ASUSWRT 386 RC2 public beta with full functions AiMesh 2.0 (part 3)

[BeeJayVee]

I haven't seen any activity on this subject for a long time now. Even though I also haven't seen any official notice that the beta program has ended yet, the earlier threads aren't sticky anymore, so maybe that should be a hint about the beta being over(?).

At any rate, I have seven routers in AiMesh: Five GT-AC5300 routers plus two RT-AC5300 routers. I found that mixing two-band and three-band routers wasn't so stable (I used to have a few RT-AC86U routers also), so I changed to all three-band routers in my system, and I managed to find a combination of settings that is actually pretty stable in AiMesh 1.0 running the final 1.0 firmwares for each model. But I like the AiMesh 2.0 features, so a number of months ago I tried clean upgrades of one of the earlier RC builds (this was when I still had some RT-AC86U routers in the mix), but I ran into issues, one being that the two-band and three-band routers didn't play well together, as mentioned, but the biggest issue was that about a day after upgrading the routers to AiMesh 2.0 my Apple phones would start losing Internet access even though they were still connected to my WiFi. Disconnecting them from WiFi and reconnecting them would resolve the problem on a given phone for a while.

Well, after a few months of no new beta builds, and with the RC-11 builds now available on the ASUS website, I gave AiMesh 2.0 one more try. I used the released build 386.41793 on the GT-AC5300 units, thinking that it might be more stable than the beta builds, but since there is no released AiMesh 2.0 firmware for the RT-AC5300 units I used beta build 386.41994 on those. I did clean upgrades on the nodes, because it is easy, but I admittedly did a dirty upgrade on the main router (a GT-AC5300), because a clean upgrade on the main router is hard, with all of the settings that need to be set correctly.

To make a long story less long, I still had the issue with the Apple phones losing Internet access starting on the day after the routers were updated. Because I never saw this issue with the AiMesh 1.0 firmware, and because I saw this problem on the earlier AiMesh 2.0 firmware that was installed cleanly, I don't believe that it is related to the fact that I did a dirty upgrade on the main router.

Is anybody using a GT-AC5300 as a main router running any AiMesh 2.0 firmware that is not seeing the issue of Apple phones losing internet access?

@ASUSWRT_2020, any suggestions?

 

[alex1236hk]

386 beta stage is long gone, the debug feature even being turn off in newly released 42819
you should report any issue to asus via feedback located in the setup page,
not just asking for beta build and hope it will fix a issue thats not being reported.

 

[aurizn]

AiMesh 2.0 improved a ton but it's still unreliable as before when combining many models in a AiMesh network. Ocassionally devices will roam to another mesh node but being left without Internet access.

I guess there's something to do with the new 802.11k/v support on AiMesh 2.0 but it seems that ASUS botched the roaming implementation again. I wish there's an option to just disable 802.11k/v entirely.

Perhaps you can try disabling smart connect and use a different SSID for the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz network. That helped quite a bit in my case.

 

[Moabdave]

Is anybody using a GT-AC5300 as a main router running any AiMesh 2.0 firmware that is not seeing the issue of Apple phones losing internet access?

@ASUSWRT_2020, any suggestions?

I have seen this issue in the past, but it's working fine now (GT-AC5300 on an AiMesh network and RC11 firmware, mixed-system, the nodes are dual-band) When I had problems I turned off Smart Connect. For some reason Smart Connect was problematic with the Apple devices on the Wi-Fi in my house. I never bothered to find out why, aside from periodically re-enabling Smart Connect to see if my latest change to my setup fixed it. However, from what little testing I have done, my gut feel is it had to do with signal strength and interference not the firmware version. I say this as about the time I stopped having problems with Smart Connect and Apple devices is also about the same time I started playing with router position, and adding APs and mesh nodes to eliminate dead spots. One of the dead spots in my house was a room near the street, and there seemed to be a correlation between the signal loss and traffic levels. For the record I never missed Smart Connect. I only periodically re-enabled it because I like to push buttons and hey I paid good money for a router with extra buttons.

 

[Dejikocv]

@ASUSWRT_2020 Is there any plan to publish 386 on Lyra?
I have installed the leaked beta and it works right, but I am expecting an official version.
Thanks.

 

[srkbear]

What is inexplicable is that the GT-AX11000 has been stuck on the last beta since February—so I’ve had to forgo updating my two ZenWifi XT8 nodes to the latest stable release because the beta for the AX11000 doesn’t play well with it.

I have noticed that ASUS keeps aggressively updating/supporting the AX11000’s “successor” (the AXE11000, which is the same router except for a presently useless Wi-Fi 6E upgrade), even though the AX11000 is still in production.

So I’ve soured a bit on my enthusiasm for ASUS’s alleged “open source” firmware asset.

 

[sanke1]

RT-AX88U and RT-AX86U are the only 2 (somewhat older) high end routers Asus cares about. Maybe GT-AX11000 has lower install base?

The negatives for GT-AX11000 compared to RT-AX88U

1. Here GT-AX11000 is $150 costlier.
2. It's got 3 less LAN ports
3. Bulkier

Advantages over RT-AX88U

1. 3rd radio which is practically useless if you get ethernet backhaul for AiMesh.
2. A 2.5 Gbe port

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

I haven't seen any activity on this subject for a long time now. Even though I also haven't seen any official notice that the beta program has ended yet, the earlier threads aren't sticky anymore, so maybe that should be a hint about the beta being over(?).

At any rate, I have seven routers in AiMesh: Five GT-AC5300 routers plus two RT-AC5300 routers. I found that mixing two-band and three-band routers wasn't so stable (I used to have a few RT-AC86U routers also), so I changed to all three-band routers in my system, and I managed to find a combination of settings that is actually pretty stable in AiMesh 1.0 running the final 1.0 firmwares for each model. But I like the AiMesh 2.0 features, so a number of months ago I tried clean upgrades of one of the earlier RC builds (this was when I still had some RT-AC86U routers in the mix), but I ran into issues, one being that the two-band and three-band routers didn't play well together, as mentioned, but the biggest issue was that about a day after upgrading the routers to AiMesh 2.0 my Apple phones would start losing Internet access even though they were still connected to my WiFi. Disconnecting them from WiFi and reconnecting them would resolve the problem on a given phone for a while.

Well, after a few months of no new beta builds, and with the RC-11 builds now available on the ASUS website, I gave AiMesh 2.0 one more try. I used the released build 386.41793 on the GT-AC5300 units, thinking that it might be more stable than the beta builds, but since there is no released AiMesh 2.0 firmware for the RT-AC5300 units I used beta build 386.41994 on those. I did clean upgrades on the nodes, because it is easy, but I admittedly did a dirty upgrade on the main router (a GT-AC5300), because a clean upgrade on the main router is hard, with all of the settings that need to be set correctly.

To make a long story less long, I still had the issue with the Apple phones losing Internet access starting on the day after the routers were updated. Because I never saw this issue with the AiMesh 1.0 firmware, and because I saw this problem on the earlier AiMesh 2.0 firmware that was installed cleanly, I don't believe that it is related to the fact that I did a dirty upgrade on the main router.

Is anybody using a GT-AC5300 as a main router running any AiMesh 2.0 firmware that is not seeing the issue of Apple phones losing internet access?

@ASUSWRT_2020, any suggestions?

You cannot just start a new thread to continue a beta that there is no finite continuation for. My best suggestion for you to be to use the feedback tool on your asus router.

 

[RMerlin]

That thread is two months old...