[RT-AC68U] ASUS WI-FI BRIDGE DROPS CONNECTION TO WIFI ROUTER

[DarkAlpha]

First time posting. I am not an expert on networking at all, but I thought that this would be simpler than it turned out to be.

Sorry for the long post, but I want to give as much information as possible. If you need to know anything else, I'll provide whatever I can to get this figured out.

Short Version:

After about 2 hours of a good connection and normal use, my Wi-Fi Bridge gets booted off the router, and I lose internet. Can't access the bridge, because it has apparently been moved to a different subnet mask.

Long Version:

Purpose: This is a personal home network. I am trying to avoid using the in-house ethernet to connect to the network and internet. I'm trying to accomplish this through a WIFI Bridge in my room connected to a WIFI Router in the living room.

Home Network Setup: Arris Surfboard cable modem connected by ethernet cable to a Netgear Nighthawk X4s AC2600 Wi-Fi Router. The Nighthawk provides network access and internet to the entire house through the ethernet in the wall.

Room Network Setup: A 5-Port D-Link Unmanaged Network Switch and a TP-Link 16-Port Unmanaged Network Switch are connected to each other and provide network to all the electronics in my room. From the TP-Link Switch, an ethernet cord runs to a LAN port on a RT-AC68U ASUS WIFI Router.

Wi-Fi Bridge Setup: The Netgear Nighthawk is setup to only use 5ghz in Wi-Fi Router mode. With factory default settings, I turn on the ASUS Router. I login to the IP address of the ASUS Router. I run the setup wizard and choose to start it in Bridge mode. I connect to the Netgear Nighthawk and set the ASUS Router to automatically get the IP information. The setup finishes, and I login to the ASUS router.

My firmware version is 3.0.0.4.384.21045

Initial Result: Everything works perfectly. I can use the internet. I can see all the devices connected to the entire home network. The ASUS Router has a 5Ghz connection with a 1300mbps speed and a signal quality that hovers around –33 to –35. The IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway are all correct. I can't tell any quality difference between the bridge and a wired ethernet cable.

After 2 hours of use: The yellow triangle and exclamation point show up in the network icon on the Windows taskbar, and I lose the ability to browse the internet. I can no longer login to the ASUS Router. I use the ASUS Device Discovery tool to search for the router.

The tool shows that the ASUS Router has a new IP address: xxx.xxx.50.x This is out of range of the IP addresses from the Netgear Nighthawk. The Nighthawk IP address range is only in the xxx.xxx.1.x range.

When I try to login to the ASUS Router with the tool, the tool says that my computer and the ASUS Router are no longer on the same subnet mask. The tool shows that the ASUS Router is on the 255.255.255.0 subnet mask. That is the same as my computer.

I have to reset my ASUS Router to factory default, and re-setup the whole thing to get the connection back. Then, in another 2 hours, the same exact thing happens.

Things that I have tried:

• Changing the ethernet cable
• Using a static IP address instead of the automatic one
• Switching to other firmware versions
• Turning the ASUS Router off and on

There aren't a lot of options in the ASUS Router, so I don't know what else to try.

One thing I still need to try:

• Using an unofficial firmware like Merlin

I cannot figure it out on my own, and I can't find anyone with the same problem on the internet.

Does anyone have any insight into what could be wrong? Am I missing some part of the setup?

 

[kfp]

I also have a 68U in Media Bridge mode and have seen this problem.

I flashed it with John’s fork (33E4) among other things and got 7+ days of uptime since then.

Edit: whoops read your post too fast, your problem seems different. You’ll have to figure out where the Asus is getting the 50.x IP from.

 

[kfp]

Perhaps you can set your PC to the 50.x subnet if it happens again and retrieve the logs to see what’s wrong.

Another thing to try is to reduce the number of devices connected to the media bridge after a reset and see if it happens again.

 

[Grisu]

192.168.50.1 is the newer default IP of the router, previous firmwares had default 192.168.1.1.
So maybe it is resetting or rebooting or only loosing connection and as it doesnt get IP from router DHCP it takes its default.

Would be a help if you write the IP instead of xxx, its out of private IP range, so no secret.

 

[kfp]

192.168.50.1 is the newer default IP of the router, previous firmwares had default 192.168.1.1.

I have not seen this on Merlin or stock firmwares. Whether in Media Bridge mode or not, which version of firmware are you seeing this? Perhaps this is related to AiMesh?

 

[Grisu]

it's on my 86U stock firmware since beginning 382.16466

your'e right, 68U still 192.168.1.1

 

[DarkAlpha]

192.168.50.1 is the newer default IP of the router, previous firmwares had default 192.168.1.1.
So maybe it is resetting or rebooting or only loosing connection and as it doesnt get IP from router DHCP it takes its default.

Would be a help if you write the IP instead of xxx, its out of private IP range, so no secret.

I've used both the automatic IP address and a static IP address. It happens both ways.

On the Nighthawk, I set the bridge to a static ip of 192.168.1.203. After a while, the RT-AC68U will revert to 192.168.50.1 or it will stay 192.168.1.203 but will still tell me that it is on a different subnet mask.

With the automatic IP adress, I'll get something like 192.168.1.12, and then it will eventually do the same thing as the static IP address.

When I start the router up after a factory default reset, the default IP address is 192.168.1.1

 

[KevTech]

What MAC are you reserving in the Nighthawk for the 68U?

Should be the LAN MAC of the 68U.

 

[kfp]

With the automatic IP adress, I'll get something like 192.168.1.12, and then it will eventually do the same thing as the static IP address.

Agree with @KevTech, sounds like you didn’t set up static DHCP lease right on the Nighthawk.

 

[DarkAlpha]

What MAC are you reserving in the Nighthawk for the 68U?

Should be the LAN MAC of the 68U.

On the Nighthawk, I have a reservation set for the 68U for both the IP address and the MAC address. IP Address is set to 192.168.1.203 and the MAC address is set to the same as the LAN MAC address of the 68U.

Since my last post, I have also flashed to the Merlin firmware. Just to see if that changes anything.

BTW, thank you everyone for helping out.

 

[DarkAlpha]

So I just had it happen again right in the middle of using the internet. I was still able to access the router for a little bit, so I saved the logs.

Here is the part that caught my eye, but if anyone wants to see more of the logs, I can post the whole thing.

Feb 13 19:00:15 Samba_Server: daemon is started

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: [2017/02/13 19:00:15.554099, 0] lib/util_sock.c:667(open_socket_in)

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: bind failed on port 445 socket_addr = 192.168.1.203.

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: Error = Cannot assign requested address

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: [2017/02/13 19:00:15.554709, 0] smbd/server.c:628(smbd_open_one_socket)

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: smbd_open_once_socket: open_socket_in: Cannot assign requested address

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: [2017/02/13 19:00:15.554942, 0] lib/util_sock.c:667(open_socket_in)

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: bind failed on port 139 socket_addr = 192.168.1.203.

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: Error = Cannot assign requested address

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: [2017/02/13 19:00:15.555192, 0] smbd/server.c:628(smbd_open_one_socket)

Feb 13 19:00:15 smbd[349]: smbd_open_once_socket: open_socket_in: Cannot assign requested address

 

[kfp]

Can you post the whole thing with a code or spoiler tag?

 

[DarkAlpha]

It was too long to post, so here's a pastebin link:

https://pastebin.com/VrNm5nUU