ASUS RT-AC88U 5 GHz band drops some clients and does not accept new connections

[jeden]

From time to time, the 5 GHz band of my AC88U drops a few clients and stops accepting new connections.

For example, pretend there are 5 clients connected. After 1 day, 2 of those clients get dropped abruptly and 3 remain connected and work fine, and it's impossible for any device to establish new connections again.

A way of fixing it is changing any wifi parameter, such as changing the channel. There is nothing suspicious in the system log and no new events are generated when I try to connect to the 5 GHz band.

Thanks

 

[L&LD]

What firmware are you on? When did this behavior start? Is it the same clients getting dropped?

What are the maximum clients on your network at one time (on a single wireless band)?

Does the firmware indicate any low resources?

 

[jeden]

I have 9.0.0.4.386_41994. I can't really say when it started. But I think it is related to torrenting. No it is not the same clients.

Max clients could be like 5 on each band more or less.

RAM and CPU are ok.

 

[L&LD]

No, not RAM or processors. I mean JFFS or NVRAM.

That is a beta firmware you're using, so issues could be there.

If torrenting, then test without.

When the router was flashed to the current firmware, was it fully reset to factory defaults and minimally and manually configured to secure it and connect to your ISP?

If it wasn't, that is another possible reason for the issues you're seeing.

 

[jeden]

I don't think it is possible that JFFS or NVRAM are full because I hard reset the router when I flashed this firmware just yesterday.

What I'm going to do is go back to the stable firmware.

 

[L&LD]

Did you flash first then reset, or reset then flash first?

 

[L&LD]

Here is what I would do when 'fully resetting' a router.

Beta - Asuswrt-Merlin 386.1 Beta is now available

I recently factory reset my AX88U and currently on Beta 2. After manually setting up everything up again (painfully) my router ALWAYS "crashes" if I make changes now. well I just loses internet and I have to end up rebooting it even though some of the changes made by default doesn't require a...

www.snbforums.com

And here are the complete steps.

Best Practice Update/Setup Router/AiMesh Node(s) 2021

 

[jeden]

What I do is 1) I install the new firmware and 2) do a hard reset following these instructions: https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1039077

I thought that was the correct way.

 

[L&LD]

Update failing? RT-AC68U Merlin 384.19

Hi All...I'm running into a bit of an issue with an RT-AC68U. I bought it from a friend who freshly flashed it with 384.19 for me and it seems to run ok with that. I attempted to update to 386.1 and it looks like it completes...gets all the way to 100% and then just takes me back to the main...

www.snbforums.com

 

[jeden]

There's no "format jffs partition" option in the stock firmware, but maybe "Initialize all the settings, and clear all the data log for AiProtection, Traffic Analyzer, and Web History." does the same thing?

 

[L&LD]

Probably not.

ssh into the router and do this, also.

Reset JFFS settings (JFFS Unmounted Issues)

 

[jeden]

Reverted to stable, cleared everything... Let's see how that goes. Thanks for your help.

 

[dbell]

So I am seeing something similar to this on my AC5300 node. Main router is also AC5300; ethernet backhaul mode enabled. Problem has occurred over last several Merlin beta / release builds; currently both running 386.2 Alpha 1.

I was using SmartConnect with both 5g bands to try and keep AC-capable devices on 5G-2, while allowing mixed N/AC on 5G-1. At that time I was having issues with devices connected on 5G-1 suddenly not being able to reach anything on the network, still looked connected, no errors in logs, but could not connect to anything on my local network or Internet.

A couple of release ago (like 386.1 beta 4 or 5) I decided to remove SC from the equation and set up different SSID and fixed channel allocations for all 3 radios, and manually assigned devices. 5G-1 for mixed N/AC and 5G-2 for AC only devices. In trying to troubleshoot I had all the other devices connected to 5G-2 (AC) and used just my iPhone 12 to see if I could figure out what is going on with the 5G-1 band. I cannot reproduce this on the main router.

I had dirty flashed through all those prior releases. So the other night, with 386.2 A1 already in place, I removed the node, WPS reset the node, WPS reset the main router, formatted JFFS on reboot, did GUI restore to factory defaults (with check to remove all other data) and then set up manually from scratch; no scripts or restore or nvram set in sight. Lastly, I re-added the node and enabled ethernet backaul again.

Was very hopeful this would resolve the problem but alas no. I am now thinking it might be hardware specific but am not sure if there are any diagnostics that can be run on the hardware by SSH'ing to the node. Some of the WL commands I have read about and have tried for radio power, etc. do not seem to be implemented or give no output. Would appreciate any input on that front.

Other option would be to switch the two identical devices (make node into router and router into node) and see if the issue follows the unit or the role. Obviously if it follows the device then hardware, and if it follows the role then it is software / config.

Any other ideas ?

 

[jeden]

This doesn't look like the problem I was having—in your case, connecting to the 5 GHz results in no connectivity; in my case, connecting to the 5 GHz network resulted in an error message and not being able to connect at all.

 

[dbell]

Not quite; when the device first connects all is ok. Then for some random, unknown reason, it stops being able to reach other devices on the network or the internet, even if it still looks connected. If I manually disconnect it and try to reconnect I often see the "unable to connect to network" message on the device. Doesn't seem so different from your problem; I did say "similar".

New info after switching the router and node hardware around last night and doing full WPS reset on both. The problem followed the device role not the device; so the iphone connected to the node again showed the same symptoms this morning. Therefore, I have to deduce this is something specific to that band when the ac5300 is in the aimesh node configured state.

I'll be in my office location rest of the day now, connected to the 5g-1 band on the main ac5300 router, and will see if I experience any symptoms.

 

[L&LD]

See if a new SSID or resetting the network to defaults helps (on the iPhone).

 

[dbell]

See if a new SSID or resetting the network to defaults helps (on the iPhone).

Thanks for the response; would you mind expanding on the theory behind SSID change ? Since the phone connects to all 5 other bands perfectly well, including the same SSID on 5g-1 on the router, why should the SSID name on the 5g-1 band on the node have any bearing ? I will try it but just wanting to learn / understand the reasoning behind it.

 

[L&LD]

Look in the link included in my signature.

L&LD | SmallNetBuilder Forums

 

[dbell]

Look in the link included in my signature.

L&LD | SmallNetBuilder Forums

Thanks - I had done forget network several times but I now renamed the SSID and will give it a try.

 

[dbell]

Changed SSID to a never before used name on 5g-1 and connected to router in office. Later went downstairs for lunch and experienced same problem. iPhone roamed from router in office to aimesh node in basement, had Internet access for a few minutes, then stopped. After some period of time connection worked again, but then after some more use it stopped. The iPhone 12 is the only device connecting to the 5g-1 band on either AC5300. Been back in office on router for a while and no interruptions.