[Solved] Wireless Mac Filtering issue

[houmi]

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed a device I didn't recognize in my home named MT7681 which I blocked via Wireless Mac Filtering, this morning I realized that device was a wireless scale I had not used for a while, and trying to setup its wifi, it was failing, so I removed that block from the Asus router once I found out the scale Mac Address was the one I had blocked.

However I still couldn't connect the scale to the router, is it possible the Asus router didn't remove the device and it's still being blocked ?

I ask this, because I have a portable Gli router I set in repeater mode and I was able to connect the scale to that router using internet off my Asus WiFi connection.

 

[HuskyHerder]

Off hand, I would guess the scale maybe isn't compatible with the WiFi you chose WEP,WPA2 etc or maybe the 2.4 or 5G band. Possible it hates Smart Connect (SC) if your using it. I know a lot of my devices hate "SC".

Is the Gli using the same SSID and passphrase as the ASUS ?

I guess it's possible the block was not removed. Have you rebooted the ASUS ?

 

[houmi]

Off hand, I would guess the scale maybe isn't compatible with the WiFi you chose WEP,WPA2 etc or maybe the 2.4 or 5G band. Possible it hates Smart Connect (SC) if your using it. I know a lot of my devices hate "SC".

Is the Gli using the same SSID and passphrase as the ASUS ?

I guess it's possible the block was not removed. Have you rebooted the ASUS ?

So the scale was working before the block with my Asus router & AImesh node on 2.4 -- both are AC1900P (no SC afaik)

The GLi uses a different SSID & Passphrase, it's basically a portable router I use when I travel to connect to Hotel Wifi or Hotspots, it's basically a repeater so all the devices connected to it are hidden from the main gateway. That tells me that my Asus routers might still be blocking the scale and yep I did reboot all the routers after the change.

I have started to look in var/log just in case...

 

[houmi]

So something interesting - I decided to take the scale downstairs so it's closer to my router and not on the AIMesh node, and I was able to set it up there (making sure the phone and the scale ios app are also connected to that router and not the AIMesh node)

It's possible the AIMesh node wasn't updated and was still rejecting it ?

 

[Squall Leonhart]

turn off airtime fairness

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

So something interesting - I decided to take the scale downstairs so it's closer to my router and not on the AIMesh node, and I was able to set it up there (making sure the phone and the scale ios app are also connected to that router and not the AIMesh node)

It's possible the AIMesh node wasn't updated and was still rejecting it ?

Were you trying to connect to a Guest SSID? AiMesh nodes don't propagate Guest due to security (isolation) restraints.
Your repeater would not have that restriction if it was connected to the Guest SSID.

 

[houmi]

turn off airtime fairness

it was already off.

Were you trying to connect to a Guest SSID? AiMesh nodes don't propagate Guest due to security (isolation) restraints.
Your repeater would not have that restriction if it was connected to the Guest SSID.

No Guest SSID... regular connection and the repeater was connected to the main Wifi (2.4 Ghz) as I programmed it that way. So the scale MAC ID was hidden basically from the AIMesh Node.

I tested the scale a few times trying to connect to AIMesh Node without the repeater and it didn't work of the Node and when I connected it to the router downstairs, it connected finally.

Something fishy going on here, as if the Mac ID filtering whitelist didn't get propagated from the router to the AIMesh Node.

 

[bsdsource]

However I still couldn't connect the scale to the router, is it possible the Asus router didn't remove the device and it's still being blocked ?

Possibly. I would export your configuration files and use WRT Settings to open up the files to see if you can find the blocked MAC address. Or you could just show your NVRAM settings via the console. Either way see if you can find the blocked MAC address. You may have to manually recommit the specific NVRAM variable without the MAC address you no longer want blocked.

The NVRAM variable might be wl_maclist_x. I didn't really get a chance to look.

From the console:
nvram show | grep wl_maclist_x

I don't use AIMESH so I don't know if each router/node has it's own NVRAM setting or how that works in the AIMESH setup. This might be the case though. Maybe the node you normally connect to has it blocked.

 

[sfx2000]

Off hand, I would guess the scale maybe isn't compatible with the WiFi you chose WEP,WPA2 etc or maybe the 2.4 or 5G band. Possible it hates Smart Connect (SC) if your using it. I know a lot of my devices hate "SC".

Airtime Fairness can be problematic for some devices...

 

[houmi]

Possibly. I would export your configuration files and use WRT Settings to open up the files to see if you can find the blocked MAC address. Or you could just show your NVRAM settings via the console. Either way see if you can find the blocked MAC address. You may have to manually recommit the specific NVRAM variable without the MAC address you no longer want blocked.

The NVRAM variable might be wl_maclist_x. I didn't really get a chance to look.

From the console:
nvram show | grep wl_maclist_x

I don't use AIMESH so I don't know if each router/node has it's own NVRAM setting or how that works in the AIMESH setup. This might be the case though. Maybe the node you normally connect to has it blocked.

Thanks for the nvram command - I went and looked in both and the value was not set.

I wonder if it's possible that when I added the scale to the bottom router, then it went and got propagated to the mesh node as well, it's also possible that the scale is still using the bottom router and not connecting to the top mesh node.

Unfortunately there is no way for me to find out via the admin gui which router it's connected to, since when it comes up, it's only active for a few seconds then goes dormant, unless there is a way I can look it up in the log files in the routers.

 

[bsdsource]

Did you figure it out? Did you inspect the entire NVRAM for your scale MAC address not just the specific NRAM variable I suggested?

nvram show | grep 00:00:00:00:00

I do find it odd that it connected before but now it doesn't after removing the MAC filter. Like there is a residual issue in NVRAM.

If you do figure it out, post your finding and change the subject for this post to [Solved] Wireless MAC filtering issue.

 

[houmi]

Did you figure it out? Did you inspect the entire NVRAM for your scale MAC address not just the specific NRAM variable I suggested?

nvram show | grep 00:00:00:00:00

I do find it odd that it connected before but now it doesn't after removing the MAC filter. Like there is a residual issue in NVRAM.

If you do figure it out, post your finding and change the subject for this post to [Solved] Wireless MAC filtering issue.

No it works now, I checked nvram show command and dumped it to a file and checked it out on both the router and mesh and nothing... The only thing that has changed recently as a variable is I believe my routers have auto-updated with a new firmware update: 3.0.0.4.384_45149-g467037b - so maybe in that process the nvram got updated. If something like this happens in the future I'll post here... thanks for your help.