Google Home (Nest Mini) fails to stay connected after being inactive (AX86U)

[bestgio]

Hello everyone,

I've been stuck trying to figure out what I should do to properly address my nest mini (2nd gen google home mini) failing to stay connected after being inactive overnight (or a few hours) as well. "Inactive" meaning I haven't spoke any commands to the nest mini for an extended period of time. I can't pinpoint exactly how long will it take for my nest mini to lose connection, but I noticed it happens as soon as couple hours (3-4) to as long as overnight. When I ask a command, the nest mini just says they need to connect to WiFi to help. This is my first time with a google home device and it's been part of my morning routine of needing to manually pull the plug from the nest mini, wait a moment, and plug it back in after to get the nest started for the day. Not the end of the world but definitely a bit annoying.

Rebooting the router does not get my nest mini to reconnect on its own, but if I power cycled the nest mini, it will reconnect to the router just fine.

After digging through reddit and a ton of other posts online, I have tried messing with the settings and disabled a bunch of settings hoping that would fix my issue including:
Wi-Fi Agile Multiband
Target Wake Time
Roaming Assistant
Airtime Fairness
Multi-User MIMO
Explicit/Universal Beamforming
Smart Connect (off by default)

All of these settings have been applied to the 2.4GHz band and I have confirmed that the nest mini is also connected to the same 2.4GHz band. I have separate SSIDs for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
Other things I have tried are resetting the nest mini to factory defaults and reconnect to the router, both nest mini and AX86U are updated to the latest version (router is on official 3.0.0.4.384_9318)

As for the logs, I noticed when the nest mini says its disconnected, the system logs are spammed with the following:

14:16:08 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(464): eth6: Deauth_ind [NEST MINI MAC HERE], status: 0, reason: Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS (3)
14:16:17 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(499): eth6: Auth [NEST MINI MAC HERE] status: Successful (0)
14:16:17 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(527): eth6: Assoc [NEST MINI MAC HERE], status: Successful (0)
14:17:21 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(464): eth6: Deauth_ind [NEST MINI MAC HERE], status: 0, reason: Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS (3)
14:17:29 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(499): eth6: Auth [NEST MINI MAC HERE], status: Successful (0)
14:17:29 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(527): eth6: Assoc [NEST MINI MAC HERE], status: Successful (0)

.... and repeats until I manually pull the plug from the nest mini, wait for a moment, and plug it back in and everything is normal (until it loses connection again later on). Only this nest mini device behaves like this which is giving me a hard time to say if its a router issue or a nest mini issue.

I suspect it may be something with router since I also have two chromecasts both connected to the 2.4GHz and never had issues with losing connection. The nest mini is placed no further than 25 feet from the router and both chromecasts are placed way further inside my home. I do not have any wireless extenders or bridges that I believe would contribute to the issue. I just have an internet modem from my internet provider bridged, and the AX86U being the access point all devices connect to.

Are there any suggestions that I should try to take next in further troubleshooting this issue? I'm at a lost for what to do next. I love the nest mini but had no idea I would end up asking the folks here at SNB for ideas.

This place looks much more promising after going through endless forum posts from google support with no luck.

Thank you for your time and any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[shadowfiber]

Well hello there. Seems you have the same issue I have been battling on my AX86U as well.
While I don't have a resolution yet, we've been troubleshooting and attempting to find more information in my thread here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/in-some-dire-need-of-assistance-ax86u.67944

@ColinTaylor - Seems like I'm not the only one.

 

[tommybare]

Hi @bestgio , I've been having the exact same problem! I bought my AX86U about 2 weeks ago. All the devices have been fine, but my 3 Google devices (two Google Mini's and one Google Home) drops connection either nightly or every other night. I had no issues w/ dropping on our old router, TP-Link AC1750.

I've been following your thread as well @shadowfiber. I'm actually surprised that there's not more threads about this, given that the router was on sale on Black Friday (i.e. likely more people have this router installed recently).

 

[shadowfiber]

They @tommybare and @bestgio : If you haven't already, please open a ticket with ASUS with your information. They will have you send feedback if you are using the official firmware. From their perspective it may help with more reports.

Reference the threads here and I would think they can put the cases together for their R&D.

Hopefully with some of the involvement on these boards and the official ASUS involvement we can get some movement. I've seen great things come from SNB boards in the past.

 

[Adreno]

One more: Same problem with my three Google Home Mini (2.4 Ghz - All other devices working ok).

I have got an AX88U and the problem has started after updating the firm to version 3.0.0.4_386 (stock or Merlin beta 1- all resets (Google Home & router) done). Reverting the firm back to 3.0.0.4_384 Merlin and devices working again properly.

 

[ColinTaylor]

...after updating the firm to version 3.0.0.4_386 ... Reverting the firm back to 3.0.0.4_386

 

[dfunked]

Same issue with my Nest mini which I haven't really looking into much, it happens maybe once a week and is sorted by a power cycle. I have a couple of first gen models too, but they don't run 24/7 so probably aren't up for long enough to have this issue.

I've only been running Merlin beta 1 for a couple of days, so curious to see if that changes anything.

 

[shadowfiber]

One more: Same problem with my three Google Home Mini (2.4 Ghz - All other devices working ok).

I have got an AX88U and the problem has started after updating the firm to version 3.0.0.4_386 (stock or Merlin beta 1- all resets (Google Home & router) done). Reverting the firm back to 3.0.0.4_384 and devices working again properly.

I started my process on 384 firmware (stock), and had issues on the 86u. Only thing I can say is the 370 firmware on the 66u was fine (significantly older)

 

[shadowfiber]

For those not following my other thread - we seem to be having positive results so far by setting a hostname on the DHCP reservation of the device - (change from Google-Home-Mini). Could someone else please test that in their environment and report back?

 

[tommybare]

For those not following my other thread - we seem to be having positive results so far by setting a hostname on the DHCP reservation of the device - (change from Google-Home-Mini). Could someone else please test that in their environment and report back?

Hi @shadowfiber I'd like to help with this, but I'm a newbie at this router stuff. So let me know the right steps if I have this wrong. I'm on the main page of the router, and under "Clients: XX", there is a "View List" button, which I've clicked and shows me all the clients. Attached image. Is it simply just a matter of changing the client names on this list? It allows me to, if so. You can see I have 3 devices: 2 Google Home Minis and 1 Google Home. Let me know otherwise!

 

[shadowfiber]

Hi @shadowfiber I'd like to help with this, but I'm a newbie at this router stuff. So let me know the right steps if I have this wrong. I'm on the main page of the router, and under "Clients: XX", there is a "View List" button, which I've clicked and shows me all the clients. Attached image. Is it simply just a matter of changing the client names on this list? It allows me to, if so. You can see I have 3 devices: 2 Google Home Minis and 1 Google Home. Let me know otherwise!

Hi @tommybare : If you are having problems with your minis now

Go to Advanced -> LAN -> DHCP Server (Tab)
Create IP reservations with MAC addresses for each of your Google devices and set the optional host name for each. For example, I would set mine to GHM-MasterBath (for a mini in the bathroom) and GH-Kitchen for a regular Google home in the kitchen. You know you did it right if the page where you got the screenshot before changes from "DHCP" to "Manual". Remember to use IP addresses OUTSIDE of your scope that is defined in the above fields on that page... I set mine to .11 and .99 as the range, then 140-149 for the googles.

Once they're all set with a DHCP reservation, power cycle each Google Home and see if they stay connected.

Unfortunately, mine after almost 5-6 days fell off the network and went back to their old ways - longer than it's ever been, but still not a winner.

 

[bestgio]

Glad to see that I'm definitely not the only one running into this issue. For some strange reason my google home devices were able to stay connected for about 4 days straight after doing no changes except what I described in the original post.. unfortunately things went back to square one.

@shadowfiber : I will try to play with the DHCP name trick and see if I notice similar results to yours. I caught up with your thread and I also upgraded from the AC66U! I didn't test my google home devices with the 66U though since I upgraded to the 86U before I bought these google home devices.

There's strength in numbers, hopefully with enough reports ASUS would divert more attention to this issue.