Asus RT-AX88U Wifi devices disconncting and cannot reconect - "Disassociated because sending station is leaving"

[Morris]

Channel 1 is open. There is a distant bandwidth hog in the middle. 1 may work better and it is a free fix if it works for you. Otherwise you nerd an AP closer to the problem devices. Even a cheap repeater will likely fix this if ch 1 dose not

 

[RMerlin]

Wi-Fi Analyzer type app won't give any usable information about channel available bandwidth.

Winfi Lite does, provided the routers are recent enough to provide that information (not all APs do).

It's also possible to see it in WiFi Radar on HND router models, although Wifi Radar is a bit quirky. In my case for instance I am alone in the DFS band, so it reports 100-101% bandwidth availability (rounding error most likely).

BTW I know the information can be retrieved by querying the Broadcom driver, but I don't have the technical info as to how to process the information returned...

 

[scamper82]

Test and see how it goes. There is nothing else to try.

When testing different firmware make sure you reset the router to factory defaults to avoid previous firmware settings mess. Don't use saved configuration files, configure the router manually. I don't know what Asuswrt-Merlin features you use, but I would fight issues with stock Asuswrt only.

Maybe my ignorance and maybe i don't need merlin, i cant remember what i got into when i found it

my use cases are
I need to be able to use SSH with Home Assistant
I need to be able to use OPEN VPN via VPN director (and I control that via SSH
I use Guest Network for guest and IOT devices
I use DDNS
I will use parental controls soon when i have time to look/set up
I have connect a SSD for photo backup (2ndary)
I use port forwarding

if you believe i can achieve all this with stock and my issue persist than i may try the stock (as i said not sure why i got merlin maybe i googled forums when I first got it and got carried away

 

[scamper82]

Channel 1 is open. There is a distant bandwidth hog in the middle. 1 may work better and it is a free fix if it works for you. Otherwise you nerd an AP closer to the problem devices. Even a cheap repeater will likely fix this if ch 1 dose not

Thanks, if i need a repeater for the 4/5 meters its traveling in open space there has to be something wrong with the router/antenna, I'm not exaggerating when i say its that close and open plan.

Thanks again all for your help, you have been so helpful tonight and explained stuff very well also

 

[Tech9]

Winfi Lite does

Agree. Most people rely on Android Wi-Fi Analyzer and it's very basic.

It's also possible to see it in WiFi Radar

This is probably the best place to look, the way router sees the environment.

 

[Tech9]

I need to be able to use OPEN VPN via VPN director

This is the only feature from your list of requirements not available in stock Asuswrt. If you really need OpenVPN Client(s) with policy based routing running on the router, you have to use Asuswrt-Merlin firmware. VPN performance will be limited by the CPU to about 200Mbps. If you use VPN client on x86 PC, you can get better speeds. On-router VPN Client is good for devices with no VPN client option or your number of devices using VPN exceeds the number of devices allowed by your VPN provider.

I have connect a SSD for photo backup (2ndary)

This is not advisable. Using external storage may disrupt other features and interfere with your 2.4GHz WLAN, if you use USB 3.0 mode. Use your router as router, it is not a NAS. The feature is available in Asuswrt for light file shares only. Large file transfers/backups - use a real NAS. This connected SSD may contribute to the issues you have with your 2.4GHz devices.

 

[AlbumMan]

Hi sorry to revive an old thread but I'm having exactly the same issue. Did a factory reset solve the problem, or did it come back? Want to know whether it's worth the hassle of a reset or if the problem returns eventually. Thanks!

Not sure who this question is directed to, but the reset worked for me. There was one pesky 2.4G device that kept dropping / reassociating and has not it since. I didn't change any of the default wireless and Pro settings except for setting a channel.

 

[octopus]

Winfi Lite does, provided the routers are recent enough to provide that information (not all APs do).

Did you get your Winfi light running? Mine is only spinning "Loading.." and not loads.

 

[scamper82]

The VPN solution i have works very well so this is then the main reason why im using this functionality/merlin solution

This is the only feature from your list of requirements not available in stock Asuswrt. If you really need OpenVPN Client(s) with policy based routing running on the router, you have to use Asuswrt-Merlin firmware. VPN performance will be limited by the CPU to about 200Mbps. If you use VPN client on x86 PC, you can get better speeds. On-router VPN Client is good for devices with no VPN client option or your number of devices using VPN exceeds the number of devices allowed by your VPN provider.



This is not advisable. Using external storage may disrupt other features and interfere with your 2.4GHz WLAN, if you use USB 3.0 mode. Use your router as router, it is not a NAS. The feature is available in Asuswrt for light file shares only. Large file transfers/backups - use a real NAS. This connected SSD may contribute to the issues you have with your 2.4GHz devices.

The SSD is secondary backup not used much for read right, just more a cost effective way of having another source to backup (FYI i have not connected this back while debugging.

 

[scamper82]

Agree. Most people rely on Android Wi-Fi Analyzer and it's very basic.



This is probably the best place to look, the way router sees the environment.

I tried to search for this but couldnt find a decent looking download site, ill have a look later again

 

[ColinTaylor]

Did you get your Winfi light running? Mine is only spinning "Loading.." and not loads.
View attachment 42375

I've seen it do this on many occasions. The only solution I've found is to uninstall Winfi and then download and install the current version.

EDIT: I've just checked this and my installation is doing the same thing. It appears that each version has an expiry date and when that's reached it will hang in this way if you don't update to a newer version. Unfortunately the most recent version is 1.0.22.10 which expired on 1st May 2022. Setting your PC's date back prior to this allows it to run.

EDIT 2, 24/10/2022: Just noticed that WinFi 1.0.22.12 is available for download from www.tethabyte.com and is working as of today's date.

EDIT 3, 21/4/2023: WinFI 1.0.22.12 expired again on 1st April 2023. No updated version available for download yet.

 

[scamper82]

Test and see how it goes. There is nothing else to try.

When testing different firmware make sure you reset the router to factory defaults to avoid previous firmware settings mess. Don't use saved configuration files, configure the router manually. I don't know what Asuswrt-Merlin features you use, but I would fight issues with stock Asuswrt only.

Seems a little better but still not right (microwave currently unplugged)

What I mean by that
this morning when i went into my office, the light was not working (sonoff basic), I can see the signal is -55dbm (a positive is that its the only device that disconnected this time), when I looked at the WIFI client list I could see the device connecting for about 8seconds and then dropping, then connecting about 8 seconds and this was repeated constantly.
from the router logs i can see the issue we talked about last night

The below shows the WIFI connected states and number of connection increases each time the device fully disconnects and reconnects from WIFI and the device registers this loss (just for info) you can see that at 10:14:02 AM the device became unavailable and only became available again after running ssh service restart_wireless

Not sure if the info helps, but I've attached the logs from router since I went to bed last night (attached)
From my device monitor outside router, all seemed ok from devices being online on the device monitor logs (from home assistant)
I can see that once issues with leaving started it was happening through the night even though it did not register the device as being unavailable.
then at 10:14 the device became unavailable and we can see that repeating disconnect in the logs constantly untill at 10:41:56 you see the log for notify_rc restart_wireless

since then we can see all the devices connected again and from 10:42:20 there are no new logged events, at time of taking the log export (12:00) there doesn't seem to be a current issue.
do the logs give any more light

Also FYI
I'm going to do another factory reset of the router since doing upgrade (as before i did it before fw upgrade (i didnt know better lol)
am i right in saying its ok to use this to grab all the settings via ssh

nvram show | sort

and then

nvram set xyz=abc nvram commit

To reset router back

 

[ColinTaylor]

Have you tried changing your guest IoT network to use slot #2 or #3 instead of #1?

Also, please don't obscure your clients IP addresses, it's pointless and only makes troubleshooting more difficult.

 

[ColinTaylor]

am i right in saying its ok to use this to grab all the settings via ssh

nvram show | sort

and then

nvram set xyz=abc nvram commit

To reset router back

This only works for very specific settings. It cannot be used to restore all settings.

 

[scamper82]

Have you tried changing your guest IoT network to use slot #2 or #3 instead of #1?

Also, please don't obscure your clients IP addresses, it's pointless and only makes troubleshooting more difficult.

I previously had it on #3 with the same effect.
Apologies I only thought I was removing ips in log that would enabke people to connect to my network.

 

[L&LD]

@octopus, I haven't seen WinFi Lite running for a very long time (with the same issue you describe above). Looks like an abandoned project to me.

 

[RMerlin]

Did you get your Winfi light running? Mine is only spinning "Loading.." and not loads.

Same here, either it's trying to phone home to a non-available server, or it's not compatible with the Windows 11 Insider Preview that's on my laptop.

I intended to contact the dev over Twitter, but forgot about it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Same here, either it's trying to phone home to a non-available server, or it's not compatible with the Windows 11 Insider Preview that's on my laptop.

I intended to contact the dev over Twitter, but forgot about it.

As noted above, WinFi has expired. The author seems to have removed all traces of himself from the internet. The app has been removed from the Microsoft Store, his twitter account is suspended, his personal website empty and the official WinFi site returns errors when requesting a download. I remember the author was having to deal with "legal issues" before he could release a commercial version. Maybe that's somehow related.

 

[RMerlin]

As noted above, WinFi has expired. The author seems to have removed all traces of himself from the internet. The app has been removed from the Microsoft Store, his twitter account is suspended, his personal website empty and the official WinFi site returns errors when requesting a download. I remember the author was having to deal with "legal issues" before he could release a commercial version. Maybe that's somehow related.

I sent the author a DM on Twitter, we'll see.

The new project website is here:

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However the download button results in an error 500.

 

[Tech9]

Mine is only spinning "Loading.." and not loads.

The reason I stopped using it and forgot about it. I don't know many times I had to re-install it.