Network Spontaneously Renames Itself

[Jenn76]

Hi,

My networking skills are very limited, and something has been happening with my network extender that I have no clue how to resolve.

I'm working with an xfinitity wireless router installed by Comcast and a Netgear WN2500 RP extender.

I don't know if this has any bearing on the problem, but a few months ago, my xfinity router broke down, and it was replaced. I reconfigured the extender back to factory settings and everything was fine for about a month.

Recently, the extender network spontaneously renamed itself. I set it up as my home network name plus _2EXT at the end. Now, it still has the _2EXT at the end, but the actual name is very different.

I'd thought maybe my extender network just disappeared and the new name was actually someone else's, but this renamed extender network gives me full signal in my house, and I don't think that would happen if it was someone else's network.

Less than a week ago, I restored the extender to factory settings again and reconfigured it. Last night, it had renamed itself again (same name as before). I can't figure out what's going on, but I'm thinking I shouldn't have to restore the extender to factory settings every day to get it to work.

I thought about calling netgear, but their free support ends after 90 days, so before I paid for extra, I wanted to see if I could resolve the issue on my own. If anyone has any insights into this issue and could give me some advice, I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you for your time!

 

[JackMDS]

Are you using WPA2 (or atl ist WPA) security through the Wireless Network? If Not, you should.

I am Not sure what the Network name that you relate to is. The important thing is the General Network name which is configured by Windows will be the same on all computers and devices, and thatvthe SSIDs which configured by the Wireless part of the Wireless Routers/Access Point will be as you want. The actual Device name is Not really important.


😎

 

[Jenn76]

Hi Jack,

Thank you so much for responding. Both my xfinity wireless router, and the network extender are configured with WPA2 security. Both have the same network password. When the extender network renames itself, I can click on it to access, but it's a totally different password. This also messes up other devices, such as my wii Netflix because both the name and password are different, so it's not finding a connection.

Do you think I should just restore to factory settings again and change the actual name of the network to the renamed one just to keep it simple? I'm not sure why it's doing that, but from what you've told me it doesn't seem to be so uncommon or problematic as I thought? Thank you again for your help. Networking confuses me tremendously.