Rejected MAC address won't reconnect after disabling MAC filter.

[TheBlindKind]

Hi,

Running firmware 378.53 on an RT-AC56R. I'm stumped, not that that's such a big accomplishment. I have a situation in which it's necessary for me to occasionally filter out a particular device from my network, and I've chosen to use the wireless MAC filter for this, so I have added this MAC address to the list and simply flip the filter on/off and set it to reject when I need to. The trouble is that when I turn off the filter and reboot the router, the device doesn't reconnect. I check to make sure I really did turn off the MAC filter, and yes I have. The device seems only to reconnect spontaneously whenever it feels like it. Even if that device is rebooted after rebooting the router, it won't reconnect. Again, it just decides to up and reconnect willy nilly whenever, at least from my perspective. Is there a way for me to force this to happen when I want it to or to make sure it just reconnects right away reliably once I disable the MAC filter? This is a computer that has frequent updates via a bit torrent series for a particular program, which overwhelms our bandwidth, and I would like to temporarily block it but be able to unblock it at will. Of course, those of us in the know about bit torrent understand the futility of trying to block that type of service without a stand-alone firewall, which I'm not willing to pay for right now. Thanks in advance for any assistance/suggestions about this problem.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Instead of using the wireless MAC filter use the Parental Control instead. Or you could use the Firelwall>Network Services Filter. Both will achieve the same result but as the PC remains connected to the router you will avoid the problems of having to reboot/reconnect.