AC88U interfering with some downloads while in router mode

[Krystiano]

I have an ASUS RT-AC88U WiFi router. It is connected upstream to a Huawei LTE router via an ethernet cable, which then connects me to the internet.

Things mostly work connected to the ASUS router via Wifi. I can access most sites without a problem. But some things don't work.

When I try to

wget https://contentserver.adobe.com/store/books/HuckFinn.pdf

it downloads it quickly, at a few hundred kb/s.

When I try to

wget https://www.skoda-auto.pl/_doc/48472524-82b6-4cd0-a68c-2dd2179cd734

it starts downloading, but within a second or so slows down to a crawl, and never finishes.

When I try both of the above things when connected directly to the upstream Huawei LTE router, both downloads finish quickly. I swapped out my ASUS RT-AC88U for another Wifi router, and things worked well. I am confident that the Huawei router is not interfering here.

The ASUS RT-AC88U is in router mode. I have all filtering, QoS, and anything remotely "smart" disabled on the The ASUS RT-AC88U.

I put the The ASUS RT-AC88U into AP mode, and everything worked correctly. However, I don't want it in AP mode. I want the the ASUS RT-AC88U to have it's own LAN, isolated from the upstream LAN.

The issue is not limited to that PDF above. I've had issues with various websites ( https://www.skoda-auto.pl among them ), some VPN software, and command line package managers (npm) working badly on the The ASUS RT-AC88U, and well when connected to the Huawei router.

What could be interfering with only some downloads, and net connections?

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @Krystiano.

What firmware is installed on the router? When was the last time you fully reset to factory defaults, after flashing the firmware you want to use, and without using any saved backup config files afterward?

Maybe not related, but are you only using ports 1-4 on the router? If not, you may want to disconnect any Ethernet connections on Ports 5-8, reboot the router, and test again.

 

[eibgrad]

Would be interesting to see if using curl provided any better results (assuming the OEM firmware supports it, of course).

 

[Krystiano]

Would be interesting to see if using curl provided any better results (assuming the OEM firmware supports it, of course)

Do you mean using curl instead of wget?

The issue is not with the tool. The issue is tied to the location of the resource I am fetching. I get good performance with wget for some PDFs, and very poor for others. If I switch the Wifi network to bypass the ASUS router, the issue goes away.

 

[Krystiano]

What firmware is installed on the router? When was the last time you fully reset to factory defaults, after flashing the firmware you want to use, and without using any saved backup config files afterward?

Maybe not related, but are you only using ports 1-4 on the router? If not, you may want to disconnect any Ethernet connections on Ports 5-8, reboot the router, and test again.

The router is using the ASUS firmware 3.0.0.4.384_20942-ge38bead

I have never reset it to factory settings. The router was having issues pretty much from the start, but just more recently I narrowed them down the the ASUS router itself, and was able to find a tiny reproducible test case using wget and concrete files.

I will upgrade the firmware now. Will do a factory reset if the firmware upgrade does not help.

Regarding ports, two are in use. I am connecting the ASUS router to the upstream Huawei LTE router using the blue uplink port. I also have a 24 port Netgear switch connected to port 8 on the ASUS router, with a handful of wired devices plugged into it. I have tested the issue above with nothing plugged in on ports 1 through 8, and the same issue happens. This eliminates the switch on port 8.

 

[L&LD]

Flashing the firmware from 384.xx to 386.xx is a huge step, a full reset to factory defaults is highly recommended after flashing the latest firmware you want to use. Note that your issue may seem fixed without a full reset, but other random issues are almost guaranteed without one.

Using ports 5-8 on any Asus 8 Port router isn't recommended either. If you want the most stable network possible.

I suggest you plug in your switch to Port 1 (or, 1-4) instead.

The following links may help you fully reset your router and get it to a good/known state.

[Wireless] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset | Official Support | ASUS Global

Fully Reset / Best Practice Setup / More

Almost all L&LD Links

About L&LD

 

[Krystiano]

To start with, I unplugged my switch from port 8. I did not plug it back in for this test, to eliminate any potential interference from the wired network.

I updated the firmware, rebooted the router, and immediately ran my wget test. It worked as before -- downloading quickly one, and starting but quickly degrading and stalling on the other. In other words, no changes.

I went ahead and did a full factory reset. I followed Method 1 from this link.

Once done, I configured the router in router mode, defined the SSID, and connected to it. The issue persists.

To summarize, the only thing that worked is putting the AC88U into AP mode. What could it be in Router mode that prevents SOME http requests from running normally.

 

[xt8user]

What could be interfering with only some downloads, and net connections?

I have tried the two links you provided via my XT8. I'm not seeing an issue with either one (in fact the file that you are having a problem with consistently downloads faster than the other one). I did however see one difference between the two downloads. The skoda-auto.pl site does not provide content-length on the file download. The contentserver.adobe.com does. I have no idea why your router would behave differently in each case but it might point someone in the correct direction.

 

[Krystiano]

I will look to track down some other examples of servers that cause my ASUS AC88U trouble. Maybe I will be able to identify something common among them.

 

[Krystiano]

Here's another file download that causes similar trouble for the ASUS AC88U:

wget https://desktop-release.notion-static.com/Notion-2.0.21-arm64.dmg

If I connect to my Huawei LTE router's Wifi directly, this download starts at about 800kb/s, and reliably continues like that until it finishes.

If I connect to the Wifi on the ASUS AC88U, which is connected by CAT6 to that same Huawei LTE router, the download starts at a normal speed, and then gets slower, and slower, and slower. It's as if it was sputtering, getting slower and slower, until it stalls out. I'm watching it go to 500kb, twitch up and down, and down to 300kb/s, to 180kb/s, as I type this. It's down to single digits..... and now it stopped completely. It's as if gunk was building up in the pipe .

 

[Krystiano]

Just to make sure I was not going crazy, I changed my ASUS AC88U into AP mode. And now everything works well.

Except, that the AC88U is in AP mode. And I need it to be a router, and have its own network. <sigh>

 

[Tech9]

Just to make sure I was not going crazy

Sorry, I may have missed this information, but is this happening on Wi-Fi only or over Ethernet as well?

 

[Krystiano]

The issues are happening on Wifi. I don't have a wired computer available at the moment to test out whether it also happens over ethernet as well.

 

[Krystiano]

Sorry, I may have missed this information, but is this happening on Wi-Fi only or over Ethernet as well?

I dug out an old PC and tried the same wget test via ethernet. Same result as over wifi.

First I connected this PC via an ethernet cable directly to my Huawei router, and did

wget http://www.skoda-auto.pl/_doc/48472524-82b6-4cd0-a68c-2dd2179cd734

It worked as it should have. The file downloaded quickly.

I unplugged the ethernet cable from the Huawei router and plugged it into port 2 on the ASUS AC88U. I tried the same wget command. It started downloading, and within a second the rate fell to a few kb/s and then promptly stalled.

The issue happens exactly the same whether I connect via Wifi or via ethernet to the ASUS AC88U.

 

[Tech9]

The issues are happening on Wifi.

Then I would look at the Wi-Fi settings. Make them as compatible as possible. Use channel 36-48 or 149-161 only, disable all Universal Beamforming, Airtime Fairness, Protected Management Frames, MU-MIMO (not working anyway) and try again. Check with a different client as well. The client may be the one with issues. I had one USB Wi-Fi with overheating issues - hits 1GB transfer and slows down to a crawl until cools down.

 

[Tech9]

I dug out an old PC and tried the same wget test via ethernet. Same result as over wifi.

This is not good.

Do you have a different Ethernet cable to try between your Huawei and the Asus? Sometimes the issue is hard to see, because it's very simple.

 

[degrub]

If he has been using the same cable plugged into the same ports when he had it AP mode and it showed no problems, then not likely the cable i think.
The Huawei should not care that there is another router downstream, but i wonder if a misconfigure in the Asus for the WAN port could be causing an issue ?

 

[xt8user]

Here's another file download that causes similar trouble for the ASUS AC88U:

wget https://desktop-release.notion-static.com/Notion-2.0.21-arm64.dmg

If I connect to my Huawei LTE router's Wifi directly, this download starts at about 800kb/s, and reliably continues like that until it finishes.

If I connect to the Wifi on the ASUS AC88U, which is connected by CAT6 to that same Huawei LTE router, the download starts at a normal speed, and then gets slower, and slower, and slower. It's as if it was sputtering, getting slower and slower, until it stalls out. I'm watching it go to 500kb, twitch up and down, and down to 300kb/s, to 180kb/s, as I type this. It's down to single digits..... and now it stopped completely. It's as if gunk was building up in the pipe .

We can eliminate Content-Length. That download has Content-Length offered by the server.

 

[xt8user]

I unplugged the ethernet cable from the Huawei router and plugged it into port 2 on the ASUS AC88U. I tried the same wget command. It started downloading, and within a second the rate fell to a few kb/s and then promptly stalled.

I dug out an old PC and tried the same wget test via ethernet. Same result as over wifi.

First I connected this PC via an ethernet cable directly to my Huawei router, and did

wget http://www.skoda-auto.pl/_doc/48472524-82b6-4cd0-a68c-2dd2179cd734

It worked as it should have. The file downloaded quickly.

I unplugged the ethernet cable from the Huawei router and plugged it into port 2 on the ASUS AC88U. I tried the same wget command. It started downloading, and within a second the rate fell to a few kb/s and then promptly stalled.

The issue happens exactly the same whether I connect via Wifi or via ethernet to the ASUS AC88U.

If you have one spare try putting a dump bridge between the AC88U and the Huawei router to try to eliminate any negotiation issues between the AC88U and the router.

 

[L&LD]

A new/different cable is still needed for testing purposes. A quality Cat5e and a different brand is suggested.

Just because the laptop works with the Cat6 cable, doesn't mean the router will/should.