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

[jeden]

It happened again to me even after resetting to defaults.

 

[brummygit]

I've been trying to diagnose a problem with 5Ghz on my network. In my case I use fixed channels and ethernet backhaul. What seems to be happening is that the 5Ghz network is getting bumped off channel (I use DFS channels) and then either lands on another inappropriate channel, or bounces around from channel to channel. I can see this using an analyser such as InSSIDer. When this happens clients either get very poor intermittent connections with frequent disconnects, or loose connection completely.

It happens on my RT-AX56Us whether I run them as AiMesh nodes or as APs (and I ALWAYS do a full reset when re-configuring or upgrading them)

Could this be your issue?

 

[follower]

It happened again to me even after resetting to defaults.

Have you run your router with a new power adapter?

 

[dbell]

I've been trying to diagnose a problem with 5Ghz on my network. In my case I use fixed channels and ethernet backhaul. What seems to be happening is that the 5Ghz network is getting bumped off channel (I use DFS channels) and then either lands on another inappropriate channel, or bounces around from channel to channel. I can see this using an analyser such as InSSIDer. When this happens clients either get very poor intermittent connections with frequent disconnects, or loose connection completely.

It happens on my RT-AX56Us whether I run them as AiMesh nodes or as APs (and I ALWAYS do a full reset when re-configuring or upgrading them)

Could this be your issue?

I am seeing the issue on the lower 5g band. I updated the node firmware last night to current stock beta and see problem this morning again.

 

[L&LD]

After flashing the firmware to be used/tested, is a full/proper reset performed?

Best practice to uploading latest Merlin 386.1

I have a AX-86U with update factory firmware. As Merlin 386.1 stable is out, I like to upload it. Can anyone share the best practices to do that? Appreciate it.

www.snbforums.com

 

[dbell]

After flashing the firmware to be used/tested, is a full/proper reset performed?

Best practice to uploading latest Merlin 386.1

I have a AX-86U with update factory firmware. As Merlin 386.1 stable is out, I like to upload it. Can anyone share the best practices to do that? Appreciate it.

www.snbforums.com

Firmware was already updated; I then removed the node from the mesh via UI, then did WPS resets on both router and node, followed by UI restore to factory and jffs format, then manually reconfigured via UI. This morning I tried another device (iPad) in case it was some bizarre anomaly with iPhone 12 / iOS 14.5 beta 2 and the iPad did exactly the same thing.

So it is not the AC5300 hardware (since the problem followed the node role when I reversed the hardware roles on my two identical AC5300s), and it is not the client device. Both devices work fine on the 5g-2 band.

 

[dbell]

One other bizarre thing; I changed the SSID of the 5g-1 band yesterday and made no other changes but I just noticed my 2.4Ghz bands are reported as channel 8 in the wireless log, site survey and wifi analyzer app but 6 in the wireless settings UI.

 

[jeden]

I've been trying to diagnose a problem with 5Ghz on my network. In my case I use fixed channels and ethernet backhaul. What seems to be happening is that the 5Ghz network is getting bumped off channel (I use DFS channels) and then either lands on another inappropriate channel, or bounces around from channel to channel. I can see this using an analyser such as InSSIDer. When this happens clients either get very poor intermittent connections with frequent disconnects, or loose connection completely.

It happens on my RT-AX56Us whether I run them as AiMesh nodes or as APs (and I ALWAYS do a full reset when re-configuring or upgrading them)

Could this be your issue?

I will look into that the next time it happens. My router was configured as 20/40/80 MHz in channel 64. I've changed it to 20/40/80/160 MHz in channel 36 just to see what happens.

Have you run your router with a new power adapter?

I've thought of that as a potential issue as well. But I don't want to spend any more money on something that is not a definitive solution.

 

[brummygit]

I will look into that the next time it happens. My router was configured as 20/40/80 MHz in channel 64. I've changed it to 20/40/80/160 MHz in channel 36 just to see what happens.

If it's similar to my problem you won't see it on channels 36-48, only on DFS channels.

 

[jeden]

If it's similar to my problem you won't see it on channels 36-48, only on DFS channels.

Ah, perhaps. I stay away from DFS channels because of some bad jitter I get.

 

[dbell]

More investigation; this issue affects my iphone 12 pro max but not my windows 10 laptop. Cannot reproduce with either 3.0.0.4.384.81981 or 3.0.0.4.384.82072 but as soon as I put 9.0.0.4.386.41994 on the node the problem returns so also not specific to merlin mods.

 

[dbell]

Had my 5g-1 channel pinned to 36; could easily reproduce case of lost connection from iphone. Refresh a couple of web pages and then start a ping trace and after about 15-20 pings would stop responding. Moved to channel 44 and can no longer repro the issue.

I just also noticed a hidden SSID which I don't recall seeing often, for a MAC address beginning 62:45:B0, which by all accounts is a 802.11a network created by Xbox One and controllers. And wouldn't you guess it's on ch 36 - and it's about 10 ft from the ac5300 node.

I had started pinning the 5g bands to specific channels after lots of reading of settings people were trying to get Smart Connect to work more consistently. I picked 36 because wifi analyzer tools said there was nothing near that channel. Curious though that the iPhone seems more susceptible to this than my windows laptop; although I do see in wireless log that laptop RSSI is about 4-5 dBm better than iPhone.

 

[dbell]

Spoke too soon; experienced issue again later even after moving channels.

 

[chutiloco]

@dbell Did you found root cause? Exactly same issue on ASUS AC86U, but once each 3 weeks. Firmware 386.12

@jeden

I assume it's some issue linked with interference in DFS channels (radar), or any other devices or DHCP/dmask issue when there are clients with static IP setup on client side.