WFT-E7B speed + disconnection problems [SOLVED]

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ohara

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I am having some problems with the Canon WFT-E7B. It randomly disconnects from WIFI and gives an error (the disconnection error). I have turned the power saving mode off but it still happens. Also when it is connected, it only transfers at G speeds even though all my equipment is N. The router is about 15 metres away behind a false wall so the range is not a problem. The most I have seen from it is 48Mbps.

I tested it with gigabit LAN and it's fine, it transfers the RAW files (about 25MB each) in 1 second.

Anyone else had a problem with this?

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Edit: this problem is now solved! Scroll down to post 11 to be amazed at what the cause is!
 
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Not used the WFT-E7B, but in general terms most wireless routers are not giving out a full strength wireless signal at 15 metres - Have you checked the signal strength of the Wireless Router at that distance?

You may also find that there are other wireless networks that may be on the same Channel as your router and therefore competing or their signal may be broadcasting stronger than your router.

Have you tried placing the WFT-E7B physically next (~a metre) to the router to see what speed it will sync/transfer at?

It does from the small amount of information given indicate it could just be a weak wireless signal issue and you may need to consider adding a wireless repeater to boost the signal or connecting in another way? - as you said it works well via a Gigabit Lan cable.
 
Even if I stand right next to the router it doesn't go above 48Mbps. It's a £200 router, not a cheap BT hub or anything like that. As I said, on my laptop and other wireless devices I get fantastic N speeds. All of my SSID's are on channel 7 as there are about 12 other networks nearby which use channels 3 and 11. There are no other networks in range on channel 7 apart from mine.
 
Has it always been like this or has it just started to play up?

Do you have the latest firmware in the WFT?
 
Have you tried changing the Wireless Mode on the router as I have read that some combinations can give rise to speed issues?

Also have you tried disabling the Wireless Security Configuration or trying the different versions available?
 
Right here's an update. My router was not 5GHz capable, which I believe is required in order to achieve the maximum 150Mbps for Wireless N. I have since replaced it with a 5GHz capable model (Draytek Vigor 2850Vn). Another £270 I did not need.

I am running the WIFI on the new router at 5GHz. It has basic WEP security enabled and nothing else. The WFT is connected to it and the transfer speed maxes out at 54Mbps, exactly the theoretical maximum for Wireless G. I am sat next to the router so it's not a range issue. The performance on gigabit LAN is FANTASTIC, transfers images in under 2 seconds. However I need it mainly for wireless and the performance is seriously lacking. Canon state it is capable of 150Mbps over WIFI but I cannot get it to do more than 54.

Someone please help, this has cost me the best part of £1000 so far and it still isn't working the way it should be.

The firmware on the camera is the latest and on the WFT it is 1.0.2 which appears to be the latest (Canon UK don't even list the WFT-E7 on the downloads page yet). As it was only released a week before I bought it, the problems couldn't really have started earlier. It has never performed to its fullest extent since I have had it.
 
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Right. I changed a bunch of settings and it is now transferring at 150Mbps. I have narrowed it down to the WIFI network encryption. I disabled it completely and it worked. I obviously can't leave the net open so I'm forcing WPA2/PSK now and it's still working at 150Mbps. The problem appears to be solved. :)
 
Glad you got it working - I was a bit puzzled by you using WEP as that is normally reserved for 802.11a I think.............. and even slower speeds. My 802.11n adapters uses - Authentication of WPA2PSK and Encryption of AES.

There does not seem to be much info available for the WFT-E7B, but I did read on CPN "The maximum link speed through an 802.11n connection with the WFT-E7 is around 150Mbps, while the transfer speed is around 60Mbps".

As you know as a wireless signal decreases a 'n' mode wireless adapter may decrease its link speed down to 54Mbps or even lower to get a reliable link back to the router. You can always check through the 2850vn what wireless mode you are connecting by logging into the router interface (192.168.1.1) and going to the 'Wireless LAN' section and checking on the 'Station List' where it will show you the current mode for all connected wireless adapters.

Happy wireless transferring.
 
Yes, using WEP was only for testing. It was on WPA/WPA2 mixed before and wouldn't exceed 54Mbps. I only changed it because the WFT was giving me errors about not being able to connect to the FTP server, I thought it was the WIFI until I realised the FTP server was down.

All appears to now be well. It transferred 377mb in 55 seconds, which if my calculations are correct works out to about 6.5MB per second, which isn't bad. Still not fantastic, but it means waiting only 4 second for a RAW file to download rather than 10 seconds.

621153_10152050852325514_1849799800_o.jpg
 
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Looking good and the transfer speeds equates roughly to what Canon indicated in the small print what to expect.............
 
Just a quick update on this, as you all may know I fixed the WIFI transfer speed problem. However, the random disconnection problem remained. This would happen on both WIFI and wired LAN, and was not easily reproducible. It seemed to be completely random, I spent an entire evening trying to diagnose it to no end. I tried transferring the same batch of images over and over and it would not fail at any certain point or during any certain event/time/etc. Sometimes it would transfer 35 images before failing, sometimes less than 10. I could not make it fail at any certain time, it was only inevitable that it would eventually disconnect.

After coming to constant dead ends trying to diagnose it we started thinking outside the box...we had had problems at the studio before with a taxi office nearby whose radio transmissions used to interfere with our bluetooth mice, due to them using excessive RF power and a transmitter that was bleeding over frequencies etc, so we thought it may be something to do with that but we couldn't prove it.

Well I am glad to say that on Wednesday night we finally found out why it was randomly disconnecting, and I am amazed that a £600 device would suffer from such a stupid flaw. It is the battery. As amazing as it may sound, the file transmitter does not function correctly if the battery is at 2 bars or less. I know, it's absolutely incredible. We finally realised this after I swapped the battery just prior to attempting to demonstrate it failing. And you would never believe it, it transferred an entire CF cards worth (~15GB) of images in a single go without disconnecting.

So in a nutshell, if the battery in the file transmitter falls to 2 bars or lower, it will carry on 'working' (as in it won't turn off), but it will not work in a stable fashion. I have no idea why this is, but I can now reproduce the problem every time.

I am really hoping Canon have fixed this in the upcoming firmware for the 5D Mark III. I am quite tempted to contact them but I know there is no way I am going to get through to anyone at their end who actually understands what a WFT-E7B is and doesn't tell me to flush my DNS or empty my recycle bin when I try to explain the problem. If you search Google for "WFT-E7B problem" or similar this forum thread is fairly high up on the first page of results so hopefully anyone having the same issue will come here and see this!
 
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