RT-AC86U 2.4GHz problems

[sl4fko]

My AC86U (Production Year 2018, HW Ver. R1.5, Ser. Nr. JBIM24xxxxxxx) works without problems since I bought it in Austria (no kangaroos...) in 2019. Running Merlin 384.19.

 

[chavo]

Interesting - back in early June 2019, I bought from Amazon a "renewed" AC86. It was fine except for the tiny detail that 5GHz clients would only connect when there was no WPA2 security. If WPA2 security was enabled, it would not connect. 2.4 clients were fine. If I entered a bad password, it failed with a bad password message. But if the password was good, after a long pause, it returned with couldn't get an IP address. Tried a number of things, but always the same results. Sent it back to Amazon a week later and bought a new unit. It has worked fine without issues

i have the same problem

 

[cooloutac]

My AC86U (Production Year 2018, HW Ver. R1.5, Ser. Nr. JBIM24xxxxxxx) works without problems since I bought it in Austria (no kangaroos...) in 2019. Running Merlin 384.19.

do you run ai trend micro, adaptive qos, traffic analyzer and an openvpn client at the same time on it?

 

[cooloutac]

@chavo

weird. have you tried enabling mac filtering? Or sometimes I would get this and to fix it i would go into the phone app and look down to see if the device was listed in the offline section and then choose the option to delete all the data for it and then try to connect again.

 

[sl4fko]

do you run ai trend micro, adaptive qos, traffic analyzer and an openvpn client at the same time on it?

None of them. As far as I remember, I had problems with QoS; clients took very long to connect to wifi...

I only have Skynet, diversion, Transmission and VPN client (NordVPN) configured.

Rock solid with 384.19.

 

[drinkingbird]

If you are experiencing issues with your 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz networks.

Step 1: Hard Reset the router (Hold the reset button on the back of the device for 5 seconds) and do not import a config.

That is not how you hard reset this router. The reset button is junk. Proper method is at https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1039077 and the nuclear option is to then follow that up with a reset via the gui checking off "initialize all variables".

Step 2: During the initial setup do not use capitals or special characters in the SSID or password fields for your 2.4 & 5Ghz networks, use only lowercase and numbers.

Why would you suggest people use an insecure password? You SHOULD use capital letters, numbers, and special characters in the password. It will not hurt anything and will significantly increase security. SSIDs have no issue with capital letters. Some special characters can be problematic but most are fine, you can look up which ones are and are not OK. The two most commonly used ones in an SSID, dash and underscore, both work fine. Slashes are probably ones to avoid, but not positive on those.

Reasoning: I suspect because this router is running Linux (A case sensitive OS), some internal part of this router wasn't programmed to handle capitals and special characters from the SSID and Password fields correctly.

In many cases, with this router, it is radio failure causing these issues, but a hard/nuclear reset is worth a try. Some even recommend draining the power (unplug the wall adapter while powered on, let it sit for a bit, then start the reset procedure).

Linux is case sensitive, yes, as are all OSes. Thus no issue with capital letters in the SSID or password. Anyone NOT using a complex password for wifi or router should update ASAP.

 

[Ripshod]

If you are experiencing issues with your 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz networks.

Step 1: Hard Reset the router (Hold the reset button on the back of the device for 5 seconds) and do not import a config.
Step 2: During the initial setup do not use capitals or special characters in the SSID or password fields for your 2.4 & 5Ghz networks, use only lowercase and numbers.
Step 3: Use whatever you would normally for your admin login and password.
Step 4: Connect devices on your 2.4Ghz/5Ghz networks.

Reasoning: I suspect because this router is running Linux (A case sensitive OS), some internal part of this router wasn't programmed to handle capitals and special characters from the SSID and Password fields correctly.

Generic response, identical to another thread. Copy/paste with no thought.