for about 2 days before it didn't.  Unplugging and plugging back in the Gen 2 gets it to broadcast a signal within 45 minutes to an hour an it will be fine again for probably another day or two.

I'm just trying to figure out why these things quit broadcasting signals after a few days of being up and why the Gen 3 won't broadcast one at all.  I assume the Gen 3 one is just a bad Magic Box at this point and I'm going to send it back.

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1 hour ago, lilotimz said:

New functionality in this case is Ethernet + WIFI BH. VoLTE will be released when the national launch is done.

All ready in the backend and is just a flip of a setting. 

Excellent! Do we have any info on VoLTE national launch timing? I seem to remember someone saying by the end of the year but if I translate from Sprint to english that means probably in 2-3 years. 

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37 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

Excellent! Do we have any info on VoLTE national launch timing? I seem to remember someone saying by the end of the year but if I translate from Sprint to english that means probably in 2-3 years. 

I would measure it in weeks, not years 😉

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I just changed the Network Settings on my MB Gold to use Wi-Fi.  I've got two Google WiFi, so MB was showing me 4 networks.  2.4GHz and 5GHz from each one.  To simplify setup, I unplugged the more distant one.  However, I'm not able to get MBG to connect to the 5GHz SSID.  Only the 2.4 GHz seems to work.  Is MB Limited to 2.4 GHz or could there be something about my Google WiFi that's not quite compatible?

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On 10/25/2019 at 6:01 AM, crazy_vag said:

I just changed the Network Settings on my MB Gold to use Wi-Fi.  I've got two Google WiFi, so MB was showing me 4 networks.  2.4GHz and 5GHz from each one.  To simplify setup, I unplugged the more distant one.  However, I'm not able to get MBG to connect to the 5GHz SSID.  Only the 2.4 GHz seems to work.  Is MB Limited to 2.4 GHz or could there be something about my Google WiFi that's not quite compatible?

Are you able to get your magic box to connect using Wi-Fi backhaul? I have tried several times with no luck.

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1 hour ago, banananuts87 said:

Are you able to get your magic box to connect using Wi-Fi backhaul? I have tried several times with no luck.

Yes, but only on 2.4 GHz.

However, I just turned off WiFi and see that my phone isn't connecting to the MB, so I'll need to see if I'm out of range or it's simply just not as stable.

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44 minutes ago, crazy_vag said:

Yes, but only on 2.4 GHz.

However, I just turned off WiFi and see that my phone isn't connecting to the MB, so I'll need to see if I'm out of range or it's simply just not as stable.

My magic box gets up to 82% for step one for Wi-Fi backhaul and says it has to restart

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Just trying mine out this morning and mine connected to my router fine, but seems stuck on ‘Configuring WiFi Backhaul Service’.  Guess I’ll let it sit and chew for about 10 more minutes before I try a reboot of the MB.

EDIT:  It finally rebooted itself, and connected to my 2.4ghz network just fine.  I am now testing to see if it will grab the 5ghz network, but so far, it seems to be choking.  It does initially 'see' the 5ghz network, but it never does connect.  Moved back to the 2.4 ghz network and it is up and running again.  I'm wondering now if it has some sort of fall-over type setup.  Where if the wifi goes out for some reason, will the MB automatically go back to LTE backhaul?  hmmm.

 

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Just trying mine out this morning and mine connected to my router fine, but seems stuck on ‘Configuring WiFi Backhaul Service’.  Guess I’ll let it sit and chew for about 10 more minutes before I try a reboot of the MB.
EDIT:  It finally rebooted itself, and connected to my 2.4ghz network just fine.  I am now testing to see if it will grab the 5ghz network, but so far, it seems to be choking.  It does initially 'see' the 5ghz network, but it never does connect.  Moved back to the 2.4 ghz network and it is up and running again.  I'm wondering now if it has some sort of fall-over type setup.  Where if the wifi goes out for some reason, will the MB automatically go back to LTE backhaul?  hmmm.
 
I wondered this as well, and I don't think it will go back automatically. This is based on setting it to wired/wireless backhaul before the endpoints were setup. It would get stuck and never finish setup. Usually wouldn't even switch off it and needed a factory reset to go back to relay.

There's a possibility with the new firmware rolling out soon that it will fall back eventually, but I'm guessing it would still need to reboot itself and basically reconfigure. So it definitely wouldn't be a quick handover if it did work.

With how congested 2.4 GHz wifi is, I'd advise anyone who wants non-relay backhaul to connect it with Ethernet instead. I haven't seen 2.4 GHz capable of maxing out the MB (60-80 Mbps) in many many years, there's just too much interference on it now. And since it's not using relay anymore, it can be centrally placed in your house instead of by a window, giving better coverage.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

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