[Official Release] AiMesh Firmware v3.0.0.4.384.10007 for All Supported Products

[Richard Li]

Anybody success or failed in setting up RT-AC88U as AiMesh router and RT-AC68U as AiMesh node? I just curious if my case of failure is repeatable.

 

[Richard Li]

Hiya tis as follows:

Main: RT-AC68U
Node x 2: RT-AC68U
(both on ethernet backhaul)

I did a full factory reset on all the routers, before engaging the setup process from scratch, and so far it's been working flawlessly.
Only issue is that my wired WAN speed-test has been capped at around 350mbps instead of the usual 900+ I get (known bug).
However the trade off for me personally is worth it cause my old Router + AP setup under the same SSID had issues with locking onto the wrong AP with a weaker signal as I moved throughout the house.
Now it's far, far better, I can pretty much move seamlessly and the handoff is much more signal-appropriate and quicker.



Agreed. I did this and have no issues so far with dropouts / setup etc.



I had all these routers throughout the years. Right now my setup is as mentioned above, 3 x RT-AC68U

I mentioned the old routers just in reference to your statement earlier about the odd SSID, cause I'm pretty sure that's not the intended default.

So all 3 the same router, obviously no problem at all. Just think it maybe buggy when mixing and matching.

 

[DracZ]

So all 3 the same router, obviously no problem at all. Just think it maybe buggy when mixing and matching.

So far (4-5 days), no issues so far. I actually just stuck to the RT-AC68U cause it was one of the cheapest routers that was AiMesh supported, and I already had one from my ISP.

If anyone is using a similar setup maybe they can chime in as well to see if using the same model is less likely to cause issues?

 

[firebladeRR1k]

I have an ac88u aimesh router with ac68u node and got it to work for a few minutes but then lost the node. It seemed as if the setting changes I made to the router (setting manual dhcp, and other settings) made aimesh no longer work. I was only able to get it to find the ac68u after a reset and initialization. If I did not make any changers (or as few as possible) I was able to find the ac68u. After pressing the search button it would search for quite a while and eventually found it after some resets of the ac68u. Once I made several changes to the ac88u (dhcp and such) pressing search, spinning would end after a few seconds. Seemed as if it was encountering an error and just quitting. Before when the ac88u was unchanged it would check for a while then show a dialog box explaining it could not find a node. I have since reverted back to just using the ac68u as an ap.

 

[Richard Li]

I have an ac88u aimesh router with ac68u node and got it to work for a few minutes but then lost the node. It seemed as if the setting changes I made to the router (setting manual dhcp, and other settings) made aimesh no longer work. I was only able to get it to find the ac68u after a reset and initialization. If I did not make any changers (or as few as possible) I was able to find the ac68u. After pressing the search button it would search for quite a while and eventually found it after some resets of the ac68u. Once I made several changes to the ac88u (dhcp and such) pressing search, spinning would end after a few seconds. Seemed as if it was encountering an error and just quitting. Before when the ac88u was unchanged it would check for a while then show a dialog box explaining it could not find a node. I have since reverted back to just using the ac68u as an ap.

So there are successful case for RT-AC88U as AiMesh router and RT-AC68U as node. Well, changing settings may sometimes hange the routers, I have tried several times, but can be recovered by power off then power up the AiMesh router.

 

[Richard Li]

Just thinking of how may I track down what is the root cause of my RT-AC88U cannot search my RT-AC68U as AiMesh node. Anyway to enable searching logs? Any command line that I may use to explore the problem?

 

[arthurlien]

Just thinking of how may I track down what is the root cause of my RT-AC88U cannot search my RT-AC68U as AiMesh node. Anyway to enable searching logs? Any command line that I may use to explore the problem?

Could you send the feedback by Feedback function ? Please checked 1. System Log 2. WiFi Log.

 

[Richard Li]

Could you send the feedback by Feedback function ? Please checked 1. System Log 2. WiFi Log.

I tried but it said fails because the smtp server is blocked. Which smtp server will it connects to? Can I change the smtp server?

 

[JGrana]

Anybody success or failed in setting up RT-AC88U as AiMesh router and RT-AC68U as AiMesh node? I just curious if my case of failure is repeatable.

I had a very difficult time with this combination... I was finallly able to get them meshed, but the AC68U dropped after approx. 6 hours. The AC88U couldn't find it after multiple Search sequences.
I am back on Merlins fw.

BTW - anyone coming from Merlins firmware, do NOT try to restore the nvram. Setup everything from scratch. Especially dhcp_staticlist!!! Incompatible between the 2 versions...

 

[CootjeNL]

I'm also having al lot of troubles with AiMesh.
Router 1: RT-AC88U (Mesh Router)
Router 2: RT-AC68U (Mesh Node)

Both routers updated to latest firmware. Factory reset both devices.
Configured AC88U, paired with de AC68U. Changed IP range from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.50.x. Rebooted the AC88U and lost config with the node (node is in range and is also wired like described).

Contact Asus Support and they told not to change IP. So did some other configurations. After a few days, I lost contact with the node again. No mather what I did, I couldn't reconnect anymore. Had to do a factory reset. So back to the basic settings (SSID, Guest SSID and nothing more). Stable for 2 day, but this is not the way I want to protect and setup my environment.

 

[Logi]

Is there any documentation or white paper that explain a little deeper how AiMesh works? I would like to better understand:

- How the 3 bands from my RT-AC5300 are exposed on the RT-AC68U that is 2 bands?
- Which of the 3 bands in the 5300 is being used for the communication with the 68? or any other node?
- Is there a web interface to connect to the node to do administration?
- Are all 3 of my existing Wireless networks on the 5300 exposed trough the 68? how if it is only dual band?
- Is there a way to force a client to connect to the node or router? How can you differentiate the signal?

Thanks

 

[drabisan]

Is there any documentation or white paper that explain a little deeper how AiMesh works? I would like to better understand:

- How the 3 bands from my RT-AC5300 are exposed on the RT-AC68U that is 2 bands?
- Which of the 3 bands in the 5300 is being used for the communication with the 68? or any other node?
- Is there a web interface to connect to the node to do administration?
- Are all 3 of my existing Wireless networks on the 5300 exposed trough the 68? how if it is only dual band?
- Is there a way to force a client to connect to the node or router? How can you differentiate the signal?

Thanks

+1
I would very much like to have some info around those questions!

 

[iamchiahua]

Thanks. But I am hoping you can help to upload the firmware for the RT-AC5300, not GT-AC5300. Kindly help if you can. Thanks and Appreciate.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BWnsvwZKcNnyNjcP-iEURZCJ9_7ao0KZ/view?usp=sharing
Not AiMesh firmware

 

[ggruszynski]

+1
I would very much like to have some info around those questions!

Can only help in answering one...when scanning, it appears as though the lower 5GHz channel (5G-1) is being used for backhaul between the 2 tri-band routers (see full 80MHz in use from router and only 20MHz being utilized on the node).

 

[ggruszynski]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BWnsvwZKcNnyNjcP-iEURZCJ9_7ao0KZ/view?usp=sharing
Not AiMesh firmware

Thought 384 fork was AImesh and 382 was going to be standard? @arthurlien , could you answer? Also, will these betas only be released on the 52asus.com site going forward or will it be available somewhere on this site?

Thanks!

 

[JohnL99]

Did I mention anything about trying to access the router through the node?

Let me start again. Maybe this time be clearer.

Initial conditions: Two identical routers. Router A & Router B. I set Router A to be the AI Mesh Router, and fully configured. I attempted to set Router B as an AI Mesh Node, but Router A was not finding it.

I realised I needed to flash both routers to get things working. But my wife was using the network though the media server. That gives me about a 30 second window before the buffered data runs and my changes would crash her video.

Solution: Save the configuration from Router A. Flash Router B, since it currently was not in use. Load the configuration from router A and make the swap.

Problem: Thirty seconds after swapping Router B in place of Router A my wive's video crashed. Plex was no longer working at all with the Roku...

Analysis: Plex was failing because port 32400 was not being forwarded from the Media Server to the WAN. Added the port forwarding rule into router B resolved the issue.

Conclusion: The port forwarding rule, which should have been part of the save configuration from router A was not loaded onto router B as part of the restore load.

Sorry but I thought you had somehow logged into the node and restored your settings there. When I changed my 68U from Merlin to Asus 384 firmware I was almost expecting the saved settings wouldn't copy over. For me it worked fine, including several port forwarding rules I had setup.

 

[firebladeRR1k]

I'm also having al lot of troubles with AiMesh.
Router 1: RT-AC88U (Mesh Router)
Router 2: RT-AC68U (Mesh Node)

Both routers updated to latest firmware. Factory reset both devices.
Configured AC88U, paired with de AC68U. Changed IP range from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.50.x. Rebooted the AC88U and lost config with the node (node is in range and is also wired like described).

Contact Asus Support and they told not to change IP. So did some other configurations. After a few days, I lost contact with the node again. No mather what I did, I couldn't reconnect anymore. Had to do a factory reset. So back to the basic settings (SSID, Guest SSID and nothing more). Stable for 2 day, but this is not the way I want to protect and setup my environment.

Basically same setup for me. The moment I started changing settings I lost the node and could not get it back. I have to change the ip due to my isp. The only way I could get it to work was with the ac88u & ac68u both freshly reset and only minor setup changes on the ac88u. The moment any larger changes (ip address, dhcp reservations, WiFi key,...) happened I lost the node.

 

[HybridHB]

This happens to mine quite a few times a day. I work from home and can really notice it. My laptop is connected via cat5, which is stable. My phone sitting next to me is on wifi and disxonnects several times a day. Different chromecast audio disconnects with the synced Pandora a bit. In addition my smart thing hub gets disconnected a couple times a day.

I just read on engadget that chromecast devices can cause wifi issues. Is your network unstable if you take the chromecast devices off the network?

https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/16/google-chromecast-messing-wifi-connections/

Apologies if this has been covered here, the thread is pretty long and I havent gone through it.

 

[Volfi]

I added 2 new DHCP reservations, and lost the node. No way to recover it. Did the complete reset on both routers (AC88U and AC86U), and after some advanced config cannot see it again.

// EDIT: it's MUCH worse Trying to search for the node changed my main router Wifi to "OPEN SYSTEM" and deleted the Wifi config.

WTF?

 

[hotsauce2007]

Hey hotsauce, will you please be sure to report back in a day or so on your rollback reliability with the existing firmware? I'm about ready to pull the plug on aimiesh as well. Spending too much time fiddling with this. Wife and kids are getting slightly irritated. Yesterday I came home from skiing and my wife had lost internet access on her work laptop--all SSID's. I went to fix, but found I couldn't even log into the main router from the web UI. I had to physically reboot the router, node and AP (66U). I can understand this is fairly big feature improvement and it's relatively new, but it doesn't seem like it's fully baked yet. I'm hoping they get there though. I really do.

Hi

I had the same problem as you and my house got off of the internet for a couple of hours, since I have ip cams / alarms and more devices that need the link to work properly, I did a reset and I am using in ''normal'' mode, wireless router and one AP with the IP fixed, everything is fine, no problem, no delay, no drops, no ISP speed dropping, one day AI MESH will do all of this with no bugs, let´s wait, this problems make part of the process