[Official Release] AiMesh Firmware v3.0.0.4.384.20308 for All Supported Products

[RandomName23]

Here's what I find frustrating...

86U main, 68U node (wireless, maybe 6m clear path between them).

My laptop loves to connect to the node where I sit. -58 from the main, -55 from the node.

Speed from the node varies a lot, but a high of 120/90, typical 80/60 and down to 10/8 at times.
Speed from the main router is consistent at 280/220.

I have forced the laptop to connect to the main router by creating a guest network that allows access to the intranet. I suppose it's just the speed from the wireless node that's disappointing - in particular the way it varies. Speed from my other 68U node which is wired, is fast and consistent (as you'd expect).

What are the RSSI values of the backhaul channels for the node? 6 meters is not very far between the two, perhaps too close. Do you even need the node? Have you tried temporarily running an Ethernet cable to the node to see if it helps? Have you tried moving the node farther away? What size space do you have that needs 3 mesh nodes?

 

[Quad80]

Look like the latest firmware (20379) is still corrupt on the download page. @arthurlien any ideas when it will be corrected?

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/o...-supported-products.44375/page-15#post-381700

EDIT:

Looks like there may be a bug with the time zones for the RT-AC3100, too:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac88u-new-firmware-version-384_20379-krack-fix.44645/

May as well draw attention to this since there isn't an official 20379 thread yet. Though I haven't tested myself, @arthurlien may want to look into this, too.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Here's what I find frustrating...

86U main, 68U node (wireless, maybe 6m clear path between them).

My laptop loves to connect to the node where I sit. -58 from the main, -55 from the node.

Speed from the node varies a lot, but a high of 120/90, typical 80/60 and down to 10/8 at times.
Speed from the main router is consistent at 280/220.

I have forced the laptop to connect to the main router by creating a guest network that allows access to the intranet. I suppose it's just the speed from the wireless node that's disappointing - in particular the way it varies. Speed from my other 68U node which is wired, is fast and consistent (as you'd expect).

Six meters/20' clear between APs seems too close. With just one 68U (US compliant radios), I can connect from 100' away through multiple interior walls and 2 brick exterior walls. How far away is your third node?

OE

 

[Sean]

Does WPS *HAVE* to be engaged at all times? When I disabled it after pairing, I lost connectivity with my node. I'm guessing that both router and node need to be rebooted? I am using two AC68U's FWIW with wireless backhaul.

Also, I've noticed that some of the clients are certainly not connecting to the appropriate device - i.e. one of my Apple TV's is sitting no more than 2 feet from the node, and it tends to stay connected to the router which is in the basement. I've also noticed that my iPhone X does not seamlessly connect from one AiMesh device to another - there will be about a 5 second delay, and the wifi symbol will drop entirely showing the LTE symbol before it actually connects to the strongest/closest AiMesh device. Both AC68U's were flashed with the latest firmware and I did a factory reset afterwards. RA is enabled by default and I haven't adjusted the values.

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

Six meters/20' clear between APs seems too close. With just one 68U (US compliant radios), I can connect from 100' away through multiple interior walls and 2 brick exterior walls. How far away is your third node?

OE

I agree. It has been stated before and I can attest, there's such a thing as too much overlap. I have better results since I turned-off my 2nd node. Even the 50 ft between my router and node often isn't enough to steer my phone to the nearby transmitter.

 

[RandomName23]

Does WPS *HAVE* to be engaged at all times? When I disabled it after pairing, I lost connectivity with my node. I'm guessing that both router and node need to be rebooted? I am using two AC68U's FWIW with wireless backhaul.

Also, I've noticed that some of the clients are certainly not connecting to the appropriate device - i.e. one of my Apple TV's is sitting no more than 2 feet from the node, and it tends to stay connected to the router which is in the basement. I've also noticed that my iPhone X does not seamlessly connect from one AiMesh device to another - there will be about a 5 second delay, and the wifi symbol will drop entirely showing the LTE symbol before it actually connects to the strongest/closest AiMesh device. Both AC68U's were flashed with the latest firmware and I did a factory reset afterwards. RA is enabled by default and I haven't adjusted the values.

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.

I turned off WPS on my main router and the node still connects fine.

What is the distance between your router and node? Is the Apple TV connecting via 2.4 or 5 Ghz? If you reboot the Apple TV does it still connect to the Router or does it then connect to the node? I have an iPhone 7 and it roams between my router and node without going back to cellular like you are indicating with the iPhone X. However, it is not fast enough for some applications like wifi calling as that will disconnect but no where near 5 seconds. Also, "seamless" according to Asus just means that you don't have to manually switch networks which is what occurred. Until they implement some of the 802.11 k,v,r protocols they can only do so much to make it a fast transition like utilizing RA to force the transition to happen earlier than if left to the client device.

 

[Quad80]

Does WPS *HAVE* to be engaged at all times? When I disabled it after pairing, I lost connectivity with my node. I'm guessing that both router and node need to be rebooted? I am using two AC68U's FWIW with wireless backhaul.

I don't think it does, but it's unclear. WPS has to be enabled to pair a node, that much we know. However, I and a few others here have successfully turned it off at the router and have maintained connectivity with router and node. However, if you do a scan of wifi signals, you'll see that even with WPS disabled on the router, it is still enabled for 2.4 GHz band on any nodes. There is currently no way to turn this off, unless you manually SSH in or something and switch the values. For more info, see here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/o...-supported-products.43125/page-44#post-381981

In short, @arthurlien is looking into whether or not this is by design or is a bug. Seems to me that if it is by design, it should be clearly stated somewhere that WPS will remain active for all nodes, as this is a known security risk (WPS is insecure by nature, hence why many routers and things like DDWRT don't even support it). If it is a bug, they need to fix it. We're in wait and see mode.

 

[bleukrabbe]

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has setup MAC Filtering? I have just setup AiMEsh with AC86U (router) and AC68U (node), and everything seems to work ok, until I enable MAC Filtering. It appears that my cellphone (Samsung S8) and Samsung Tab S2 has a hard time connecting to the WiFi network whenever I enable MAC filter. Sometimes they can connect, but most time they try to, but was not successful. Once I turn off Mac Filter, the connection was OK (Samsung S8 will switch seamless from 4G to WiFi whenever I turn WiFi on and off) Does anyone has similar issue? [For reference, I have used MAC Filter previously on AC86U in non-Aimesh mode and it works fine. Any advice? Thanks

 

[Volfi]

After pairing I turn WPS off for both main router and node (via SSH and nvram command), and it works well, even after reboot.

 

[Sean]

I turned off WPS on my main router and the node still connects fine.

What is the distance between your router and node? Is the Apple TV connecting via 2.4 or 5 Ghz? If you reboot the Apple TV does it still connect to the Router or does it then connect to the node? I have an iPhone 7 and it roams between my router and node without going back to cellular like you are indicating with the iPhone X. However, it is not fast enough for some applications like wifi calling as that will disconnect but no where near 5 seconds. Also, "seamless" according to Asus just means that you don't have to manually switch networks which is what occurred. Until they implement some of the 802.11 k,v,r protocols they can only do so much to make it a fast transition like utilizing RA to force the transition to happen earlier than if left to the client device.

The router and node are on separate floors, the router being in the basement and the node being upstairs. If I had to measure a straight line I'd guess they're ~30ft from each other. The Apple TV is only set to the 5Ghz band. I will need to test what rebooting results in - my guess is it would connect to the node... I also noticed that when I hardwired the Apple TV to the node, it started to lose connection to my Synology NAS - which is hardwired to the main router. Ever since I've had the Apple TV connecting wirelessly I've had no such issues as far as streaming content from the NAS.

I've had my iPhone drop wireless twice so far, while noticing the LTE symbol popup for about a second or two. Might try turning off RA to see how these devices behave.

I am going to try turning off WPS again, but is the node accessible via SSH by default? Not sure how to turn it on if I don't have access to the GUI of the node.

 

[RandomName23]

The router and node are on separate floors, the router being in the basement and the node being upstairs. If I had to measure a straight line I'd guess they're ~30ft from each other. The Apple TV is only set to the 5Ghz band. I will need to test what rebooting results in - my guess is it would connect to the node... I also noticed that when I hardwired the Apple TV to the node, it started to lose connection to my Synology NAS - which is hardwired to the main router. Ever since I've had the Apple TV connecting wirelessly I've had no such issues as far as streaming content from the NAS.

I've had my iPhone drop wireless twice so far, while noticing the LTE symbol popup for about a second or two. Might try turning off RA to see how these devices behave.

I am going to try turning off WPS again, but is the node accessible via SSH by default? Not sure how to turn it on if I don't have access to the GUI of the node.

If you enable SSH on the router in the UI, it will propagate to the node and enable SSH there also. There are a few settings that if you change them in the router UI they will propagate to the node. If the Apple TV connects to the node after you reboot it, it could just be the case that the Apple TV is being sticky to the router and never gets a weak enough signal for RA to be triggered. 30 ft is still fairly close together for the mesh nodes. You probably have too much overlap.

 

[apotts]

Six meters/20' clear between APs seems too close. With just one 68U (US compliant radios), I can connect from 100' away through multiple interior walls and 2 brick exterior walls. How far away is your third node?

OE

I live in a large farmhouse (UK), built in the 1860s. Wifi can make it through one wall, just, but not two. And I have lots of walls. And they are really quite thick.

The wireless node is close - and lined up with a doorway. It then transmits upwards, so we can get signal in one quarter of the house, upstairs. The wired node is in the upstairs, diagonally opposed, so it can transmit downwards to the dead room below. The main router can do most of downstairs, but not all (hence the wired one upstairs). Using 2 I still had dead spots. Using 3 I am just about covered (and get some garden coverage too). This is not a US-style house with internal wooden walls!

As I have said, I now have a collection of Guest networks with intranet access that do the trick - forcing just a couple of essential devices to stick to the main router.

ETA: Third node probably about 20 metres, but 3 walls and 1 ceiling in between.

 

[RandomName23]

I live in a large farmhouse (UK), built in the 1860s. Wifi can make it through one wall, just, but not two. And I have lots of walls. And they are really quite thick.

The wireless node is close - and lined up with a doorway. It then transmits upwards, so we can get signal in one quarter of the house, upstairs. The wired node is in the upstairs, diagonally opposed, so it can transmit downwards to the dead room below. The main router can do most of downstairs, but not all (hence the wired one upstairs). Using 2 I still had dead spots. Using 3 I am just about covered (and get some garden coverage too). This is not a US-style house with internal wooden walls!

As I have said, I now have a collection of Guest networks with intranet access that do the trick - forcing just a couple of essential devices to stick to the main router.

ETA: Third node probably about 20 metres, but 3 walls and 1 ceiling in between.

I think the answer is pretty clear. Time to knock down some walls

 

[Mine Ong]

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has setup MAC Filtering? I have just setup AiMEsh with AC86U (router) and AC68U (node), and everything seems to work ok, until I enable MAC Filtering. It appears that my cellphone (Samsung S8) and Samsung Tab S2 has a hard time connecting to the WiFi network whenever I enable MAC filter. Sometimes they can connect, but most time they try to, but was not successful. Once I turn off Mac Filter, the connection was OK (Samsung S8 will switch seamless from 4G to WiFi whenever I turn WiFi on and off) Does anyone has similar issue? [For reference, I have used MAC Filter previously on AC86U in non-Aimesh mode and it works fine. Any advice? Thanks

I am experiencing a similar problem but only to a few selected devices:

Tm-1900 converted to AC68U as the main router
- Asuswrt Merlin AND/OR AiMesh firmware, various versions (all behave the same)

I have a Linksys E2500 running on Tomato and in wireless bridge mode. With/without mac address filtering, it works fine.
I also have a Linksys WRT310N running on Tomato and in wireless bridge mode. With/without mac address filtering, it works fine.

However, I have a Linksys EA6900 running xvortex firmware. Trying to set it up in wireless bridge mode: without mac address filtering it works fine, but with, NO. I previously reported this here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/media-bridge-not-working-on-both-ac68u-ea6900.42666/

I would love to get to the bottom of this as I prefer to turn on mac filtering.

regards,

 

[apotts]

What are the RSSI values of the backhaul channels for the node? 6 meters is not very far between the two, perhaps too close.

-42 (connection speed showing as 1300)

 

[Richard Li]

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has setup MAC Filtering? I have just setup AiMEsh with AC86U (router) and AC68U (node), and everything seems to work ok, until I enable MAC Filtering. It appears that my cellphone (Samsung S8) and Samsung Tab S2 has a hard time connecting to the WiFi network whenever I enable MAC filter. Sometimes they can connect, but most time they try to, but was not successful. Once I turn off Mac Filter, the connection was OK (Samsung S8 will switch seamless from 4G to WiFi whenever I turn WiFi on and off) Does anyone has similar issue? [For reference, I have used MAC Filter previously on AC86U in non-Aimesh mode and it works fine. Any advice? Thanks

There is a bug that makes MAC address filtering not working in the RT-AC68U node. ASUS team is able to reproduce the problem and will fix it soon.

 

[RandomName23]

-42 (connection speed showing as 1300)

I think that is probably too good actually. Hell, most of the time people would be happy to get that kind of RSSI with their wireless clients. Just for comparison, mine are -57 for the 2.4 and -67 for the 5 Ghz and I'm still able to achieve the full speed of my internet connection. -67 is pushing it but seems to work fine at the moment. Are you able to adjust the value of the transmit power on your main router? Are you able to move the node farther away from the main router?

 

[toor]

Yes, can you send feedback with system log, wifi log and cfg file by Feedback function? Please add your snb nickname and this post URL in description field.

我從使用 Tapatalk 的 ASUS_Z012DA 發送

updated to 20308, this time it lasted for 5 days, then it stopped accepting wireless connections again and had the same error. I submitted feedback for it and reverted back my firmware. all is stable again.

 

[bleukrabbe]

I am experiencing a similar problem but only to a few selected devices:

Tm-1900 converted to AC68U as the main router
- Asuswrt Merlin AND/OR AiMesh firmware, various versions (all behave the same)

I have a Linksys E2500 running on Tomato and in wireless bridge mode. With/without mac address filtering, it works fine.
I also have a Linksys WRT310N running on Tomato and in wireless bridge mode. With/without mac address filtering, it works fine.

However, I have a Linksys EA6900 running xvortex firmware. Trying to set it up in wireless bridge mode: without mac address filtering it works fine, but with, NO. I previously reported this here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/media-bridge-not-working-on-both-ac68u-ea6900.42666/

I would love to get to the bottom of this as I prefer to turn on mac filtering.

regards,

Interesting...so the MAC Filter issue is only in your AC68U unit?

 

[bleukrabbe]

There is a bug that makes MAC address filtering not working in the RT-AC68U node. ASUS team is able to reproduce the problem and will fix it soon.

Thanks Richard. Good to know. I searched in this thread and did not see any mention of this, so that's why I posted. argh.... i have always have MAC Filter in my WiFi setup all these years. Feel weird to have to disable that for now. Would you know if there is anywhere I can find more information on when the fix is available? Thanks.