Beta ASUSWRT 386 RC2 public beta with full functions AiMesh 2.0

[JagoUK]

Hi, my first message here... I have a ZenWifi XT8 pair, currently on 3.0.0.4_386_25524 public firmware... actually back to it after about an hour on today's RC4 beta. Just wanted to confirm that while both primary and secondary devices accepted the new firmware (dirty flash over public version, no factory reset) - there were several immediately noticeable issues:

1. Wireless clients cannot talk to wired clients... I've noticed it immediately as I have an iperf3 server on wired connection, which I routinely use to measure the true speed for WiFi clients - and I was unable to connect to it from any wireless clients. Pings are also not coming through... The wireless & wired clients did have perfect connectivity with Internet, but no comm between wired & wireless hosts, as if the wireless hosts are on a guest network where "Access to Intranet" is set to "Disable" (that is how I set a guest 5G-1 SSID for my employer's devices). So, I've tried to turn On and then Off again the "Set AP Isolated" for each of 2.4G and 5G-1 bands (I normally have it Off, but just in case... flipped it forth and back) - no effect, wireless is not able to talk to wired. I have wireless cameras and wired NVR for them - so, it's a show stopper for me.

2. Web interface seemed to be **very** sluggish, even after ~1 hour after install, I've tried both https and http URLs for it - both were very slow.

3. I have a portable Dell USB3.1 Gen2 SSD connected to the USB port (and it is set to USB 3.0 mode) - the speed on this RC4 have dropped about twice, and I think it wasn't great on public FW either (~40...45 MB/s over wired connection), but with this RC4 Beta it fell to ~20-25 MB/s. If I recall correctly I had much faster network storage speed with the same SSD drive on the RT-AC86U (which had died on its 2.4G side recently, got RMAed, but also got replaced with this newly purchased XT8 pair because we all work from home these days... no time to wait for RMA to arrive...).

4. I was unable to manually flash the remote node back to the public FW - the small browser window where you normally get a button to upload file was simply timing out, as if the web interface on the node was not responding (hint... web interface was very sluggish on the primary as well - same problem?). So, I had to remove the AiMesh node from the primary, reset it with WPS button method, bring it close to the main router and eventually - I was able to bring it into AiMesh again and then - reflash with public FW.

A side note - propagation of Guest SSID to the remote node worked, Guest SSID were broadcast from both the main and the remote node, on both 2.4G and 5G-1 bands - a good sign of progress. If only the #1 above would not be the case...

Finally, a few words on why I was still trying to use this beta FW - the public version keeps mysteriously drop 5G-1 speeds after a day or two, it drops from 300-500 Mbps (on fast-CPU 2x2 AC devices, measured with internal wired iperf3 server) to abysmal and erratic 10...60 Mbps. Powercycling of the main router fixes it. And scheduled reboot daily seems to minimize, but not completely eliminate the daily occurences. Hence, to keep my marriage going - I really hope this beta will quickly become a debugged, new public release...

All the best to Asus engineers, keep up the good work! And stay safe!

Al.

Might want to try a clean upgrade. I'm on RC4 and my wireless laptop and mobile phone can connect to my wired CCTV and NAS.
Dirty upgrade from RC3. Did have issues with reconnecting every 60 seconds until I removed the node and added it back.

When connecting to Guest it isolates from everything on the LAN & WLAN again.
(Guest is on 5ghz-2)

 

[banger]

Changed my Amazon devices to 2.4ghz as I have finally found a clear channel (13) and according to Inssider it is the strongest signal. Had a couple of dropouts on 5ghz over the last week on RC3 on one speaker so will give 2.4ghz a go again see if it is stable.

 

[JoWa]

Update 2020/08/14
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1twgcnXo_ywSZG2GU67V6Zl_T0RAyiBvb

Change logs:
1. Fix AiMesh page Tx/Rx 0 issue.
2. Add more wifi stability patches.
3. Apply new backhaul optimization mechanism.
4. Apply new client device recognize rules.

Installed it on my XT8, did a hard reset (wps), but nod still drops to 2.4ghz... the router and nod is just maybe 15meters away from each other, 2 floors with an open stair between floors. Nod is right by the stair on second floor and router on a shelf just a few meters from the stair on first fl.. very sad that this seems to be a trouble for it..

 

[KingBravery]

Installed it, did a hard reset (wps), but nod still drops to 2.4ghz... the router and nod is just maybe 15meters away from each other, 2 floors with an open stair between floors. Nod is right by the stair on second floor and router on a shelf just a few meters from the stair on first fl.. very sad that this seems to be a trouble for it..

I think you should reset by using reset pinhole, make sure create new network appear after boot and setup from scratch

 

[OzarkEdge]

Installed it, did a hard reset (wps), but nod still drops to 2.4ghz... the router and nod is just maybe 15meters away from each other, 2 floors with an open stair between floors. Nod is right by the stair on second floor and router on a shelf just a few meters from the stair on first fl.. very sad that this seems to be a trouble for it..

If you put your node models in your signature, we'll better know what you are testing.

OE

 

[bitsbytes]

the fronthaul information section is back to showing nothing after 24 hours of up-time.

 

[JoWa]

If you put your node models in your signature, we'll better know what you are testing.

OE

Good point, its XT8.

 

[ThaProZac]

Update 2020/08/14
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1twgcnXo_ywSZG2GU67V6Zl_T0RAyiBvb

Change logs:
1. Fix AiMesh page Tx/Rx 0 issue.
2. Add more wifi stability patches.
3. Apply new backhaul optimization mechanism.
4. Apply new client device recognize rules.

Hey all
Last update before this you dropped out ax92u for different issues, and now a new release is dropped still without ax92u. Are there any plans to implement the ax92u in further beta dev or will you just continue with the supported models as stated in the latest support list?

 

[KrispiL]

Hey all
Last update before this you dropped out ax92u for different issues, and now a new release is dropped still without ax92u. Are there any plans to implement the ax92u in further beta dev or will you just continue with the supported models as stated in the latest support list?

The latest update does include a beta firmware for the RT-AX92U if you look in the files shared via their google drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1twgcnXo_ywSZG2GU67V6Zl_T0RAyiBvb

 

[--Manu--]

RC2-4:

RT-AX88U and RT-AX92U with SmartConnect (AIMesh) and one 2.4GHz guest WiFi.
18 WiFi and 5 Ethernet clients (connected to Router and Node)


Everything works fine now

 

[banger]

Lost an Amazon speaker around midday on 2.4ghz. Wasn't being used at the time and log says disconnected due to inactivity. It happens to be the furthest one away from the router but has 3 bars signal in Network list and it took around 2 minutes to reconnect and auth. Will monitor more.

 

[Kiwipaul]

What model routers will be supported by this new firmware?

 

[gfondeur]

Really Confused ?

lol

 

[raven-au]

Have started using this update at RC2 beta3, now updated to beta4.
I currently have a GT-AX11000 main and two ZenWiFi XT8 nodes.

I don't use the guest feature and my other usage is fairly straight forward but with quite a few clients, between 40 and 50.

Anyway I wanted to report that the newly introduced client bind feature works and is really useful to me.

For the longest time we have had significant problems with XBox game downloads fluctuating and download speed frequently falling to 0 when connected via an AiMesh node and similar problems with Steam game downloads from a computer also connected via a node.

We have found that connecting the XBox via a power line adapter connected directly to an ethernet port on the main router fixes the problem.
Steam downloads on the computer also work fine using a wireless management utility to force connection to the main router wireless.

Now, binding the XBox to the main router with AiMesh v2 the XBox problem is finally (almost completely) resolved, which is important because the XBox isn't in a location where I can use the power line adapter any more. I expect I will not need to use the Windows wireless managemnt utility to resolve it for the Windows computer either, so I should have a choice now.

The bind feature of AiMesh v2 is great!

Ian

 

[888Jay]

RT-AC88Us for both router and node, wired backhaul, both running 9.0.0.4.386_39338.
EDIT: The 2.4GHz radio on the (basement server room) router is dead so not certain how that affects my results. The (main floor) node has 2.4GHz working.

With SmartConnect on, the Amazon Echo speakers stopped working and show they were connected to 5GHz (they only operate on 2.4GHz). Rokus all had frequent dropped connections on 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Laptop, PCs, Windows Home Server 2011 (yeah, go figure), IP security cameras and NVR had occasional drops on wired connections. An additional laptop, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S8, iPad, and iPhone all latched onto 5GHz and worked flawlessly. Guest network on 2.4GHz worked fine.

Turned SmartConnect off and the Echos went straight to 2.4GHz and worked as they should, Rokus also kept solid connections. Wired connections seemed more robust as well. However, the laptop, tablets and phones lost WiFi connection even though they showed in device lists on either the router or node. The guest network SSID completely disappeared. Tried a complete re-install with factory reset and same behavior occurred.

The speed test is regularly under reporting at about 350-400Mbps down, 450-550Mbps up. If I go to https://www.dslreports.com/speedtest, I get consistent 900-950Mbps up/down.

Connected a USB hard drive to the node and was able to access it across the network. Pretty slick!

 

[banger]

Lost the same Amazon speaker around the same time today, 3 bars -65db signal but DHCP is set to 7 days. Again says due to inactivity and fortunately it was not being used. This is on 2.4ghz band channel 13 (quiet) on the RT-AC68U.

Rebooted the offending speaker and get the same inactivity disconnection in the log but reconnection is 30 seconds not minutes like at mid day.

 

[gfondeur]

pulled the trigger on RC2-4, so far so good on my AC86U, any issue I would report back,

 

[ASUSWRT_2020]

So the question to ASUS (@ASUS_ASUSWRT), should and will they (GUEST ACCOUNTS) be displayed? RIght now they are not within GUI under the node/s and or, main router within the AiMesh menu.

If not, how to see and manage users connected to a guest account?

The current user interface does not show the devices which connect to the guest network.
We are going to implement the web GUI to show the client information.

 

[JagoUK]

@ASUSWRT_2020
Is it possible to enable channels 36-64 for the ZenWifi AX backhaul at 160mhz?

Currently it is impossible for me to run 160mhz on 100-140 due to weather radar on channel 124.

Defeats the object of this system if I can't use 160mhz.

 

[ASUSWRT_2020]

@ASUSWRT_2020
Is it possible to enable channels 36-64 for the ZenWifi AX backhaul at 160mhz?

Currently it is impossible for me to run 160mhz on 100-140 due to weather radar on channel 124.

Defeats the object of this system if I can't use 160mhz.

ZenWiFi AX 5G-1 (36 - 64) uses Broadcom 6755 and this chip supports up to 80MHz.
The DFS causes many problems in 5Ghz and the coming WiFi 6E should be the better solution for 160MHz.