Internet Extenders

This is the DIRECTV forums, not the Internet Forums. Anyhow, I suggest you visit this website to make a choice:

https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/best-wifi-extender/

It appears as though Direct TV Stream is picking up my Wi-Fi extender as another wireless connection, therefore counting those devices against the number of devices I am allowed. Any idea how to correct that?

You are allowed 20 simultaneous streams. I doubt you are going above this limit. However, some specific channels have limits of the amount of devices allowed simultaneously. I think FOX is 5.

Correct. But it is limiting my ability to log in and watch tv at my second home because it’s telling me I am over my allotment of devices not in my home location. All but one device is actually in my home location. They are just split on my main router and the extender. 

Your WiFi Extender should have nothing to do with the number of DirecTV Stream devices. Streaming devices are things like Roku, FireStick, Apple TV, iPad, and DirecTV Stream boxes, not WiFi extenders. 

What devices do you have at your second home?

Roku. The error code it’s giving me is I have more than two simultaneous devices streaming outside of my home location. The one at my other home is the only one outside of my main home. 

I'm confused. How many and which devices do you have at your home location? How many and which devices are at your second home?

I probably have 4 or 5 at my main home and those are a combination of roku, direct tv stream boxes, fire sticks. Etc. I have one at my second home and that is a roku device. 

Are all of your home devices connected to the same network? If they are, then you should not be getting that error message. You might try logging some of the home devices off your DirecTV Stream account.

I think that’s the issue. I have a larger home and exterior devices connected. So I have an extender as there is quite a distance. And I think direct tv stream is counting the extender as another “location” even though it is the same house. I don’t know if there is a way to combine the main router and the extender to be one. 

The extender should only be an issue if it's getting a different IP address from your internet service provider. The "home location" is based on your ISP's assigned internet address. Of course, all bets are off if your ISP changes your internet IP address too often. In that case you'll need to request a static IP address. 

So I did a quick test. I have two devices logged in through my extender. I checked with my son at our other home and he could not log in. I then logged out of one of those devices and he could then log in. So it must have to do with the extender. Not sure what I can do about that though. 

Not sure what sort of "extender" you have, but it should be accessing the same internet service with the same IP address as your main home internet gateway router. It seems your "extender" is providing a different IP address, so those boxes think they're "out of home". Perhaps consider setting up a "mesh WiFi network" so that all boxes access the same WiFi with the same ISP IP address. 

In general, ISPs use some form of NAT, so all devices within a home network should share a single external address.  But not all do.  And some reassign external IP addresses often.  And some have other "quirks".  (And if we ever actually transition fully to IPv6, NAT should go away, leading to even more issues with this way of determining "home".)  There are lots of reasons why DTV's current mechanism for determining if devices are on the home networks is a not reliable hack.  I don't know of a alternative reliable mechanism for them to use with commodity streamers to determine this, so these problems are likely to continue.  YouTube TV has an extra cost "unlimited streams at home" option that determines "home" in a different way, but according to online reports also has significant problems (though somewhat different ones than DTVS).  Hulu Live TV also has an extra cost unlimited streams at home option - I'm not sure how theirs works, but there are some indications of it having problems also.  I guess I know why services want to allow this, but there doesn't appear to be a sufficiently reliable way to make it work for everyone - and just denying that it is an inherent problem doesn't help deal with it.

Why does it take so long for Directv to come up through the FIRE stick wifi connection?

All other APPS come up right away, but big delay for Directv!!!!