Interrupted connections on ZenWiFi AX (XT8)

[Terribl3]

I have my entire home theatre system and NAS Drive connected through ethernet to this new ZenWifi AX (XT8). My MacBook Pro and iPhone are connected wirelessly. From the time I have installed XT8, the connection constantly breaks on devices connected through ethernet as well as wirelessly, and comes back within a matter of 20 to 30 seconds or thereabouts. Now this happens regularly at an interval of half hour or so or maybe less. Basically, this constant connection and disconnection is hampering my network massively. Enclosing image of the message I get on my MacBook pro. This problem is new to me, as before this on an Orbi ac router I had no issues. Any help in solving this will be greatly appreciated.

Firmware Version:3.0.0.4.386_43181

 

[keith_ca]

@Terribl3 -- are you using just one router, or the mesh? And if the latter, is the issue with devices on the satellite / remote device?

I had tonnes of issues with 5-20s timeouts (receive only, base -> satellite) on firmware 43170, and finally rolled back to 42095 instead. I have not tried going to the latest, 43181 yet. So .. maybe try rolling back to 42095.

 

[Debu]

I opened a similar thread. I was taking a certification class which had an interactive terminal and I had issues on higher firmware. It would freeze and strange things happened on the command line. Like I'd type and nothing would happen for a few seconds and then it would all show up. Try editing in vi with it. Went back to 42095 and it was fine. 43170 (May 2021) was really bad for some reason.

The latest is 43181 but I haven't tried it yet either.

 

[Samoorai]

With my two XT-8 nodes in a mesh setup, I am struggling with spontaneous disconnections with the last three firmware releases, including the latest 43181. Some devices, such as Amazon Echo devices do not connect at all or connect very unreliably.
The last really stable firmware version was 42095. I had to downgrade to 42095 after every update to a newer version. After that, the XT-8 ran as expected again.

I also noticed that the sizes for all firmware files after 42095 are about 55 MB. Up until firmware release 42095, the file sizes were always around 72 MB. It seems to me that the problems are related to this change.

Something seems to be going wrong with the firmware development at the moment. Very unfortunate...

 

[Deyvy]

I have my entire home theatre system and NAS Drive connected through ethernet to this new ZenWifi AX (XT8). My MacBook Pro and iPhone are connected wirelessly. From the time I have installed XT8, the connection constantly breaks on devices connected through ethernet as well as wirelessly, and comes back within a matter of 20 to 30 seconds or thereabouts. Now this happens regularly at an interval of half hour or so or maybe less. Basically, this constant connection and disconnection is hampering my network massively. Enclosing image of the message I get on my MacBook pro. This problem is new to me, as before this on an Orbi ac router I had no issues. Any help in solving this will be greatly appreciated.

Firmware Version:3.0.0.4.386_43181

Exactly the same problem. I rolled back to an earlier firmware yesterday. So far so good. Was having issues logging into the Web UI too.

I found a post where someone observed the newer firmware was about 20mb smaller. I rolled back to the last 70mb sized firmware.

So far had no issues.

 

[SoFluffy]

Just adding my +1 for having to roll back to 42095 to avoid the dropouts. This is getting somewhat ridiculous that an Asus product specifically designed and marketed for Mesh has completely borked Mesh with multiple sequential FW updates.

 

[Debu]

Anyone open a ticket with ASUS yet?

 

[Fanaticrom]

+1
For work I have to connect to the corporate VPN and this is how I noticed the dropouts. Went back to 42095 and it is stable.

 

[frio]

+1

Same here. Rolled back to 42095 after each upgrade beyond this version due to connectivity issues with multiple wireless clients. Didn't notice any issues with wired clients (all to router) though.

 

[ilzed]

I updated the firmware to the latest and started to have issues with WLAN and everything connected to the remote node. Since I had no clue what version did I have prior the update I’m glad I found this thread. Thanks to you all is well with 42095. I’ll contact Asus as well.

 

[johny_2000]

I couldn't find the reason for the intermittent client disconnection at the remote node for 3 months! This applied to both wired and wireless connections of the remote node. Several of my always-on-demand services were randomly falling off. I have already gone through all the cables, changed them. Resetting to factory settings several times. Reinstalled services and backups on client devices. Nothing worked! Until I found this topic and rolled back the firmware to 42095! Indeed, the size of the firmware dropped from 72MB to 55MB in the following versions. And all these problems with the remote node disappeared. Someone would have thought that Asus would screw this up and turn the device into the center of customer irritation!

 

[RadarJammer]

My impression is the XT8 has signal power management issues.

I have a cable connection with 1 Gbps down and 50 Mbps up, which has its issues (currently packet loss). I purchased the XT8 unplanned when I saw the Prime Day deal of 140 € for a single unit. No mesh needed but a tri-band router/ap is always welcome. My PC and other test gear are on my desk at a distance of about 5 meters from where my APs are positioned

Being aware of the issues here I began with firmware 43181. Whenever I started a Ookla Speedtest on my Win10 PC with Intel AX201, it couldn't finish, because the the signal went down and the connection was lost half way through. Always on both 5G bands I tested. So I changed to 42095. Now the connection remains, but the little signal meter in the Windows task bar still goes down by one bar after I start the Speedtest.

This doesn't happen with my XD4R - that much. It budges somewhat but not always. It is a very trouble free and reliable little thing with the same BCM chip. My Qualcomm based Xiaomi/redmi AX router/APs have rock solid signals compared to this (they have functional limitations instead).


BTW: the XT8 and the XD4R offer surprisingly slow WiFi 6 speeds on 2.4 GHz. The Xiaomis almost almost twice as fast on 2.4 GHz with similar two streams.

 

[Terribl3]

So, I disappeared, because I was shifting home. Now in my new place, I reset the main router and made a new connection with the reset node. The signal drop has disappeared. I have made no firmware rollbacks. I am going to bring back my settings one by one to see if there's something there causing this dropout.

 

[Cain]

I had dropouts too, I'm falling back to 42095 as well. I'm using my XT as an AIMESH Node.

Update: 7/11 -- Since I dropped back to 42095 the dropouts with my Nest cameras stopped happening.

 

[dmwood]

Same problem here... all of the last three firmware versions cause extended timeouts on my mesh node.

3.0.0.4.386.43181
3.0.0.4.386.43170
3.0.0.4.386.43169

Rolling back to 3.0.0.4.386.42095 resolved the issue. I have a support ticket open with Asus that highlights the issue with the above firmware versions and also the firmware size differences. I also shared this forum topic link with them for reference.

Now waiting to see how they respond.

 

[dmwood]

Anyone open a ticket with ASUS yet?

Yup, just done it. See other post in topic.

 

[ilzed]

I got a reply from Asus Finland: "We recommend you to use the older firmware and wait for new information and new firmware."

 

[Andreas73]

Hello,

i did my firmware update to 83.0.0.4.386.43181 last week and than all my troubles started. The nodes say, green connection, my apple devices have 100 % wlan and i stood in the same room with the nodes. Even some lame IPTV-Streaming was no longer possible. After 3 minutes, the stream stopped. Websites stopped working during usage or have problems to start after typing the url.

I went back to 42905 yesterday (the 70 MB version) and every is back online and working again and fast.

I hope Asus will fix it because i guess there are some security bugfixes in the higher firmwares. Security or a working Wlan ;-) Not a good choice.

Have a nice day
Andreas

 

[Rhader]

So I just received a set of these today, wanted to get the latest and greatest to do things properly as I have had a flakey USB wifi adapter on the desktop.

I'm in a very small two bedroom apartment so probably massive overkill but if you're not over engineering things what's the point!

I've got the desktop connected by ethernet into the back of the mesh node in another room but no more than 7 meters away from main router. I'm getting random disconnects and the mesh node will revert to a flashing blue light for a bit before sorting itself out and working again. Happening pretty regularly. I was on the latest firmware (43181) but downgraded to 42095 when I read all the issues on some of these threads.

Thinking my frustrations were gone I went on with my business but alas, continued to have the same problem even on this 42095 firmware. I didn't do a factory reset or anything when I downgraded the firmware, is this something that is required?

Given I bought these to deal with the frustrations of my flakey wifi adapter, I'm more than pissed off that I've simply paid for the privilege of upgraded problems. Not to mention the fact that some of my smart home devices are now not working with this new kit!!!

 

[dmwood]

So I just received a set of these today, wanted to get the latest and greatest to do things properly as I have had a flakey USB wifi adapter on the desktop.

I'm in a very small two bedroom apartment so probably massive overkill but if you're not over engineering things what's the point!

I've got the desktop connected by ethernet into the back of the mesh node in another room but no more than 7 meters away from main router. I'm getting random disconnects and the mesh node will revert to a flashing blue light for a bit before sorting itself out and working again. Happening pretty regularly. I was on the latest firmware (43181) but downgraded to 42095 when I read all the issues on some of these threads.

Thinking my frustrations were gone I went on with my business but alas, continued to have the same problem even on this 42095 firmware. I didn't do a factory reset or anything when I downgraded the firmware, is this something that is required?

Given I bought these to deal with the frustrations of my flakey wifi adapter, I'm more than pissed off that I've simply paid for the privilege of upgraded problems. Not to mention the fact that some of my smart home devices are now not working with this new kit!!!

Hmm... have you tried moving the AP connected to the PC a little closer to see if the backhaul dropouts stop?

My router is about 6-7 meters away diagonally through a floor and here's what I'm getting right now for transmit and receive. If the issue disappears when closer you know have a distance issue at the very least, and perhaps there's strong interference of some kind i.e. other WIFI networks, electrics/cabling etc?

You say you are in an apartment, so I guess other folks in the block are also using WIFI?... and the airwaves may be quite congested? You may need to scan for other WIFI networks and ensure your set up doesn't overlap, or is as far apart in frequency as possible to any other networks in the area. The AP's will try to do this automatically but do sometimes settle on overlapped frequencies. Also the fact your USB WIFI adapter was flaky makes me think there might be something else going on.

I use an iPhone App ( Network Analyser Pro @$4 ) to take a look around before I set up new devices and WIFI networks so I know what's optimal. There's also an App (called Wi-Fi SweetSpots) you can use to show you where the signal from your main router may be strongest in the room with the PC in.