Frequent AC5300 disassociations

[dnb]

Hi-

Would love any help with or suggestions for debugging a very frustrating situation. I've been seeing seeing issues with a MacBook Pro dropping off and then reassociating with my home AC5300 running the latest and greatest Aswuswrt-Merlin version. This happens several times a day, often in the middle of a video call (where it will disassociate, re-associate, be fine for a minute, do it again, and then be solid for the rest of the call). I have not seen this behavior happen with any other access point, so I don't believe it is the laptop (though anything is possible).

Previously rock solid, my sense (but I don't have any real data to back it up) is this started happening around the v384 timeline, hence the message here.

Any suggestions on either things I can look at on the AC5300 or laptop (e.g. turning up log levels?) or suggestions for settings to tweak (though, settings haven't changed for over a year) to begin to debug and address this problem?

Thanks for any help you can offer, this has been really bugging me.

— dNb

P.S. Two more details: currently running 384.11_2 on an AC5300 that is within line of sight of the laptop when it drops so it is not a distance thing.

 

[skeal]

Hi-

Would love any help with or suggestions for debugging a very frustrating situation. I've been seeing seeing issues with a MacBook Pro dropping off and then reassociating with my home AC5300 running the latest and greatest Aswuswrt-Merlin version. This happens several times a day, often in the middle of a video call (where it will disassociate, re-associate, be fine for a minute, do it again, and then be solid for the rest of the call). I have not seen this behavior happen with any other access point, so I don't believe it is the laptop (though anything is possible).

Previously rock solid, my sense (but I don't have any real data to back it up) is this started happening around the v384 timeline, hence the message here.

Any suggestions on either things I can look at on the AC5300 or laptop (e.g. turning up log levels?) or suggestions for settings to tweak (though, settings haven't changed for over a year) to begin to debug and address this problem?

Thanks for any help you can offer, this has been really bugging me.

— dNb

P.S. Two more details: currently running 384.11_2 on an AC5300 that is within line of sight of the laptop when it drops so it is not a distance thing.

USB3 can interfere with 2.4g wifi, try USB2 on the System page. This sounds like an interference issue, you could try locking in on a specific channel if you are using auto now.

 

[dnb]

Thanks for the response. I don't have anything USB plugged into the AC5300 and my issues are with an AC client on a 5g SSID, but I will change that setting.

Re: the channel, is your thinking is the router landed itself on a noisy channel, and this manifests mostly in times of high traffic? (what's peculiar is I don't see drops on largely one-way video streams, e.g. netflix).

— dNb

P.S. I guess a related question is "is there something like a log I can look at to verify it is an interference related situation?"
P.P.S. Just checked, already set to USB 2.0

 

[skeal]

Check the system logs for Assoc and or Disassoc entries, they will show you the mac address that is dropping, that is if the router actually see's it as a loss of contact. My guess is try to find the best channel, the system does a poor job of finding a good channel in a congested area. Most other people will have their routers set to auto so if you specify a channel things could clear up in a few days. Make sure beam forming is turned off under professional settings, as a place to start.

 

[dnb]

I had indeed noticed a bunch of Disassoc/ReAssoc in the log for my mac address. Just FYI, since 6/2, there have been 163 Dissoc in the log for this device. That seems a bit, um, high.

What's really interesting is stuff like this:
Jun 7 15:22:53 WLCEVENTD: eth1: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 15:23:23 WLCEVENTD: eth3: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 15:24:45 WLCEVENTD: eth1: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 17:11:27 WLCEVENTD: eth2: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 17:11:30 WLCEVENTD: eth3: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 17:24:47 WLCEVENTD: eth1: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 18:16:41 WLCEVENTD: eth3: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10

See it bouncing from interface to interface? That seems also a bit strange. Any theories as to why?

Re: beam forming, I've always had that on (both universal and explicit). Are you suggesting I turn either or both of those off?

— dNb

 

[skeal]

Re: beam forming, I've always had that on (both universal and explicit). Are you suggesting I turn either or both of those off?

Yes, with the hope of stabilizing the situation. When was the last time you did a reset to defaults and setup from scratch with no importing of settings?

 

[dnb]

Ok, so turn off both?

After the initial setup, I don't think I've ever redone the settings (not seemed to need to).

— dNb

 

[SwampKracker]

I had indeed noticed a bunch of Disassoc/ReAssoc in the log for my mac address. Just FYI, since 6/2, there have been 163 Dissoc in the log for this device. That seems a bit, um, high.

What's really interesting is stuff like this:
Jun 7 15:22:53 WLCEVENTD: eth1: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 15:23:23 WLCEVENTD: eth3: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 15:24:45 WLCEVENTD: eth1: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 17:11:27 WLCEVENTD: eth2: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 17:11:30 WLCEVENTD: eth3: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 17:24:47 WLCEVENTD: eth1: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10
Jun 7 18:16:41 WLCEVENTD: eth3: Disassoc F0:18:98:44:A7:10

See it bouncing from interface to interface? That seems also a bit strange. Any theories as to why?

Re: beam forming, I've always had that on (both universal and explicit). Are you suggesting I turn either or both of those off?

— dNb

Consider that you may have a bad radio in the client. If the dissassociations are only for the one client, that is most likely the problem.

 

[skeal]

Ok, so turn off both?

After the initial setup, I don't think I've ever redone the settings (not seemed to need to).

— dNb

Before doing any more changes, reset to defaults, take screen shots if need be so you have your settings. Then after the reset and set back up, make sure universal beam forming is turned off.

 

[dnb]

Consider that you may have a bad radio in the client. If the dissassociations are only for the one client, that is most likely the problem.

Sorry, that example was just from me grep'ing out my mac address of the laptop. Definitely seeing other clients disassociate as well (808 times since 6/2).

— dNb

 

[dnb]

Before doing any more changes, reset to defaults

Happy to try this. Can you say a bit more about what your thinking is around this? (i.e. why?)

— dNb

 

[dnb]

Sorry to be so full of questions. Turn off universal for all three bands? (2, 5-1, and 5-2)

— dNb

 

[SwampKracker]

Sorry, that example was just from me grep'ing out my mac address of the laptop. Definitely seeing other clients disassociate as well (808 times since 6/2).

— dNb

Then, it could be the router going bad, especially if all the clients are disassociating.

 

[dnb]

Then, it could be the router going bad, especially if all the clients are disassociating.

I should do a bit more analysis. For all I know, that is indeed mobile devices coming and going (we have a number of laptops, everyone has a phone, I have an apple watch, raspberry pi's get turned off and on).

 

[dave14305]

Do your clients have both 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz bands configured for connections? Or Smart Connect configured on the router? Seems the clients are bouncing among the 3 bands (2.4, 5.0-1, 5.0-2).

 

[dnb]

Smart connect is indeed on (though I don't recall configuring the rules), so I guess this is perhaps expected behavior?

 

[wiz]

you are not alone. My ac5300 did exactly the same. It came to a point that some phones here were not able to connect to the wifi at all. I have solved it by taking off the 2.4 Ghz from the smart connect rule and figure out myself what the best channel is in my congested area. Leaving it to auto does not seem to work all that well. It seems the phones start off by trying to connect to 2.4 ghz first and then discover 5 Ghz and switch, so if yr 2.4 ghz is on the same channel yr neighbor is, chances are they won't connect at all. Auto for 5 Ghz works great here, my both 5 Ghz are on a free channel, although there's no congestion on 5 ghz (yet) here.

I even reverted to the previous firmware first to see if that helped, turned out next door has changed provider and now has a decent wifi router too that interferes with mine. So try to take the 2.4 ghz off the smart connect rule and find the least congested channel and see if that helps?

 

[Grisu]

You could create a 5G guest SSID and connect your problematic clients to this, then they wont jump away if you delete main SSID on them.
set fix channels for 5G (36 and 149), otherwise it may use DFS channels and turning them off because of radar signals or measuring.
turn off airtime fairness and universal beamforming, on 2G explicit beamforming too.

 

[martinr]

Ok, so turn off both?

After the initial setup, I don't think I've ever redone the settings (not seemed to need to).

— dNb

Until now? If the initial setup was a couple of upgrades ago and within the 384 firmware series then perhaps you don’t need to. But even so, you should follow Skeal’s advice in Post #9 and reset: that would eliminate likely causes. And if your initial setup was before the 384 series then you should certainly follow Skeal’s advice. You could easily end up spending far more time getting nowhere trying to troubleshoot it and, in the end, still end up resetting when all else failed.

Happy to try this. Can you say a bit more about what your thinking is around this? (i.e. why?)

— dNb

Apart from eliminating variables and getting the router to a known good state:

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/faq-nvram-and-factory-default-reset.22822/

and

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/384-9-ddns-problem.55558/#post-471565


And the reset should be carried out following L&LD’s guide without taking any shortcuts:


https://www.snbforums.com/threads/n...l-and-manual-configuration.27115/#post-205573


See here, too:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/wireless-issues-rt-ax88u-firmware-384-11_2.56945/#post-496382

 

[bluzfanmr1]

I have a MacBook Pro and often had similar issues connecting to 5GHz (but never 2.4 for some reason) after a reboot. The MBP could see the access point in the list but would never auto connect like it should and so when I clicked on it to connect, it would bring up the wireless troubleshooter. I also recently started getting the assoc/disassoc messages for this MBP and also a iPhone SE.

What I did was to turn off any and all beamforming on all bands. Also, and I think this is what fixed things, I deleted the wireless connection from the devices and made new connections. It seems there is something that certain Apple devices don't like when upgrading the firmware on the router. Since I started doing this these issues have gone away.