RT-AX58U Intermittent Wi-Fi issue with Huawei P20 Pro

[SideSwipe]

Hey guys,

I'm having an intermittent issue with my phone. I recently upgraded my router from an RT-N66U to the RT-AX58U. On both devices I've been running the Merlin firmware. So far I have only noticed this issue with my phone, and only on the 5GHz network. Whenever I am in a part of my house with low signal quality, my phone will enter a state where it believes it is connected to my router but has no internet connection. Upon returning to an area with good signal my phone continues to believe it is connected but with no internet connection. When my phone is in this state it can happily connect to other networks, including other 5GHz networks without issue. Resetting my phone does not restore its connection, however resetting my router does. I cannot trigger this behaviour on my older N66U, it only happens on my new AX58U.

Whenever I first set up the new router I installed firmware 384.19. I have since rolled it back to 384.18 which has helped stability somewhat, but not eliminated the problem entirely. I have spent most of this evening trying to troubleshoot the problem. I have tried various different control channels, channel bandwidth, modulation scheme, and TX bursting settings to no effect. If I attempt to ping the IP address of my phone from my router or another device on my network I get no response. If I connect my phone to my desktop, access it through adb, and attempt to ping my router I get a "Destination Host Unreachable" message. If I "cat /proc/net/arp" on the device when it is in this state, I get the following response:

IP address       HW type     Flags       HW address            Mask     Device
192.168.1.1      0x1         0x0         00:00:00:00:00:00     *        wlan0

If I run the command again after rebooting my router I get:

IP address       HW type     Flags       HW address            Mask     Device
192.168.1.1      0x1         0x2         d4:5d:64:9f:22:b0     *        wlan0

Cating /proc/net/arp on the router returns the same information in both states. I have tried analysing my phone's internal netstat logs both when it is and is not connected, but I cannot see any meaningful difference in the log output between the two states. As a router restart fixes the issue until it occurs again, I believe the issue is something on the router. On the router itself I have tried flushing the arp cache, as well as doing a restart of the dnsmasq-dhcp service to no avail. Because I can trigger this issue semi-reliably I am happy to do so when trying to debug this, however I'm fast reaching the limits of my Linux networking knowledge and I'm not sure what else to check. If anyone can think of diagnostic commands I can try running on the router or my phone I'd greatly appreciate any input. The only caveat, if this is actually a problem on my phone, I'm somewhat limited on the commands I can execute as my phone is not rooted.

 

[Katmeat]

I have the same router and current Merlin firmware, and I have a similar problem when leaving for a time and returning home, where it will reconnect without internet access. I find the need to shut wireless off on my phone and turn it back on before it will connect w 5G with internet access. I use a Samsung Note 20U.

 

[Trent Hubbert]

I have the same router and current Merlin firmware, and I have a similar problem when leaving for a time and returning home, where it will reconnect without internet access. I find the need to shut wireless off on my phone and turn it back on before it will connect w 5G with internet access. I use a Samsung Note 20U.

I have this same issue as well.

 

[crkpot]

I don't have this issue at all with ax58u running 384.19 or on any previous versions. We have a Samsung S20 5G, Pixel 3a, multiple iphones and ipads all coming and going using 5G with no issues like this. I have Target Wake Time turned off in wireless settings, can't remember why now, but it caused issues at some point. Might try toggling that.

 

[Suzib6sw]

Try turning off the Wifi 6 option. My Galaxy note 10+ had issues with my X58U and 68U combination in aimesh as a moved around the house.. I am pretty sure it was because the 68U doesnt support Wifi 6 and since turning it off, its been much better.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

Hey guys,

I'm having an intermittent issue with my phone. I recently upgraded my router from an RT-N66U to the RT-AX58U. On both devices I've been running the Merlin firmware. So far I have only noticed this issue with my phone, and only on the 5GHz network. Whenever I am in a part of my house with low signal quality, my phone will enter a state where it believes it is connected to my router but has no internet connection. Upon returning to an area with good signal my phone continues to believe it is connected but with no internet connection. When my phone is in this state it can happily connect to other networks, including other 5GHz networks without issue. Resetting my phone does not restore its connection, however resetting my router does. I cannot trigger this behaviour on my older N66U, it only happens on my new AX58U.

Whenever I first set up the new router I installed firmware 384.19. I have since rolled it back to 384.18 which has helped stability somewhat, but not eliminated the problem entirely. I have spent most of this evening trying to troubleshoot the problem. I have tried various different control channels, channel bandwidth, modulation scheme, and TX bursting settings to no effect. If I attempt to ping the IP address of my phone from my router or another device on my network I get no response. If I connect my phone to my desktop, access it through adb, and attempt to ping my router I get a "Destination Host Unreachable" message. If I "cat /proc/net/arp" on the device when it is in this state, I get the following response:

IP address       HW type     Flags       HW address            Mask     Device
192.168.1.1      0x1         0x0         00:00:00:00:00:00     *        wlan0

If I run the command again after rebooting my router I get:

IP address       HW type     Flags       HW address            Mask     Device
192.168.1.1      0x1         0x2         d4:5d:64:9f:22:b0     *        wlan0

Cating /proc/net/arp on the router returns the same information in both states. I have tried analysing my phone's internal netstat logs both when it is and is not connected, but I cannot see any meaningful difference in the log output between the two states. As a router restart fixes the issue until it occurs again, I believe the issue is something on the router. On the router itself I have tried flushing the arp cache, as well as doing a restart of the dnsmasq-dhcp service to no avail. Because I can trigger this issue semi-reliably I am happy to do so when trying to debug this, however I'm fast reaching the limits of my Linux networking knowledge and I'm not sure what else to check. If anyone can think of diagnostic commands I can try running on the router or my phone I'd greatly appreciate any input. The only caveat, if this is actually a problem on my phone, I'm somewhat limited on the commands I can execute as my phone is not rooted.

You can see if these steps help: https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1042475/

 

[Calkulin]

These AX routers have something weird because every time I do big file transfers over the network, my OnePlus 7 will lose connection to the router after a few mins. Turning off/on the Wi-Fi on the phone will let it connect again but if the file transfer is still going, it will lose connection again. After the transfer is done, then I have turn off/on the Wi-Fi again and then it's fine till another transfer happens again. My daughter's iPhone doesn't have this issue and it happened when I had a RT-AX56U and now with the RT-AX58U in 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

I've tried multiple configs like OFDMA, MU-MIMO, etc off/on and nothing seems to fix it but my old AC66U B1 doesn't exhibit this issue, so it's something with these new routers

 

[RAH-66]

check settings "Target Wake Time " and "Airtime Fairness"

 

[Calkulin]

I've always had Airtime Fairness disabled on all my routers and I've tested with Target Wake Time on/off and no improvement,

 

[RAH-66]

always had Airtime Fairness disabled on all my routers

try to enable it, this function is responsible for distributing the load of the wifi

 

[Calkulin]

try to enable it, this function is responsible for distributing the load of the wifi

I did test Airtime Fairness when I first got the AX58U and didn't make a difference. I've always had it disabled and it's just now with these AX routers that the issue is happening

 

[RAH-66]

I've always had it disabled and it's just now with these AX routers that the issue is happening

my OnePlus 7 will lose connection to the router after a few mins.

My daughter's iPhone doesn't have this issue

the problem is clearly not in the router

 

[Calkulin]

While somewhat true because my phone is the only one that has the issue so far, it doesn't happen on a AC66U B1, AC86U or AC88U, only the AX56U & AX58U exhibit that issue. So it's not 100% OnePlus's fault,

 

[HWDan]

The "connected, no internet" problem seems to be common with the Netgear RAX50 as well, which has the same reference design as the rt-AX56/58/82U (that is if reference designs are a thing with routers, exact same CPUs, chipsets, Radios).

I had one unit (RAX50 used as an AP) where any 1 device, whether AC or AX sometimes would get in this state at least once a day. That device would have no problem connecting to the main router and have normal LAN and internet access, but not through the AP (I could even log into the RAX50 through the other router with that same device). Only a reboot of the RAX50 would make that device work through it again. All the other devices connected at the same time would have no issues.

I returned that unit and went back to an AC router (as a AP) which had probably been up and running faithfully without a break on a UPS for a good year or more before I swapped in the RAX50 in it's place.

I got another RAX50 unit a month or so later ($100 off this time, plus a newer firmware was out, worst case I return this one too). This one stayed up for 3 weeks until an AC tablet in the same room as this AP got into the same state while actively browsing. Already, yet another new firmware was out by then and after flashing, it's now been up for 2 weeks straight without any trouble so far.

The point I'm getting at, is that it may not necessarily be the device but the just the right conditions or combination of wireless traffic exposing a low-level bug in the Broadcom drivers themselves?

These are closed, proprietary OEM drivers rolled into each manufacturer's firmware as-is. We might have to wait for Broadcom to release updated drivers to ASUS/Netgear who in turn rolls them into each model's firmware (who in turn Merlin rolls that into his builds).

 

[Ozymandias]

I gave up trying to sort out the connected/no Internet issue on my rt-ax56u after trying every conceivable fiddling with the settings of the wifi. A reboot of the router resolved the issue every time.

I now have a reboot scheduled every morning and hope a future release will resolve the problem.

 

[SideSwipe]

Cheers for the replies everyone. While I've now replaced the phone for unrelated reasons, I'm encountering almost the same problem with my laptop, with the exception being that my laptop is always in an area of good signal strength. The issue happens regardless of whether I have .11ax, target wake time, airtime fairness, and beamforming enabled or disabled. Thankfully as my laptop is nowhere near as locked down for administrative rights as your average Android device I can try more troubleshooting steps. Unfortunately as before I'm not entirely sure whether I should be looking for a configuration error on my laptop, the router, or if it's a driver error on the router itself.

 

[Calkulin]

Some good news, the recent 384.9890 firmware so far has fixed my issue. I tested 386 RC2-7 on the AX58U and that still exhibited the issue, plus AIMesh didn't work, etc but so far, 9890 seems to have fixed the issue. So even though I'm sure we won't see a Merlin build on that firmware, I'm hoping the 386 branch fixes the issue also,