Release ASUS ZenWiFi XT8 Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.46061 (2022/01/14)

[DaffyDuck]

I have been on the latest firmware since a couple weeks now, and I can fairly say that this firmware is more stable than anything else between 42095 and now, but every MS Teams session has its interruption. Now, I have been blaming the wireless part, but I'm not so sure anymore. I am no expert, but I'll explain my methodology here for constructive critic.

My network: PC --(wifi 5GHz/2.4GHz)-->AX-RT58U--(RJ45)-->XT8 node in AP mode--(wifi 5GHz-2)-->XT8 router in AP mode--(RJ45)-->Swisscom Box router--(xDSL)-->internet.

This weekend, I launched pinginfoview with the task to ping every 5 seconds each device on the way to the internet + the Google website at the same moment, in the hope to see where the communication fails. I also pinged a NAS wired to the Swisscom Box router, as a reference of my wired network.
I also launched a 4k stream form Youtube to load the traffic quite a bit, and started a meeting in Teams, in the hope of accelerating the issues. All in all, pinged them more than 2870 times each.

The most intriguing part is this: sorting through all timeouts to Google, almost every time, the failing connection was between the XT8 router and the Swisscom Box router, a RJ45 cable, logically taking away the ping to the NAS as well. The 5GHz-2 connection has been mostly solid.
I just can't explain yet on which side of the cable the problem is (or the cable itself, unlikely)

Any ideas ?

 

[Philibuster]

Google does not always respond to pings. Your other equipment may rate limit pings as well.

 

[DaffyDuck]

Google does not always respond to pings. Your other equipment may rate limit pings as well.

Thank you for the info, it makes sense. Still, I see evidence here that the wireless mesh functionality seems to work pretty well, and that the problem might be a little further down than expected.

 

[Ironlake]

Thank you for the info, it makes sense. Still, I see evidence here that the wireless mesh functionality seems to work pretty well, and that the problem might be a little further down than expected.

Nice layout Daffy. I can imagine if the router shows problems regarding connection, it would make sense that the node would be affected as well.

What if you try using the wifi connection from your node instead of that secondary router AX-RT58U. (Maybe like this you will see more errors?) Is that node managing any wifi clients or only the ax is doing that? I would expect a solid connection from the Synology NAS connected to the main internet router via cable. Can you try the NAS with a different cable?

Did you try router mode? Or wired backhaul? Or beta?

Maybe in the future I can try wired backhaul via powerline. Never did it before, because the loss of speed is huge. I suppose you notice internet loss in meetings, because a stable connection is required just like during gaming. I assume the meetings are being done via that desktop pc in your picture. So if that still fails, it is not good to conclude that your wifi connection is stable which is (internet) supplied by the node to the ax. I had some ping test which were good, but during normal usage experienced even so a lot of disconnections.

I am back to 42095 with no connection issues anymore. Such a weird issue these new fw.

Good luck with further testing. Really curious if you are using wifi clients for the node?

 

[leventozler]

I've been trying to stabilize this version. Group Key Rotation Interval (only on backhaul) is indeed the problem, and setting it to zero fixes "node/internet disconnects." But, I still got random disconnects.

I just noticed that the setting is not propagated to nodes -- GUI only changes main router. I have a Node > Node > Router config, so I'm going to ssh to every node, set gtk_rekey to 0, and monitor the devices.

nvram set wl2_wpa_gtk_rekey=0

 

[Pmlonewolf68]

Hello everyone,

I did initially a dirty update from 42095. Manually downloaded the firmware from asus website and on my desktop uploaded it and installed 46061.

On my wifi experienced 50% speed drops after using speed test. Both on router and node connection. Speed test done on samsung and iphone. On the desktop connected to the node via wired connection, speed was 100%. On my tv connected via the router and streaming from my server connected via the node their was connection drops during watching series on Plex.

Now, I just did a hard reset WPS method on the router and node and configured everything again from scratch. Speedtest was 100% on the phones, did not try desktop yet. Still no connection drop on Plex streaming locally from pc connected via the node wired.

I go through the trouble doing these updates for the security fixes. Hopefully it will stay stable for now. I always end up going back to 42095. I will report back if that is the case.

Update: Speedtest on desktop 100% as well via node through wired connection. Highly recommend to do a hard reset after install of firmware 46061 with WPS method. Still stable at the moment.

I just wanted to add that I had a similar bad experience upgrading from dirty earlier config. What I did was update all nodes and router to this firmware and then I did a factory default reset within the UI. What a difference. My network is now like new!

 

[DaffyDuck]

Hello Ironlake,

Thanks for commenting.

What if you try using the wifi connection from your node instead of that secondary router AX-RT58U. (Maybe like this you will see more errors?) Is that node managing any wifi clients or only the ax is doing that? I would expect a solid connection from the Synology NAS connected to the main internet router via cable. Can you try the NAS with a different cable?

I have to deal with a challenging house, the secondary RT58U is there to help reach the mesh network. Otherwise, the connection is way too unstable. I will defintiely try another cable, and set up smokeping from the NAS for a different angle of measurement.

Did you try router mode? Or wired backhaul? Or beta?

My internet provider is not compatible with the XT8 in router mode, and I did not try wired backhaul (2 floors, no ethernet wiring yet) nor beta.

 

[Ironlake]

Hello Ironlake,

Thanks for commenting.



I have to deal with a challenging house, the secondary RT58U is there to help reach the mesh network. Otherwise, the connection is way too unstable. I will defintiely try another cable, and set up smokeping from the NAS for a different angle of measurement.



My internet provider is not compatible with the XT8 in router mode, and I did not try wired backhaul (2 floors, no ethernet wiring yet) nor beta.

Thank you for your reply. Is your node providing wifi? Or only the ax is doing this?

Update:
Just wanted to report a wireless backhaul failure. On my pc connected to the node I noticed slow internet connection. Websites loading very slow. Did a speedtest and my speed was reduced severely well below 3Mbps (99% reduction). Connecting to the router/main device there was a speed reduction as well (50%). I turned the node off and back on, got a yellow light on the node which is weak backhaul connection and the speed did not recover. Funny thing is, when I turned off the node I had full internet speed again connected to the main device. All this with both devices on 42095. Long story short I reset both devices (WPS method) and kept 42095 on both. Now everything is operating back on normal speeds. This problem was on wired lan and wifi devices. Just to show you 42095 is not flawless.

I remember I never did a wps method on the main device after downgrading from 46061 (only on the node), so now I did it again on both.

I did wps method on both for 46061, but never managed to get things stable in the end. That is why I kept 42095 for now.

 

[ThatGuyinNC]

Hi all, has anyone had issues loading the webGUI on Safari when using the latest beta firmware for the XT8? Not sure if it's a bug in this FW or if it's something with an update on the Safari side. May not be 100% relevant to this thread but since everyone seems to have some experience with the latest beta, I thought I would start here.

Many thanks!

 

[leventozler]

Thank you for your reply. Is your node providing wifi? Or only the ax is doing this?

Update:
Just wanted to report a wireless backhaul failure. On my pc connected to the node I noticed slow internet connection. Websites loading very slow. Did a speedtest and my speed was reduced severely well below 3Mbps (99% reduction). Connecting to the router/main device there was a speed reduction as well (50%). I turned the node off and back on, got a yellow light on the node which is weak backhaul connection and the speed did not recover. Funny thing is, when I turned off the node I had full internet speed again connected to the main device. All this with both devices on 42095. Long story short I reset both devices (WPS method) and kept 42095 on both. Now everything is operating back on normal speeds. This problem was on wired lan and wifi devices. Just to show you 42095 is not flawless.

I remember I never did a wps method on the main device after downgrading from 46061 (only on the node), so now I did it again on both.

I did wps method on both for 46061, but never managed to get things stable in the end. That is why I kept 42095 for now.

If you select a channel on 5ghz-2, nodes connect to main router with 2.4ghz (yellow/weak light) and wait for ~10mins dfs scan to be able to select 160mhz bw. If you leave it auto, they wait 1-2mins and use 80 Mhz. If it repeats, check your logs for radar events, and check the last section of wireless log to see which channels are blocked etc.

 

[PeterZ]

Just a thought. Since XT8's second 5GHz band (4804 Mbps) is the same as XD6, and XD6 works flawlessly, can someone with ethernet backhaul try connecting all 5GHz devices to that band? I'm wondering if it's the first 5GHz band that has the disconnection problem. I don't have my XT8 anymore, so I can't really try it myself

 

[Ironlake]

Just a thought. Since XT8's second 5GHz band (4804MHz) is the same as XD6, and XD6 works flawlessly, can someone with ethernet backhaul try connecting all 5GHz devices to that band? I'm wondering if it's the first 5GHz band that has the disconnection problem. I don't have my XT8 anymore, so I can't really try it myself

I assume you are talking about Mbps

xt8:
WiFi 4 (802.11n) : up to 150 Mbps
WiFi 4 (802.11n) : up to 300 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 1000 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 4333 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 4808 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (2.4GHz) : up to 574 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz-1) : up to 1201 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz-2) : up to 4804 Mbps
AX6600 ultimate AX performance：574+1201+4804Mbps

xd6:
802.11a : up to 54 Mbps
802.11b : up to 11 Mbps
802.11g : up to 54 Mbps
WiFi 4 (802.11n) (1024QAM) : up to 500 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 4333 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (2.4GHz) : up to 574 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz) : up to 4804 Mbps
AX5400 ultimate AX performance : 574+4804 Mbps

Nice theory, but if wired backhaul was an option the fw probably would be stable from what I understood. In the future I will try this but slightly different. I still have to check if it is possible, but I was thinking about disabling the 5GHz-1 band and only use 5GHz-2 for wireless backhaul and 2.4GHz for Wifi (in my case I use LAN devices as well, so the speed will be ok and only the speed on wifi devices connected simultaneously will be limited on the 2.4Ghz band). Don't have time now to do this, but will report back when I do.

 

[PeterZ]

I assume you are talking about Mbps

xt8:
WiFi 4 (802.11n) : up to 150 Mbps
WiFi 4 (802.11n) : up to 300 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 1000 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 4333 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 4808 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (2.4GHz) : up to 574 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz-1) : up to 1201 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz-2) : up to 4804 Mbps
AX6600 ultimate AX performance：574+1201+4804Mbps

xd6:
802.11a : up to 54 Mbps
802.11b : up to 11 Mbps
802.11g : up to 54 Mbps
WiFi 4 (802.11n) (1024QAM) : up to 500 Mbps
WiFi 5 (802.11ac) (1024QAM) : up to 4333 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (2.4GHz) : up to 574 Mbps
WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz) : up to 4804 Mbps
AX5400 ultimate AX performance : 574+4804 Mbps

Nice theory, but if wired backhaul was an option the fw probably would be stable from what I understood. In the future I will try this but slightly different. I still have to check if it is possible, but I was thinking about disabling the 5GHz-1 band and only use 5GHz-2 for wireless backhaul and 2.4GHz for Wifi (in my case I use LAN devices as well, so the speed will be ok and only the speed on wifi devices connected simultaneously will be limited on the 2.4Ghz band). Don't have time now to do this, but will report back when I do.

Yes I was talking about Mbps, corrected it, thanks.

 

[Ironlake]

Just a thought. Since XT8's second 5GHz band (4804 Mbps) is the same as XD6, and XD6 works flawlessly, can someone with ethernet backhaul try connecting all 5GHz devices to that band? I'm wondering if it's the first 5GHz band that has the disconnection problem. I don't have my XT8 anymore, so I can't really try it myself

I put this idea into action. Had some problems with weak backhaul connection on 42095 with yellow lights unable to fix. So I decided to flash everything back to 46061 and try your plan slightly different.

Connection: internet provider router(wifi disabled) with cable to-->AP mode main node with wifi enabled 5ghz-1, 5ghz-2 and 2.4 ghz with wireless backhaul to--> AP mode node with only 5ghz-2 and 2,4 ghz enabled, I disabled 5ghz-1 in the web gui, (the app gui disables the main node). My wireless backhaul connection status is great again. Probably If I reset everything again I would manage to make 42095 work again. But for the sake of this I did not do it.

I will report back after a few weeks of proper testing. Or faster if I experience alot of problems. Fingers crossed.

Can everyone post there wireless backhaul transmit rate? Right now I am hovering around these speeds with connection quality GREAT in the status with auto channel selection. When I selected channel 120 manually it was almost double rate.

PHY rate
Transmit Rate

Receive Rate

864.7Mbps

972.8Mbps



Data rate

Transmit Rate

Current104.41Kbps

Average14.3Kbps

Receive Rate

Current102.65Kbps

Average15.05Kbps


Mostly interested in the PHY rate

 

[keith_ca]

I have been on the latest firmware since a couple weeks now, and I can fairly say that this firmware is more stable than anything else between 42095 and now, but every MS Teams session has its interruption. Now, I have been blaming the wireless part, but I'm not so sure anymore. I am no expert, but I'll explain my methodology here for constructive critic.

My network: PC --(wifi 5GHz/2.4GHz)-->AX-RT58U--(RJ45)-->XT8 node in AP mode--(wifi 5GHz-2)-->XT8 router in AP mode--(RJ45)-->Swisscom Box router--(xDSL)-->internet.

This weekend, I launched pinginfoview with the task to ping every 5 seconds each device on the way to the internet + the Google website at the same moment, in the hope to see where the communication fails. I also pinged a NAS wired to the Swisscom Box router, as a reference of my wired network.
I also launched a 4k stream form Youtube to load the traffic quite a bit, and started a meeting in Teams, in the hope of accelerating the issues. All in all, pinged them more than 2870 times each.

The most intriguing part is this: sorting through all timeouts to Google, almost every time, the failing connection was between the XT8 router and the Swisscom Box router, a RJ45 cable, logically taking away the ping to the NAS as well. The 5GHz-2 connection has been mostly solid.
I just can't explain yet on which side of the cable the problem is (or the cable itself, unlikely)

View attachment 39121

Any ideas ?

I experienced the same issue with MS Teams dropping out. For me, it is only in one "direction" -- I cannot hear/see anyone, but everyone can still hear / see me. (Must be UDP data streams). I am pretty sure the issue lies with the wifi backhaul link (5GHz-2) between the XT8 in my office and the XT8 in the basement that connects out to the Internet. I had to roll back to 42095. Again.

 

[shama_001]

Hi folks, just noticed something about the guest network and would like your feedback. I'm trying to set multiple guest networks and noticed:
- only the first column 2.4GHz/5GHz-1/5GHz-2 (Guest Network index 1) has the option "Sync to AiMesh Node"
- despite the fact I configured the first network on each frequency and selected "Sync to AiMesh Node - all", only the very first network is effectively dispatched to router and node: The router has well all the network, the node only the first I configured on the 2.4GHz
- no possibility to configure a node-specific network? (SSID only visible on the node so)

I'm not sure it's specific to this firmware of course but this is the one such was exposed at least. Do you have the same limitation/issue on your side?

Thx for the feedback

 

[velani]

Hi,

I am currently on 42095 on my main and AP. I have the main XT8 setup as Wireless Router mode and the AP as AI Mesh node. I have seen several of you setup the main and the mesh node as AP mode. Is there a benefit from setting up both units in AP mode?

Also, I have a RT-AC88U as part of the mesh network. I have kept upgrading the firmware on the 88U but now I cannot get it added to the Mesh network of the XT8 which is on 42095. I am guessing that is because of the incompatibility of the firmware's?

Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tgl]

AFAICT there is no particular difference in how the remote node(s) behave between router and AP modes; it just affects what the primary does. The remotes act as simple packet-forwarding bridges in either case.

In AP mode, the primary also acts that way, and indeed there's little difference between the primary and the remotes. The mesh network just bridges between the wireless clients and whatever wired gear you have connected to the nodes. From a functional standpoint, it's not a lot different than if you had ethernet cables making those same connections.

In router mode, the primary node provides firewall and address translation (NAT) services, making the wireless net (plus any wired gear attached to the non-WAN ethernet ports) a distinct network from whatever is out the WAN port.

You want to use the router mode if you don't have any other router and the primary's WAN port is going directly into your ISP's connection. If you have a separate router that is providing your firewall against the wild internet, then you should likely use AP mode to keep things simple.

I'm not sure about the situation if you want to use the guest network feature. A guest network is pretty meaningless unless it's a separate network firewalled from your main network, so the primary is always going to be providing firewall/NAT service to the guest net. Other gear that I've used allows a guest network to coexist with an AP-style main net, but I'm not sure how well that works with the ASUS units.

 

[IcerJo]

I had problems when I flashed this firmware on day 1, so I had flashed back to the December build. I opted to try the update again and so far I am almost 2 days in and stable, though I had 1 client randomly drop a vpn connection early in the morning, but no drops since. Hopefully the system remains stable through the weekend as I won't be back home till tuesday lol

 

[Tiamat956]

Have you tried beta 9.0.0.4.386_57317-gd068439