Random net loss, 5g going down

[Qutrit]

Okay, I lost 5Ghz again. Interestingly, the 5GHz LED is on but the network just dissappeared. Since I recently acquired the device (actually yesterday) I am going to bring it back to the store and get a new one, to discard that this is a hardware issue. If I get the same problem with a new unit I will get back to you. Let's see how this goes

 

[Qutrit]

A relevant update: I went to the store this morning and got a new device. After 5 hours of usage with the by default stock fw settings (latest version) except for the fact that I disabled airtime fairness, I lost 5Ghz connectivity again. I think this at the very least discards a hardware problem. not sure what could be the problem though. I am going to try merlin alpha 3 and see how that goes

 

[Qutrit]

Just to update you: After being tired of disconnections in the 5Ghz radio, I took it back to the store. I suspect perhaps that they screwed up something in the A5 revision. It's sad. I love ASUS routers. IN fact I got a AC5300 to replace this unit. So far running 24h without no issues

 

[rtn66uftw]

Just to update you: After being tired of disconnections in the 5Ghz radio, I took it back to the store. I suspect perhaps that they screwed up something in the A5 revision. It's sad. I love ASUS routers. IN fact I got a AC5300 to replace this unit. So far running 24h without no issues

How much did you pay for the AC5300? If I were you, I would buy an Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X router + an Ubiquiti 802.11ac Dual-Radio PRO AP instead. Better money spent imo

 

[heysoundude]

I'm sure this is completely unrelated (and probably due more to the factory reset I did), but after updating my rt-n66u to 380.65_4, I also updated the CFE to 1.0.1.9 and not only is my 5GHz incredibly solid, but it's keeping the overclock as well.

 

[herrdude]

I am having exactly the same problems as you. I thought I could fix the problem by setting up a daily reboot through the Admin page. As it turns out, that isn't working either.

Did rolling back to 380.63_2 work out? It is so random how 380.64_2 and 380.65 stop working requiring a reboot.

Let us know!

I have the same problem as interconnect. Not only does 5ghz stop working but wired connections as well. I have changed the settings as you recommended. I will keep you posted.

The change in settings did not fix the problem. This is getting frustrating. It seems to go down about once a week. Also, it is abundantly clear that it is a router level problem. I have 30 devices that all lose connection when this happens.

 

[herrdude]

It went down again. Here is the last line in the log:
kernel: Emergency Sync complete

Anybody have an idea what can be causing this?

 

[MichaelCG]

The 5GHz stability issues led me to walk away from the N66 and go the Ubiquiti route for my WiFi. Only one of my N66 had the issue with both on the same firmware. This is what led me to believe it was hardware issues. The "failing" N66 has been demoted to be just a router (WiFi disabled, also using Ubiquiti) at my in-laws house. My "good" N66 is still acting as a Media Bridge with no issues running RMerlin 380.65.

 

[Ormu]

I've noticed this with RT-N56U and much less frequently with RT-N66U, both having stock firmware installed. I'm currently experimenting with having the "AiRadar" feature turned off.

 

[MichaelCG]

To note....I didn't have any features enabled on my N66. It was being used as nothing more than a dumb access point.

 

[herrdude]

I am trying 380.66 beta 3 to see if the problem still continues...

 

[herrdude]

I am trying 380.66 beta 3 to see if the problem still continues...

Nope, the problem continues even with the latest beta.

 

[Pinoybear]

I've been having the same problem of my 5GHz SSID disappearing on my RT-AC88U running previous versions of Merlin (don't recall how far back the problem existed) most recently on 380.65_4. It was happening every couple of days and I'd have to reboot the router to recover. I tried multiple factory resets and disabling features or keeping features default with no improvement. This problem also exits on an RT-AC87U I have too.

In the past week it became more frequent and when it happened a few days ago three times within a couple hours, I installed "ASUS RT-AC88U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.380.7378" for the heck of it. I kept all the wifi settings as default. I haven't had any 5Ghz issues for three days. I've lost all the goodies of Merlin's code but at least the network is stable.

If Merlin's latest stable release is based on ASUS' latest release then I don't know what the issue has been. I thought I'd add another "me too" post, in any case.

 

[ScottW]

I have had this randomly happen on my AC88U. As others have said, the 5GHz completely stops broadcasting -- all 5G clients lose connection simultaneously, and no client or scanner can see the 5GHz SSID -- but wired and 2.4GHz clients continue operating normally.

It has happened with both stock Asus (380.7266 and 380.7378) and Merlin firmware (380.65_2, 380.65_4, and 380.66_beta4). After flashing each firmware, the router was fully reset and setup from scratch. Router sits on a laptop cooler, so radio temps are <50c, and cpu temp is <70c.

On Merlin, I have tried toggling "airtime fairness" and the various beamforming options, but these have had no effect. There are no other 5GHz networks in my area, and no wireless phones/etc. using 5GHz band. The router (and modem) are on a sine-wave UPS.

There are typically about (9) 5GHz devices connected, including iPhones, iPads, Dell and Lenovo laptops, and some Amazon devices. All of them simultaneously lose connection when the AC88U drops the 5GHz signal. All of the wired and 2.4GHz devices (quantity of 22) all continue working normally.

Sometimes 5GHz will be stable for several days, while other times it fails within a few minutes or hours.

The last failure occured after it had been stable for 6+ days. It went like this:
1. All 5GHz clients lost connection.
2. The router GUI had showed nothing unusual in the syslog. The wireless log still shows clients connected, but all data (like speeds and signal strength) are static and do not change at all between refreshes of the page.
3. Toggled the 5GHz radio OFF, then ON. Operation returned to normal.
4. That lasted about 10 minutes, then it died again (same symptoms as 1-2).
5. Rebooted the router. Operation returned to normal.
6. That lasted for 8 minutes, then it died again (same symptoms as 1-2).
7. Powered off router completely, then re-powered. Operation returned to normal.
8. That lasted for 6 minutes, then it died again (same symptoms as 1-2).
9. Powered off router again, then re-powered. Operation returned to normal -- and has now been stable for 48+ hours.

Note that there were NO changes to any settings there. And even after a power reset, failure may come in minutes (as in #7-8) or operate fine for days (as it has after #9, or as it did before #1).

At least for me, it seems pretty "random", and not associated with any particular firmware. Whenever I make a change and it is stable for several days, I become hopeful... Only to have the problem occur again, sometimes after nearly a week of stable operation. I'm most inclined to point at the wireless driver, since I have seen it reported with multiple hardware models.

 

[Fandroid]

I have a RT-N66U and I have this problem exactly as described but on 2.4 GHz and not on 5 GHz.

 

[ScottW]

As an update to post #74....

After yet another 5GHz failure, I subsequently made one change to settings -- I changed channel width from 80MHz to 40MHz.

It has now been up for over 306 hours (almost 13 days), without a single problem. The 5Ghz devices that have remained in the house (3 ipads, 4 Amazon Echos, 1 Amazon Dot, 1 Windows Laptop) have all been connected continuously for over 306 hours. That is pretty significant, as the record before making this change was just over 6 days.

***** UPDATE *****
As of 7/17/2017, 5GHz continuously stable for 1,451 hours (over 60 days). I haven't rebooted the router or changed settings during this period -- and have 5GHz devices (ones that stay in the house all the time and haven't rebooted) which have been continuously connected for the entire time.
*****************

Full combination of settings are (this is with f/w 380.66):
Wireless General
Hide ssid: No; Mode: N/AC mixed; Channel bandwidth: 40; Control Channel: 149; Extension: Auto
Authentication: WPA2-Personal; Encryption: AES; Protected Management Frames: Disable; Key Rotation: 3600
Wireless Professional
Roaming assist: Disable; IGMP Snooping: Disable; Frag Threshold: 2346; AMPDU RTS: Enable;
DTIM Interval: 3; Beacon: 100; Tx Burst: Enable; WMM: Enable; WMM No-Ack: Disable;
WMM APSD: Enable; AMPDU aggregation: Disable; Modulation: Up to MCS 9 (802.11ac);
Airtime Fairness: Disable; MuMIMO: Disable; 802.11ac BF: Enable; Universal BF: Enable

 

[JMB64]

As an update to post #74....

After yet another 5GHz failure, I subsequently made one change to settings -- I changed channel width from 80MHz to 40MHz.

It has now been up for over 306 hours (almost 13 days), without a single problem. The 5Ghz devices that have remained in the house (3 ipads, 4 Amazon Echos, 1 Amazon Dot, 1 Windows Laptop) have all been connected continuously for over 306 hours. That is pretty significant, as the record before making this change was just over 6 days.

Full combination of settings are (this is with f/w 380.66):
Wireless General
Hide ssid: No; Mode: N/AC mixed; Channel bandwidth: 40; Control Channel: 149; Extension: Auto
Authentication: WPA2-Personal; Encryption: AES; Protected Management Frames: Disable; Key Rotation: 3600
Wireless Professional
Roaming assist: Disable; IGMP Snooping: Disable; Frag Threshold: 2346; AMPDU RTS: Enable;
DTIM Interval: 3; Beacon: 100; Tx Burst: Enable; WMM: Enable; WMM No-Ack: Disable;
WMM APSD: Enable; AMPDU aggregation: Disable; Modulation: Up to MCS 9 (802.11ac);
Airtime Fairness: Disable; MuMIMO: Disable; 802.11ac BF: Enable; Universal BF: Enable

*** UPDATE: As of 6/4/2017, 5GHz continuously up and stable with above settings for 421 hours (17 days, 13 hours). ***

Thanks Scott.

I am currently running Merlin 380.67_Alpha2 and was running the Merlin 380.66 versions with both having the same issues with the 5Ghz SSID disappearance happening after about 23 hours. I have no DFS channels here, no heat issues, and no channel interference issues. I went in and changed the 5Ghz channel width to 40Mhz and the WiFi has been solid since.

I am a bit disappointed that 80Mhz width doesn't work with this router. I replaced my AC87U, which ironically had no channel width issues and solid 5Ghz performance despite the buggy Quantenna firmware, with the AC88U and "stable" Broadcom chipsets and the 5Ghz WiFi is "crippled". I wonder if either Asus or Broadcom are aware that there must be a firmware or WiFi driver issue with this product and will address it soon. The AC88U is a beast of a router but not having 80Mhz channel width de-claws it a bit.

 

[ScottW]

I wonder if either Asus or Broadcom are aware that there must be a firmware or WiFi driver issue with this product and will address it soon. The AC88U is a beast of a router but not having 80Mhz channel width de-claws it a bit.

Same here... Irritating to not be able to use the "full capability".

I'm still not certain whether the problem is solely related to 80MHz operation, or if it is 80MHz in combination with some other setting -- which is why I posted my entire list of 5GHz settings. It's possible 80MHz would be stable in combination with some other setting... But there are a lot of combinations to try, and the random hours/days needed to check each combination makes further testing tedious.

Best case, it is a software issue that Broadcom or Asus finds and fixes... Worst case, it is something wrong with the hardware (like the broadcom chipset) that can't be fixed. Only time will tell.

For now, I'm happy to forego 80MHz to get stable operation (up 18 days now!). As you say, in other respects it is a "beast" so it is disappointing to not be able to use all features. But I was ready to take a hammer to the thing when it was randomly locking up every few hours or days!

 

[m25]

I had problems with the 5G a lot and I find out it is related to the "regulatory on". The last Merlin firmware that allow to set up this parameter is 374.43_0. I was hoping that the Fork of johny9527 is still ok, but unfortunately it is not 100%: the 5G regulatory mode is not available and the 5G is going down from time to time. I really hope he will start to use the base 374.43_0 instead of 374.43_2.

 

[JMB64]

I had problems with the 5G a lot and I find out it is related to the "regulatory on". The last Merlin firmware that allow to set up this parameter is 374.43_0. I was hoping that the Fork of johny9527 is still ok, but unfortunately it is not 100%: the 5G regulatory mode is not available and the 5G is going down from time to time. I really hope he will start to use the base 374.43_0 instead of 374.43_2.

Where do you find this setting in the current Merlin firmware? Is it under Professional -> Region? In this space you have a default value which for me is Singapore. Then there is also Asia, China, Europe, Korea, Russia, and United States. Is this where the regulatory enforcement is done? If so, I can try 80Mhz channel width on my default setting (Singapore).