AC86U 5G SSID occasionally disappears

[lucrabbit]

hmm, looks like I am not the only one who has this issue. The dropping of the 5G SSID has become more frequently lately and I almost wanted to contact the seller for RMA - anyone had luck in doing so? or I should just contact ASUS?

 

[OzarkEdge]

hmm, looks like I am not the only one who has this issue. The dropping of the 5G SSID has become more frequently lately and I almost wanted to contact the seller for RMA - anyone had luck in doing so? or I should just contact ASUS?

The ASUS rep here gave you some advice... did you take it?

Have you tried to re-flash your router to the latest firmware, reset to factory defaults, and reconfigure from scratch? Until you do that, I would not bother contacting anyone unless you simply want to ship it back to the seller and start over anyway.

OE

 

[lucrabbit]

Thanks OzarkEdge. I will try that over the weekend and report the outcome back.

@EventPhotoMan. My FW is 3.0.0.4.384_45149, currently the 5G is set at auto (I tried ch40 but didn't work) with channel BW set a 20/40/80 MHz

 

[lucrabbit]

After reading the thread on the 45149 FW update, I looked my log and did see on average 2x "kernel crash" (or whatever you call it) per hour so I decided to downgrade the FW to the 99 version. Over the last 24 hours or so I haven't experienced any 5G device drop issue or whatsoever and now I have reasonable evidence to conclude that it's the 149 FW issue that's causing the 5G client to drop at an infrequent manner.

Thanks everyone who provided inputs on this issue! I appreciate all the help!

 

[OzarkEdge]

After reading the thread on the 45149 FW update, I looked my log and did see on average 2x "kernel crash" (or whatever you call it) per hour so I decided to downgrade the FW to the 99 version. Over the last 24 hours or so I haven't experienced any 5G device drop issue or whatsoever and now I have reasonable evidence to conclude that it's the 149 FW issue that's causing the 5G client to drop at an infrequent manner.

Thanks everyone who provided inputs on this issue! I appreciate all the help!

Here's an alternate conclusion...

The 'crashes' in the General Log are due to a 45149 firmware defect in the Trend Micro engine. Go to Administration\Privacy and Withdraw to turn OFF all Trend Micro features. Then see if the crashing stops.

Downgrading the firmware with a proper factory default reset afterward may have cleared the 5 GHz dropping issue... and proved that it was firmware/not hardware related.

My 2x86U AiMesh with firmware 45149 and Trend Micro disabled is running stable without apparent issues.

OE

 

[OzarkEdge]

Try not using auto. I’ve heard. I lock mine in.

With AiMesh, I've given in to Auto. Dual-band Smart Connect requires it, which I want to use for single SSID elegance. And Auto may rely on some ambient WiFi monitoring since it seems to adjust channel choice to avoid potential interference, although this may be a one-shot decision made upon reboot/power-up. Whoever knows, tell me!

OE

 

[Zonkd]

384.7_0 Merlin firmware fixed all of my AC86U wireless dropouts. I’ve been using it for months 24/7 with perfect performance. I highly recommend people try it if all else fails.

I have seperate SSID for 2.4ghz and 5ghz and manually chose their freq and channels. I set 2.4ghz to 20mhz exclusively on channel 6, and 5ghz is 80mhz on non DFS channel 157. I don’t use AiMesh or wireless repeaters. I get brilliant coverage with my Ac86u.

 

[OzarkEdge]

I use single ssid too, just manually set it the same with same password.

Yes, but I want Smart Connect node band steering enabled because it works well here with the default settings. Auto does a good job here of settling 2.4 GHz on an open channel (3) at 20 MHz, and 5.0 GHz on a high channel (155) at 80 MHz. Not having too much ambient WiFi around me helps, I guess.

OE

 

[Grisu]

Yes, but I want Smart Connect node band steering enabled because it works well here with the default settings. Auto does a good job here of settling 2.4 GHz on an open channel (3) at 20 MHz, and 5.0 GHz on a high channel (155) at 80 MHz. Not having too much ambient WiFi around me helps, I guess.

You should better use ch 1 or 6 (or 11), with your ch3 other surrounding networks cant use 1 nor upto 7 as yours covering them all.

 

[OzarkEdge]

You should better use ch 1 or 6 (or 11), with your ch3 other surrounding networks cant use 1 nor upto 7 as yours covering them all.

I wonder why the router makers don't just restrict the channels to 1, 6, and 11. Most neighbors seem to use all channels everywhere I check. Except enterprises are pretty religious about putting their APs on 1,6, and 11.

OE

 

[Grisu]

in 5G they act more intelligent and only every 4th channel is choosable, 36->40->44...
2G started different so you have older devices using any channel, thats why newer are needed to choose all channels too to get any usable channel.
Even better to have your router 2 channels away from your neighbour than using same channel as him and your client seeing his router stronger than your router.
Not the best possible channel in perfect world but best you can get in your situation with neighbours using everything.

Of course there should be some prefered channel selection 1-6-11 on all new or updated routers, but they fail all together and even in a clean place they select any channel - thats really bad!

 

[OzarkEdge]

in 5G they act more intelligent and only every 4th channel is choosable, 36->40->44...
2G started different so you have older devices using any channel, thats why newer are needed to choose all channels too to get any usable channel.
Even better to have your router 2 channels away from your neighbour than using same channel as him and your client seeing his router stronger than your router.
Not the best possible channel in perfect world but best you can get in your situation with neighbours using everything.

Of course there should be some prefered channel selection 1-6-11 on all new or updated routers, but they fail all together and even in a clean place they select any channel - thats really bad!

Most of my neighbors' WiFi channel usage moves all over the place. My Auto channel usage is relatively stable... it only seems to move when the router is rebooted. Given Smart Connect requires using Auto, most neighbors appear to use Auto, and I'm not inclined to actively avoid their moving targets since interference has not been an issue... I'll stick with Auto channel selection at this location.

OE

 

[primitivo]

This is a common problem I think. I am sure most users resolve it through rebooting the router, without bothering of writing here or complain, but there must be an underlying cause of this. I have this quite often with AC86U but frankly speaking never with AC68U.

I can have AC86U uptime for 60 days and all of the sudden one day it will lose 5Ghz WiFi. It is also the last SSID to show on WiFi networks available, after 2.4Ghz is up. I have separate SSID for 2.4 and 5Ghz. When this happens, 5Ghz is enabled in router settings. I have my control channel set to auto. 2.4Ghz is not affected but this behaviour.

Btw. I am on Merlin FWs but it doesn't matter if it was 384.11 or 384.12. Now I have just updated to 384.13 but I am sure it has not been fixed, as there is no reference in the changelog.

 

[MrHai]

im newbie here....i see very much problem with asus router...asus lier me about wtfast....and bug very much...update bug...and update bug...i wrong when chose asus router...i no check carefully when chose asus router.

 

[thiggins]

im newbie here....i see very much problem with asus router...asus lier me about wtfast....and bug very much...update bug...and update bug...i wrong when chose asus router...i no check carefully when chose asus router.

Yes, you are new here and all your posts are about how much you don't like ASUS routers. We get it.

Instead of posting all over the place, start your own thread on the subject and we'll see who else joins in.

 

[Val D.]

This is a common problem I think.

Not really. Many people report 2.4GHz radio issues, but very few 5GHz. If the router is not working properly with the latest known good ASUS official firmware, then get a RMA and send it back. No software update will fix a hardware issue yours may have. My RT-AC86U has almost all the common issues for the device, but I never had any trouble with radios, on any firmware.

i no check carefully when chose asus router.

Sell the ASUS router and try your luck with a different manufacturer. I can tell you from experience that all consumer routers have issues with something, especially if the hardware is a "new generation" or the communication standards are "new best thing". Get a well known device manufactured for years and hardware version 3, for example. Like the later versions of RT-AC68U.

 

[primitivo]

As mentioned before, this bug seems quite common. Just Google: "acsd: selected channel spec: 0xe06a", this is associated with disappearing 5Ghz. When it disappears, the LED light for 5Ghz WiFi on the router is OFF, like someone would have disabled it, however in the router admin settings it is enabled indeed. So apparently there is a bug somewhere and a suppose fix for this is to set a fixed channel for 5Ghz, which I just did and the LED 5Ghz re-appeared. Let's see if this fix the issue long term... Nevertheless it shouldn't happen in the first place.

 

[mrex]

seeing this on my 87u nowadays - too often.


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[MarkyPancake]

Must be hardware related, as I've never had any 2.4 or 5 GHz issues with my AC86U and I've had it a couple of years now on various firmware versions.

 

[primitivo]

From the moment I set a fixed channel for 5Ghz, I have not seen this issue, so I doubt it is HW related.