Espressif Thread/Border Router. Network Disconnection Issue

[Critical Tinkerer]

I have build a Thread Border Router using the Espressif Thread Border Router Board and I have added the Sub-Ethernet daughter board. As document at https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... forms.html.

I have built the firmware and flashed the unit. I have added the Border Router to Home Assistant and added a few child nodes. Everything works as expected, but I am experiencing relatively frequent disconnects of the router from Home Assistant, which I am seeing as my child nodes going offline and seeing no Border Routers listed in Home Assistant. Upon further investigation, I am unable to connect to the Web UI of the Border Router, so the problem is with the Router, and not Home Assistant. If I power cycle the Boarder Router, everything comes back online and works OK until the next disconnect.

Finally, when this happened, I can still connect to the monitor port and everything appears to be fine, apart from the fact that the Border Router is not accessible over Thread.

The Version details are as follows:
- OpenThread Version: openthread-esp32/f420609c33-005c5cefc; esp32s3; 2024-11-29 00:39:19 UTC
- Version API: 458
- ESP-IDF: v5.4-dev-4375-gf420609c33

I am struggling to debug this and find the route cause of the problem. Is anyone able to help. I would also be happy to be pointed to a fix.

[laptopfreek0]

I too am experiencing a similar issue. It's almost as off the device crashes. This happens for both the Ethernet version I have as well as several wireless versions I have made. Also it happens so infrequently it's hard to pinpoint. Any help would be appreciated.

[laptopfreek0]

I have some additional observations. It appears that the thread border router disconnects from WiFi but remains active as the primary thread router. This indicating that the issue is the crashing and disconnecting without reconnecting to wifi. Does this help anybody in the direction that I should look?

[esp32.com]

Faced the same disconnection issues and I think it was caused by my WiFi. The ESP thread border router was placed in the middle between two access points and had similar signal strength for both which might have caused issues.(maybe it was switching between the APs too often?)
Maybe there should be a way to specify a BSSID?

After placing it to a location where one AP was stronger than the other, the issue disappeared.