RT-AX88U 5 ghz WiFi problems

[AdrianSz]

This is no different than having to reinstall your os (any os) on a computer when it begins to act insane. Same potential type of non-fixable bugs and glitches. Doesn't matter how many people are using their router (or computer) without ever having had a full reset/fresh install done, to troubleshoot in a logical manner requires that it be done.

When variables get changed, renamed, used differently, or with different switches, or different expected behaviors than how the firmware that was originally on the router used them, it is easy to see how things become buggy by not doing a complete reset to factory defaults and reconfiguring by not using a backup config file and also minimally and manually configuring the router so that it is secured and connected to the ISP.

It is different because you keep on upgrading your system (laptop, mobile, tv) for years because you have either bugs or product lifecycle plan forces you to upgrade. That is normal update procedure.
When it comes to havoc(or insane behaviour), then yes disaster recovery procedure applies and you start over. But most of these procedures include often older backup as the starting point anyhow.
Evolving and correcting software include code refactoring, change of data structures, configuration files is normally done in controlled way so things does not brake for others and specifically for smaller deltas as monthly releases of the firmware.
But yes after long time, +3 years down the line change management becomes trickier. Software blocks, parameters gets obsolete making it hard to evolve and at the end are just missed and forgotten.

In this particular case, we are talking about stock firmware update that will happen every month until the desired quality is achieved. It should just work without the rather length procedure. Why? Because its pain in the butt reconfiguring everything, hardening the router, customizing it and potentially screwing up more things than what the new firmware is supposed to fix.

 

[consorts]

disabling DFS works.

exactly where is Dynamic Frequency Selection in the menu tree?

 

[L&LD]

It is different because you keep on upgrading your system (laptop, mobile, tv) for years because you have either bugs or product lifecycle plan forces you to upgrade. That is normal update procedure.
When it comes to havoc(or insane behaviour), then yes disaster recovery procedure applies and you start over. But most of these procedures include often older backup as the starting point anyhow.
Evolving and correcting software include code refactoring, change of data structures, configuration files is normally done in controlled way so things does not brake for others and specifically for smaller deltas as monthly releases of the firmware.
But yes after long time, +3 years down the line change management becomes trickier. Software blocks, parameters gets obsolete making it hard to evolve and at the end are just missed and forgotten.

In this particular case, we are talking about stock firmware update that will happen every month until the desired quality is achieved. It should just work without the rather length procedure. Why? Because its pain in the butt reconfiguring everything, hardening the router, customizing it and potentially screwing up more things than what the new firmware is supposed to fix.

Not disagreeing with you. But in my experience in this field what should 'just work' rarely does. Even for Apple products.

What I'm offering is a way to get to a good/known point because of how things actually work, now.

 

[RMerlin]

exactly where is Dynamic Frequency Selection in the menu tree?

Wireless -> General, 5 GHz page, right by the channel selection setting. The option appears if it's set to Auto channel selection.

 

[AdrianSz]

Not disagreeing with you. But in my experience in this field what should 'just work' rarely does. Even for Apple products.

What I'm offering is a way to get to a good/known point because of how things actually work, now.

We are thankful for procedure, because it also covered some hardening aspects. I have similar for other things.
Its just that I would like to avoid to execute it for every firmware upgrade and as procedure when a bug is spotted.
But of course I execute it as last resort.
Thanks

 

[consorts]

option appears if it's set to Auto channel selection.

i set 11 & 161 which is why i could not find it,
when you live in a nyc apt building it's better
to stick with a fixed channel to push all the
(free isp supplied router) autos away...

thanks again for your time answering the basics

 

[Fifth313ment]

Wireless -> General, 5 GHz page, right by the channel selection setting. The option appears if it's set to Auto channel selection.

Hey Merlin, love your work my friend. I have used it on the AC66 AC86 and now the AX88. But the AX88 is having issues. 5ghz wifi takes like two minutes longer than 2.4Ghz to come on and be connectable or even seen in the list. And the wifi rader doesn't work at all. It shows my 2.4ghz channels and that's it, and even then it doesn't show any 2.4ghz routers around me. I wanted to use all those cool functions but none work. If you have any suggestions. This is the ax88 with your newest 384.11.2 firmware. Thank you again for all your hard work!

 

[FTC]

Hey Merlin, love your work my friend. I have used it on the AC66 AC86 and now the AX88. But the AX88 is having issues. 5ghz wifi takes like two minutes longer than 2.4Ghz to come on and be connectable or even seen in the list. And the wifi rader doesn't work at all. It shows my 2.4ghz channels and that's it, and even then it doesn't show any 2.4ghz routers around me. I wanted to use all those cool functions but none work. If you have any suggestions. This is the ax88 with your newest 384.11.2 firmware. Thank you again for all your hard work!

Hi, first thing is probably because you are using a DFS channel and the router is scanning for radars before using it. Choose a lower band channel (36-48) and the delay won't happen, or choose weather radar freqs (channels 120-128) and the delay will be of 10 mins.
And the second thing, wifi radar does work, but at first it seems like broken, because you must first do some 'data collection' it can be activated in the 'configure tab'.

 

[joe scian]

This is no different than having to reinstall your os (any os) on a computer when it begins to act insane. Same potential type of non-fixable bugs and glitches. Doesn't matter how many people are using their router (or computer) without ever having had a full reset/fresh install done, to troubleshoot in a logical manner requires that it be done.

When variables get changed, renamed, used differently, or with different switches, or different expected behaviors than how the firmware that was originally on the router used them, it is easy to see how things become buggy by not doing a complete reset to factory defaults and reconfiguring by not using a backup config file and also minimally and manually configuring the router so that it is secured and connected to the ISP.

Another kudos for you - I had a strange issue yesterday when upgrading to Alpha 2 from Alpha 1. Everytime I upgraded the Router would report Alpha 1 instead of Alpha 2. Even after factory default reflash. What then happened was that the uploiad of alpha 2 and subsequently alpha 1 would take forever - normally over wifi it would take less than 15 sec to upload and then do its thing of installing firmware over next few minutes. But the upload was at 2% after 10min.
Another symptom - my NEST smoke detector would not connect to 2.4Ghz -even after factory default flash- no matter what I tried. All other 2.4ghz IOT devices all 30 of them - no issues.
So since alpha 1 is currently being notified on the router I did a further factory restore flash, and Jffs format BUT THIS TIME i changed my 2.4Ghx 5.1 and 5.2 SSID names to something other than what i had kept for the last 12 months or more. Presto the NEST Smoke alarm connected fine. I tried to upload Alpha 2 and i had immediate success - uploaded firmware in 10 sec or less - continued with install - rebooted. I then changed my SSIDs for the 3 bands back to their original names and all works just fine.

So I put it to the fact that there was some sort of corruption in NVRAM SSID names that I had been using since day 1. Renaming them cured corruption which also manifested itself as unable to upload firmware via wifi as well as instability for some devices ( NEST) on 2.4. I was then able to return them to original settings without compromising stability of Router.

You have mentioned to do this in your posts and I have 100% proof of it working in practice. Thank you

 

[Fifth313ment]

Hi, first thing is probably because you are using a DFS channel and the router is scanning for radars before using it. Choose a lower band channel (36-48) and the delay won't happen, or choose weather radar freqs (channels 120-128) and the delay will be of 10 mins.
And the second thing, wifi radar does work, but at first it seems like broken, because you must first do some 'data collection' it can be activated in the 'configure tab'.

Nope, on channel 36 on 5ghz. Also now it's showing my 5ghz band but it says, "unable to perfope scan. Showing cached results". In configure I hit the start collection data, let it run for 5 minutes and then stopped and went to view data. Nada, but the 2m4ghz is working.

Also anyone who says all routers are the same is nuts. I had a converted tm1900 into a ac68 and also the newer ac1900 (same as active with faster processor). Both had horrible signal propagation. The 5ghz would die out after two dry wall layers. This new AX88 friggin goes forever. I have signal blocks away from my house!

I also saw a small increase in throughput. I was getting 950Mbps down and 45Mbps up on hardwire and 350Mbps down and 45Mbps upload over wifi. Now I'm getting the same for wired but wifi has increased to a about 450Mbps down. My S8+ is my fastest wifi device and that is slow as it's an AC 2 stream. I connect at 1038Mbps but I only pull the fastest 450Mbps, is this normal? Thanks in advance for the answers.

 

[RMerlin]

Nope, on channel 36 on 5ghz.

If you set it to 160 MHz, it will require access to the DFS channels, which will trigger a scan.

 

[Fifth313ment]

If you set it to 160 MHz, it will require access to the DFS channels, which will trigger a scan.

And that's the ballgame! Yup, that's it. But what about the issues with wifi radar? Not scanning, etc?

 

[Treadler]

My experience.

1) 5ghz, 160 disabled.
Nominate a fixed channel, works fine.

2) Nominate auto channel selection & tick dfs box, works fine. (Aside from choosing the worst possible channel, but, it works).

3) Nominate auto channel selection & leave dfs box unticked, 5 ghz band a no show. Won’t reappear even after a long wait (15 minutes+). Nothing visible in 5ghz for a client to connect to.

 

[Treadler]

And that's the ballgame! Yup, that's it. But what about the issues with wifi radar? Not scanning, etc?

My theory, if you’re getting that message, the band in question isn’t working.

 

[Fifth313ment]

My theory, if you’re getting that message, the band in question isn’t working.

No, it's working fine, albeit with a little wait if I change a router wifi setting or restart the router. Everything in the wifi radar looks like it's working correctly as I use to use the one that is included with ddwrt, which is similar but this implementation looks like it's more detailed.

Also my DNS settings aren't working. I had them working fine on my AC1900 (68u) but on the AX88 no go. I have the ipv6 addresses in the ipv6 section and then I added the cloudflare ipv4 ones and I'm still getting xfinitys own. Also I was reading about adding encrypted dns severs but I'm not sure how? I used the drop down and selected the ipv6 cloudflare ones and then they appeared in the list below and I hit the add button and then applied it. Is there anything I need to put inot the other dettings? Dns over tls, what do I input as tls port? Spkli fingerprint?

Any ideas Merlin about the wifi radar not working on 5ghz scans? Thank you.

 

[RMerlin]

And that's the ballgame! Yup, that's it. But what about the issues with wifi radar? Not scanning, etc?

No idea, that code comes from the Broadcom SDK and is completely closed source.

 

[Fifth313ment]

No idea, that code comes from the Broadcom SDK and is completely closed source.

Also what about the DNS issues? I have both the IPv6 and IPv4 set to cloudflare and neither is working. Do you think it's a bug? Thanks

 

[RMerlin]

Also what about the DNS issues? I have both the IPv6 and IPv4 set to cloudflare and neither is working. Do you think it's a bug? Thanks

What DNS issues?

 

[Fifth313ment]

What DNS issues?

Also my DNS settings aren't working. I had them working fine on my AC1900 (68u) but on the AX88 no go. I have the ipv6 addresses in the ipv6 section and then I added the cloudflare ipv4 ones and I'm still getting xfinitys own. Also I was reading about adding encrypted dns severs but I'm not sure how? I used the drop down and selected the ipv6 cloudflare ones and then they appeared in the list below and I hit the add button and then applied it. Is there anything I need to put inot the other dettings? Dns over tls, what do I input as tls port? Spkli fingerprint?

Above was the post I made a few up. But I have tried with DNS over to and without and both ways with ipv6 and IPv4 the DNS servers are not working. The firmware refuses to use the cloudflare servers and uses my Xfinity ones instead. Thanks

 

[L&LD]

Also my DNS settings aren't working. I had them working fine on my AC1900 (68u) but on the AX88 no go. I have the ipv6 addresses in the ipv6 section and then I added the cloudflare ipv4 ones and I'm still getting xfinitys own. Also I was reading about adding encrypted dns severs but I'm not sure how? I used the drop down and selected the ipv6 cloudflare ones and then they appeared in the list below and I hit the add button and then applied it. Is there anything I need to put inot the other dettings? Dns over tls, what do I input as tls port? Spkli fingerprint?

Above was the post I made a few up. But I have tried with DNS over to and without and both ways with ipv6 and IPv4 the DNS servers are not working. The firmware refuses to use the cloudflare servers and uses my Xfinity ones instead. Thanks

Try just using the defaults. Don't enter anything you don't know.

What is your 'Connect to DNS Server automatically' set to? Set it to 'No' and then enter the DNS servers you want to use.