Issues running two RT-AC87U

[W4RH34D]

Can you explain how you setup your routers? i have the rt-ac87 as my main and have tried to setup my rt-n66u as the ap. i can't get the rt-ac87 to not freeze. i have the rt-n66u still connected but wireless is off on the rt-n66u and it does not seem to be as bad, meaning the rt-ac87 needs to be rebooted twice a week only. maybe i'm missing something on setting up the rt-n66u in ap mode. family is missing having wireless upstairs.

Did you check the wds settings in the 87u?

 

[HackitZ]

Did you check the wds settings in the 87u?

I dont think i did, what are your settings? i see the options, ap, wds or hybrid.
if i use wds then i need wep, also this is if i'm sonnecting through wifi. i'm connected through ethernet so i figured i didn't have to use wds.

 

[W4RH34D]

if you've got 2 87u's, they said the wireless bridge config is unbeatable.

If you're just setting up the second device as an ap, set it to ap with dhcp. Shouldn't require anything further to work. ( I've configured this setup for a client and it works well)

Have the cable and cable jack boxes been checked?

I would seriously check every device and part in the chain. I would check to make sure the power at the outlet is good and not sagging or surging.

These are advanced devices after all, every detail should be diligently verified.

I only say this because our wan kept dropping, and dropping, and dropping. Tested the cable, it was good. When I bypassed the wall jack, the drops stopped happening. Crazy, I know, but it has been rock solid since then.

 

[Hagler55]

So I have my second 87u connected directly to a switch upstairs which then runs through cat6 cable down stairs to my 87u router. When I last talked to ASUS they advised me to eliminate everything in-between to rule out other possible issues. I grabbed a new network cable and brought the AP down stairs and plugged it right into the router. Still have the same issue. Latest firmware, factory resets, DHCP, Static, doesn't seem to matter which. My two 87U's refuse to play nice together.

I am still waiting for a call back from ASUS after my case has been escalated. For the 2nd or 3rd time now maybe.

More to come....

 

[W4RH34D]

So I have my second 87u connected directly to a switch upstairs which then runs through cat6 cable down stairs to my 87u router. When I last talked to ASUS they advised me to eliminate everything in-between to rule out other possible issues. I grabbed a new network cable and brought the AP down stairs and plugged it right into the router. Still have the same issue. Latest firmware, factory resets, DHCP, Static, doesn't seem to matter which. My two 87U's refuse to play nice together.

I am still waiting for a call back from ASUS after my case has been escalated. For the 2nd or 3rd time now maybe.

More to come....

A new cable is not a tested cable. Test the cables. How are the power outlets your routers are plugged in to? Do you have any UPS to use or maybe one of those $50 network backup units?

 

[Singularity]

if you've got 2 87u's, they said the wireless bridge config is unbeatable.

If you're just setting up the second device as an ap, set it to ap with dhcp. Shouldn't require anything further to work. ( I've configured this setup for a client and it works well)

Have the cable and cable jack boxes been checked?

I would seriously check every device and part in the chain. I would check to make sure the power at the outlet is good and not sagging or surging.

These are advanced devices after all, every detail should be diligently verified.

I only say this because our wan kept dropping, and dropping, and dropping. Tested the cable, it was good. When I bypassed the wall jack, the drops stopped happening. Crazy, I know, but it has been rock solid since then.

Just want my two 87U's working as AP's without DHCP. In each end of my fascility.

 

[Hagler55]

A new cable is not a tested cable. Test the cables. How are the power outlets your routers are plugged in to? Do you have any UPS to use or maybe one of those $50 network backup units?

Cables are good. I run APC backups in both locations...power source is solid, outlets are less than 5 years old. Just to recap router runs fine....3 weeks now on its own. Only locks up once 2nd router (Config as AP) is powered on (well within 1-3 hours). Both units run fine when running solo. AP is dropping IP which causes network lockup. I will also add these two ASUS routers replaced 2 older linksys routers setup same way with no issues. I haven't tried out the wireless bridge but honestly have no interest in that as I am wanting to extend wireless range upstairs through my wired LAN cabling.

Spoke with ASUS again this afternoon...further setting changes with no luck. Escalation team is to call back this week but they do believe a firmware issue is the cause. With multiple cases reported just in this thread with different setup scenarios, a firmware issue seems to be the logical answer. At least I hope for that over a hardware issue related to this model. Hoping for answers later this week.

 

[HackitZ]

Ok I have now tried to setup my network like i did with my old linksys routers running dd-wrt (lan to lan).

my ac87 is setup as my main and configured the way i want.

i have added my n66 asus router and connected it through ethernet (same as before). so I'm going back to a lan to lan setup.

my main router ac87 is set to give my 2nd router a static ip of 192.168.1.2.
I have turned off dhcp in lan settings, i have turned off the firewall, i turned off log dhcp queries.
I'll report back on how this works out. i'm back to having wifi on both floors in the house.
oh yeah the wireless channels and names are different. i went with the lowest channel on both 2.4 and 5 on my ac87 and the highest channels on my n66u. the 2.4ghz on both are set to 20mhz and both 5ghz are set to 40mhz.

 

[HackitZ]

Ok I have now tried to setup my network like i did with my old linksys routers running dd-wrt (lan to lan).

my ac87 is setup as my main and configured the way i want.

i have added my n66 asus router and connected it through ethernet (same as before). so I'm going back to a lan to lan setup.

my main router ac87 is set to give my 2nd router a static ip of 192.168.1.2.
I have turned off dhcp in lan settings, i have turned off the firewall, i turned off log dhcp queries.
I'll report back on how this works out. i'm back to having wifi on both floors in the house.
oh yeah the wireless channels and names are different. i went with the lowest channel on both 2.4 and 5 on my ac87 and the highest channels on my n66u. the 2.4ghz on both are set to 20mhz and both 5ghz are set to 40mhz.

Still running, no issue's. i know it's only 24 hours but with one router in AP mode it would already be down. if this works i'll be happy as i now have wifi all through my house. thats all i wanted.
Oh yeah, both routers are running merlins latest build 3.0.0.4_376.48_1

 

[phloid01]

Same issues .. looking for answers

Hey everyone, I have been dealing with this for a bit of time now .. all of the issues listed, and getting no help from the support guys. I'm thinking AP mode is just not well tested, and it is probably a firmware issue. I have several of these at a client site. The design was supposed to be one as the router, and the others as AP's ... they configure fine, and even work, as long as there is no real traffic on them, but as soon as there is real traffic (other than basic ICMP) they go into some strange flood state, and end up restarting themselves. Additionally, just running them as AP's only, connected to the corporate switch, produces all of the same issues discussed in this thread. I would really love to be able to use these devices, but as they are now, they are not usable as intended. Let's try to keep this thread going, until we can get answers from ASUS ..... oh, and I have one of these running my home network, and it works great .... they just don't seem to be well tested on anything but a single entity network, with little traffic.

Additional side note .. when I run them together in AP mode, when they do work ... every hour or so, they start the TCP Retransmission storm, that acts as if there is duplicate IP's ... which there are not ... and it always happens after someone shuts off their computer, or puts it into sleep mode ... a TCP ACK starts getting into some loop, and consumes the entire network bandwidth, until it eventually times out .. after about 3-4 minutes. I have captured it with Wireshark, and it is very weird.... and only happens with the RT-AC87's ..... when I take them out of the equation, no problemo.

 

[raven-au]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd mention an observation I've made running my RT-AC87U as an AP with a couple of other routers connected to it, one as a repeater and another as a bridge. But I don't have two RT-AC87Us and I'm not seeing the problems described here.

The setup is:

1) RT-AC87U, in AP mode, is connected to a FritzBox 7490 (as the gateway, ie. modem) via ethernet cable. FritzBox is running latest vendor firmware and the RT-AC87U is running Merlin 376.48_1. The RT-AC87U is set to get its address via DHCP from the FritzBox.

2) A DIR-865L running Tomato, set as a wireless bridge.

3) A WRT1900AC running latest vendor firmware, set as a wireless repeater.

The FritzBox has a habit of remembering devices it sees and if they haven't already been seen and don't identify themselves properly by name during the DHCP negotiation they get either a name like PC-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx (where the xes are an ip address) or PC-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx (where the xes are a mac address).

Now I can't be sure but it seems that since I've put in the RT-AC87U I've started seeing strange entries in the devices list like (below is: name ip mac FritzBox-port-seen-on):

PC-169-254-0-254 169.254.0.254 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx LAN 1 at 1 Gbit/s

and

PC-169-254-39-2 169.254.39.2 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx LAN 1 at 1 Gbit/s

where the MAC addresses above correspond to the DIR-865L and the WRT1900AC.

Note also that the FritzBox has entries for the actual configured addresses for these devices too.

There is nowhere in my setup that I use these subnets so I have to assume the RT-AC87U is using these for some purpose.

It occurs to me that if the RT-AC87U is using some determinate method to choose these transient addresses that two of them could choose the same address .......

Ian

 

[phloid01]

I can confirm this behavior ... I have seen (on the RT-AC87u's) these addresses in the ARP tables of the devices, on a regular basis ... and, on occasion (1-3 times a day), these are the addresses that send out the massive TCP Re-Transmissions
Additional Note -- I tried the support guys again, and got absolutely nothing ... it may be time to just RMA these things.

 

[raven-au]

I can confirm this behavior ... I have seen (on the RT-AC87u's) these addresses in the ARP tables of the devices, on a regular basis ... and, on occasion (1-3 times a day), these are the addresses that send out the massive TCP Re-Transmissions
Additional Note -- I tried the support guys again, and got absolutely nothing ... it may be time to just RMA these things.

If the 5Ghz wireless wasn't broken in the DD-WRT beta builds that would possibly be a sufficient work around until it's fixed.

 

[HackitZ]

Still running, no issue's. i know it's only 24 hours but with one router in AP mode it would already be down. if this works i'll be happy as i now have wifi all through my house. thats all i wanted.
Oh yeah, both routers are running merlins latest build 3.0.0.4_376.48_1

Sorry if this is off the original topic, just want to say my 87r is running flawlessly. 9 days and no issue's

 

[raven-au]

I can confirm this behavior ... I have seen (on the RT-AC87u's) these addresses in the ARP tables of the devices, on a regular basis ... and, on occasion (1-3 times a day), these are the addresses that send out the massive TCP Re-Transmissions
Additional Note -- I tried the support guys again, and got absolutely nothing ... it may be time to just RMA these things.

I'm not sure now if this the the RT-AC87U, I put vendor firmware (from tomato) back on two dir-865l bridges, one associated with the AC87U, and I'm not seeing the bogus IP addresses any more for them, or at least not for the bridge associated with the AC87U. Now I see the MAC address with no IP address for the bridge, as before tomato. I'm still seeing the bogus IP address from the WRT1900AC I have as a repeater that's associated with the AC87U.

I guess that doesn't mean this is not the source of the problem or that it isn't the AC87U but perhaps it indicates a problem with the developers kit used by vendors to develop the firmware and may be related to MAC address masquerading methods used for bridge (or repeater) mode operation .....

Ian

 

[raven-au]

I guess that doesn't mean this is not the source of the problem or that it isn't the AC87U but perhaps it indicates a problem with the developers kit used by vendors to develop the firmware and may be related to MAC address masquerading methods used for bridge (or repeater) mode operation .....

Or perhaps it's in the handling of DHCP interactions ....

 

[PaperFriend]

I have two Asus ac87 routers. At one end of the house I have one setup as a router and at the other end one setup up as an AP. Problem is the AP loses Internet periodically and all devices connected lose Internet but still show a wifi connection. the Ap is not plugged into a switch and goes directly to the router. I had the same setup with netgear and had no issues. Like Asus better since it has true parental controls.

I have just assigned an IP address to the ap 192.168.1.150 and going to see if that works. I tries to assign it outside of subnet (192.168.2.1) but I got a not valid address error. the lack of Internet lasts for a few minutes and then starts working on its own it seems.

Any solutions?

 

[roldogg]

Asus Router and AP

I've been having similar issues as everyone else on this thread. I'm running an RT-AC87R as my primary router and am currently running an RT-AC66U as an AP. My DHCP range, setup on my primary router starts with 192.168.1.5, of course the primary router itself is has an IP of 192.168.1.1, and my AP has a static IP of 192.168.1.2. The static IP is set on the AP itself and as a static IP in the routing table of the primary router. My primary router is using Merlin's firmware 376.48_1 and my AP is using Merlin's 376.47. In the syslog of my AP, I get the same error of Dec 11 22:32:10 kernel: vlan1: received packet with own address as source address multiple times. In the syslog of my primary router I get a different error multiple times: Dec 12 09:03:03 kernel: Dead loop on virtual device vlan2, fix it urgently!

My AP would always lose connectivity with the primary router along with any device I had plugged into it. Recently, I'm not sure if this is just coincidence or not, but my CAT6 cable I have running to the AP, I decided to run it into a 8 port switch first, and then changed all my devices that were plugged into my AP to plug into the switch and plugged my AP into the switch as well. Since doing this, both my primary router and my AP have been running fine for 12 days so far. I still have the same errors in my syslog, but I haven't lost connectivity anywhere, or at least I don't think I have.

Both my primary router and my AP SSIDs are identical, except on the 2.4Ghz band my primary router is set to channel 11 and the AP is set on channel 1 both at 20Mhz. The 5Ghz also have identical SSIDs, but non-overlapping channels, and I have roaming assistant enabled on both. I have about 38 devices on my network at a given time, and about 5 of these devices have static IPs that fall within the DHCP range. I used to have many more devices set with a static IP, but I decided to set only the devices I want to be able to access from outside of my network to static IPs, like a couple of cloud printers and my NAS.

I got so frustrated with my AP losing connectivity that I decided to just turn it off, and it stated turned off for about a month until I decided to install this switch 12 days ago. So I'm not exactly sure if the switch had anything to do with preventing my AP from losing connectivity, if it was getting rid of all the static IPs I had, or if I'm still losing my connection but don't realize it because I have identical SSIDs and don't have anything plugged directly into my AP anymore, which means I wouldn't be able to tell if it was working or not unless I continuously checked to see which Asus device I was connected to wireless. All I know is that I'm not having the same problems I was, of if I am, everything is hooked up where I wouldn't be able to tell.

 

[roldogg]

Just a quick update

I've realized that I haven't had any connectivity issues since installing the switch and plugging all my devices into the switch, AP included, instead of using the LAN ports on the AP mostly because I have less data flowing through the AP as I did when all my devices were plugged into the LAN ports of the AP. If I connect to the SSID of the AP, then I start having connectivity problems and one of the LEDs on the RT-AC87R lights up red. After I power cycle both the primary router (RT-AC87R) and the AP (RT-AC66U) everything works fine until someone connects to the SSID of the AP. I thought adding this switch helped my issues, but all it did was reroute the traffic so there wasn't as much data flowing through the AP prolonging the amount of time before my network crashed. There's definitely a problem with the firmware and these routers working together with one setup as an AP.

I think I'm just going to turn off my AP until I see where this has been fixed with a new firmware update, or I'll just load a different firmware, like DD-WRT, on my AP. This is very frustrating, and I can't believe this many people are having this problem and a solution hasn't been sent out by Asus. I guarantee that if they don't fix this soon, the next router they release won't sell as well as they have in the past.

 

[richdbenson]

I have the same issues with 2 AC87R. Did you ever find a fix or hear from ASUS?