Problem with 5ghz wifi on r7000

[seitys]

I just got my brand new router today. I flashed to shibby's latest tomato firmwire and fired it up.

The problem is, if I turn on any kind of encryption WPA, WPA2, etc., my phones (including a Nexus 5) can't connect to the 5ghz network. But when I turn off all encryption, it connects.

What could be the problem?

As a workaround, I thought of using the wireless filtering feature and manually adding which MAC addresses to allow on my network. Is that secure?

Sorry, I'm a newb.

Edit: it looks like MAC address filtering is like a cheap padlock. It doesn't hurt to have it but you can't rely on it. So I'm back to the issue of why my devices won't connect to 5ghz wifi.

 

[Razor512]

Tomato for the R7000 is still very buggy when it comes to the wifi drivers Some of the nightly builds refuse to even boot.

If you have access to the serial connector on the router, check if it is getting this error

wl_module_init: passivemode set to 0x0
wl_module_init: txworkq set to 0x0
wl driver 6.37.14.73 (r448163) failed with code 21
wl driver 6.37.14.73 (r448163) failed with code 21

For the R7000, I recommend sticking with DD-WRT for now until tomato gets the bugs worked out, or until someone can figure out what way the devs recommend on reporting bugs, as of now there are a ton of forums but nothing that can be more identified as an official place to report issues.

EDIT: some of the barely working builds require you to change the region of the wifi radio to a non USA region to function with more features, but even then, they are still pretty buggy.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Generally speaking out of box, loading new 3rd f/w is not a good
practice. One would try it as it came and start from there. I'd revert back to stock f/w and try. Also dd-wrt has mature R7000
f/w which I am one amongst many who use it and like it.

 

[seitys]

Okay I flashed back to the latest official firmware. Now I can connect with WPA2 on 5ghz for my iphone but my android devices can't connect even though it sees the network. I guess this is a slight improvement but still disappointing.

Edit. wifi drops more frequently than tomato but thoroughput *seems* to be better from my unscientific qualitative observations.

 

[Razor512]

after flashing back, did you do a hard reset, (fhashing back to stock does not clear the NVRAM)

 

[seitys]

after flashing back, did you do a hard reset, (fhashing back to stock does not clear the NVRAM)

I clicked the "erase NVRAM after upgrade" setting in the tomato interface. I had to reboot once already because I was getting heavy lag spikes.

Edit: I mean intermittent and regular lag spikes/disconnections while gaming on my wired lan connection.

Edit 2: I noticed that when my wireless devices disconnect, they automatically reconnect after a short period. This is a plus with the stock firmware and it was not the case with shibby's Tomato. Now my iPhone and Nexus 5 can connect to the 5ghz network but my ipad 2, which has wireless N, cannot.

 

[Razor512]

it does not clear it even when you check the box for the R7000.

at least when I do it, it seems to be bugged in that instead of clearing the NVRAM, you get this near the end of flashing

[18965837]
uploading [18968682]
uploading [18968682]
not allowed, flash process in progress

Thus the firmware gets a mixture of both NVRAM's

then during bootup, you see the serial output flood with messages like this

wl0.1: No such device
interface wl0.1 does not exist!
wl0.2: No such device
interface wl0.2 does not exist!
wl0.3: No such device
interface wl0.3 does not exist!
wl1.1: No such device
interface wl1.1 does not exist!
wl1.2: No such device
interface wl1.2 does not exist!
wl1.3: No such device
interface wl1.3 does not exist!

and this

mtd->read(0x6d4 bytes from 0x4c292c) returned ECC error
mtd->read(0xb4 bytes from 0x4c274c) returned ECC error
mtd->read(0x54 bytes from 0x4c1fac) returned ECC error
mtd->read(0x12b bytes from 0x4c2800) returned ECC error
mtd->read(0x788 bytes from 0x4da878) returned ECC error

until a hard reset is done. Overall, tomato has a lot of issues with reliably flashing other firmware. When the original firmware is flashed, the only way to ensure that the NVRAM is set properly, is to do a hard reset.

PS, DD-WRT also has similar issues when it comes to reverting back to stock firmware.

 

[seitys]

Here's my question. If a wireless android devices has wireless N, does that mean it should always be able to connect to a 5ghz wireless network (assuming its mixed mode or N only?) If so, I'll do the reset and see if its any better. I doubt it because my iphone connects fine (but signal isn't that strong in opposite sides of my 1000 sq feet apartment).

Other than that, everything has been okay since the first reset. Definitely a step up from my wireless g netgear from 10+ years back.

 

[Razor512]

It is hard to tell. If the configs are messed up, then the wifi radio will behave weirdly in that will not handle all clients properly. The best way to avoid confusion, is to just do a hard reset (push reset button for 15 seconds). The clear NVRAM after flash function in tomato is very unreliable. It used to be reliable on the WRT54GL, but after those series of routers, its ability seems to be hit or miss with other routers, especially when going to a different firmware, e.g., moving between tomato and dd-wrt, or other completely different firmware.

For me, my R7000 is compatible with all of my android devices, also works with iOS devices, and the only thing it has trouble with, is windows mobile 2003 and older (PDA's) (which does not support WMM on 2.4GHz) (but will connect if WMM is disabled)

 

[bobsilver]

Here's my question. If a wireless android devices has wireless N, does that mean it should always be able to connect to a 5ghz wireless network (assuming its mixed mode or N only?) If so, I'll do the reset and see if its any better. I doubt it because my iphone connects fine (but signal isn't that strong in opposite sides of my 1000 sq feet apartment).

Other than that, everything has been okay since the first reset. Definitely a step up from my wireless g netgear from 10+ years back.

Are you sure your Android device is dual band? My Nexus 7 gen 1 is single band as an example. The N standard supports both 2.4 and 5ghz bands.

I have a R7000 and have not had issues with devices connecting or drop offs. I would also echo that you stay with the stock firmware. DD-WRT while powerful is also complex. Using it myself got me into some issues that were resolved by going back to stock.

Bob Silver
NETGEAR Networking Consultant

 

[htismaqe]

There's still lots of problems with the stock firmware. Lots of reports of dropped connections and needing to reboot every couple of days still.

 

[seitys]

Yeah my iPhone 5 is dual band. It connects to 5ghz using stock WPA2 but not 121 shibby tomato unless encryption is off.

I've reached the conclusion that stock firmware is terrible. The wifi drops all the time. I have to reset multiple times a day. Let's say I'm streaming a video in the background while just listening to the dialogue or music. Out of nowhere the connection just drops. Then I have to reset the router to fix it which is a huge pain.

I'm going back to tomato. I can live without 5ghz tradeoff since wifi on tomato is much more stable. I never had to reset at all.

I'm considering a wrt1900ac if the problem persists but there are so many varying reports of wifi. Ie, some say its great no problems but other reviews say its worse than the r7000.

 

[McBrown83]

Hello,

I hope this message reaches you seitys.

I stumbled onto the same issues as you, the first thing I did was flash the R7000 to Tomato and everything seemed to work.... except 5Ghz...

So I started looking for a solution online... and your post popped up, and I didn't like the result... So I looked further.... and I was defeated, because everyone seems to accept the fact, that Tomato "can" be buggy, without going into specifics... I was defeated... until....

I was just browsing through all the setting pages (on the Tomato Firmware 1.28.0000 -132 K26ARM USB AIO-64K) and 1 thing caught my attention:

• Tomato Admin Interface:
  • Advanced
    • Wireless
      • Wireless Settings (5 GHz / eth2)
        
        • Country / Region = "MALAYSIA"

Malaysia of all places.... it couldn't be that simple, could it... So I changed it to EU (in my case). AND IT WORKED!

Apparently the default value after a reset is MALAYSIA... And it's not even a little compatible with the EU standards.

Hope this reaches you, and you can still use it.

 

[RogerSC]

Yes, it actually helps to look at all the wireless settings, including locale settings. I've used Shibby v132 quite a bit, and have iPhones, iPads, and Android devices (latest is a Nexus 6P), and they all work well with tomato when the wireless is set up properly. I'm not using tomato (or my R7000) at the moment, so I can't tell you what my settings are, I'm using an RMerlin fork at the moment on the RT-AC68P.

I'd suggest also looking at XVortex asuswrt (port of RMerlin's firmware) and Kong's dd-wrt builds for the R7000, but Shibby's v132 is working well for a lot of people.

Suggest that you post here for that one if you're still having problems. There are a lot more knowledgeable tomato users reading this forum:

http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/tomato-shibbys-releases.33858/

Here's the XVortex asuswrt (port of RMerlin's firmware) forum:

http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/asuswrt-merlin-on-netgear-r7000.71108/

For dd-wrt, here's where Kong puts his personal test builds:

http://www.desipro.de/ddwrt/K3-AC-Arm/

Enjoy!

 

[AntonK]

There's still lots of problems with the stock firmware. Lots of reports of dropped connections and needing to reboot every couple of days still.

I have no problems with the R7000 stock firmware. Current uptime is 36 days. I have multiple Android devices, iPhone, Powerline adapters with Amazon Fire etc... Plugged in. Blazing speed and reliability all around.

 

[htismaqe]

I have no problems with the R7000 stock firmware. Current uptime is 36 days. I have multiple Android devices, iPhone, Powerline adapters with Amazon Fire etc... Plugged in. Blazing speed and reliability all around.

I posted that in August of 2014.

 

[AntonK]

I posted that in August of 2014.

Sorry about that. I got an email alert about this thread, but didn't realize that there might be mixed-date threads of posts that far apart, so didn't even look at dates. Thanks.