Struggling with Asus ZenWiFi BE30000 aka 3 node BQ16 Pro bundle

[A011528]

I’ve narrowed down some of the issues to DNS issues as well, if I use quad9s dns, it often messes up shortly after, or a bit after. Using the dns supplied by my isp is sometimes finicky.

I finally settled on cloud flares, and haven’t seen any issues in about 1.5 days now. It’s possible it’s all unrelated but, I’m keeping an eye on it.

I've moved the DNS (somehow defaulted to Adblock again) moved it to Cloud9 and now monitoring, if that fails will trial cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and see if that is any better

 

[Stepalex]

Has there ever been a more botched flagship release by Asus?

I've now upgraded to 3Gbps broadband, no way a wired backhaul is possible in my place, 2 devices with 10Gbps in my network, so BQ16 should be a godsend - yet here I am, sitting on another batch of 4x of them unopened in case I need to return them again, hoping to get a borderline functional firmware before the return window closes...

 

[A011528]

Has there ever been a more botched flagship release by Asus?

I've now upgraded to 3Gbps broadband, no way a wired backhaul is possible in my place, 2 devices with 10Gbps in my network, so BQ16 should be a godsend - yet here I am, sitting on another batch of 4x of them unopened in case I need to return them again, hoping to get a borderline functional firmware before the return window closes...

I have been anticipating the release of these devices for over a year since their initial announcement. Perhaps my expectations were set too high, but they promised to include all the features I required and desired in a device. However, some basic functionalities appear to be buggy. Currently, I am avoiding adjusting advanced settings until the fundamental issues are resolved by Asus. It is concerning that an Ethernet connection is required to register a Sonos device on the network instead of using Wi-Fi (although this might be an issue with Sonos rather than Asus), as these are basic requirements, not complex setups. The occurrence of "DNS" dropouts is unacceptable, as making minor changes should not require a five-minute wait or a reboot to take effect etc

There are aspects of the device that I appreciate: I am fortunate to have a 10Gb ISP connection and can hardwire, allowing for a 10Gb backbone. The coverage is excellent, and when the device functions properly, it is one of the best I have used. Nevertheless, there are still numerous minor yet significant bugs that need to be addressed

 

[A011528]

I’ve narrowed down some of the issues to DNS issues as well, if I use quad9s dns, it often messes up shortly after, or a bit after. Using the dns supplied by my isp is sometimes finicky.

I finally settled on cloud flares, and haven’t seen any issues in about 1.5 days now. It’s possible it’s all unrelated but, I’m keeping an eye on it.

Quick Update: over last 48hrs, I've not experienced any client drops due to "DNS" issue, all devices inc IOS devices are working well (my kids & wife are no longer reading me a riot act). I'm using cloud9. My plan to not adjust any settings for at least 7 days, really make sure this is 100% stable, before i then move to other changes i need.

 

[bkayrac]

Quick Update: over last 48hrs, I've not experienced any client drops due to "DNS" issue, all devices inc IOS devices are working well (my kids & wife are no longer reading me a riot act). I'm using cloud9. My plan to not adjust any settings for at least 7 days, really make sure this is 100% stable, before i then move to other changes i need.

I can verify as well. I went back to quad9-1 and have been okay for a couple days now. Which is odd, but who knows.

 

[stealthops19]

Any suggestions on getting this to work with Kasa Smart Switches? Coming from an Eero Max 7 this has been an extremely frustrating experience.

I've disabled MLO, WiFi 7, set each band with their own SSID, setup an IoT SSID and yet some of the Kasa Smart Switches won't connect. They did once, was able to set them up and everything was OK for most of the day. Then I rebooted the system and they won't connect.

 

[bkayrac]

Any suggestions on getting this to work with Kasa Smart Switches? Coming from an Eero Max 7 this has been an extremely frustrating experience.

I've disabled MLO, WiFi 7, set each band with their own SSID, setup an IoT SSID and yet some of the Kasa Smart Switches won't connect. They did once, was able to set them up and everything was OK for most of the day. Then I rebooted the system and they won't connect.

You have to create your IoT network, and delect using the IoT as a subnet of the main network. And all the older smart switches and what not like ring cameras should connect no problem after youj do that.

It took some time to figure that out, but don't let your IoT be a subnet of your main network, and then you can turn on MLO for backhaul, fronthaul on your main network, and the legacy stuff toss onto the IoT network

 

[garysteel]

You have to create your IoT network, and delect using the IoT as a subnet of the main network. And all the older smart switches and what not like ring cameras should connect no problem after youj do that.

It took some time to figure that out, but don't let your IoT be a subnet of your main network, and then you can turn on MLO for backhaul, fronthaul on your main network, and the legacy stuff toss onto the IoT network

This sounds extremely helpful but i've yet to see clear step by step instructions on doing this, the IOT side and needing to still be part of the main network yet seperate (subNet-how?)

and as to the DNS quad9-1 - what is quad-9 and where in the settings do I insert it ? (as as I type as get the unconscious signal to google it) ....yah..googled it thx (the Quad9) - still interested in the IOT Subnet setting up.

Regards
Gary

 

[bkayrac]

This sounds extremely helpful but i've yet to see clear step by step instructions on doing this, the IOT side and needing to still be part of the main network yet seperate (subNet-how?)

and as to the DNS quad9-1 - what is quad-9 and where in the settings do I insert it ? (as as I type as get the unconscious signal to google it) ....yah..googled it thx (the Quad9) - still interested in the IOT Subnet setting up.

Regards
Gary

When you create a new IoT network when you don't have one, one of the options is to make it a 'subnet' of the main network. You have to uncheck that. My older hardware and cheaper hardware could not even see the network if it was a subnet of the main network.

quad-9 you have to input manually, they are 9.9.9.9 and 149.112.112.112 there are some others here, but https://quad9.net/service/service-addresses-and-features the main two are fine.

They can also be added to dns over tls with the addresses at the link.

 

[rtdent]

After spending 2 months trying to figure out why IOS/iPadOS devices would randomly disconnect I realized the following. IOS/iPadOS devices will only randomly disconnect from a node. When connected to the router all IOS/iPadOS devices would stay connected without any issues. The only fix that has worked for me is to setup the nodes as APs. Keep in mind though, the APs need to be connected to the router via ethernet. It has been about a month since I have been using this setup and I have never experienced any disconnections while using IOS/iPadOS devices.

At your suggestion, I finally did the same thing and had the exact same experience. I converted one of my two BQ16 Pros from an AIMesh Node to an AP, and set it up using the same SSIDs etc. as the primary BQ16 Pro router, and have not had any issues for about a month now. All iOS and macOS devices can roam about the house at will and never experience the issue. The separate IoT network works fine too. Thanks @skypx for the suggestion and the instructions on how to do it! (I did have a little bit of trouble working out that resetting the node to factory default is done by holding the WPS button at power-up, not the RESET button; that was a strange choice on Asus' part.)

 

[garysteel]

At your suggestion, I finally did the same thing and had the exact same experience. I converted one of my two BQ16 Pros from an AIMesh Node to an AP, and set it up using the same SSIDs etc. as the primary BQ16 Pro router, and have not had any issues for about a month now. All iOS and macOS devices can roam about the house at will and never experience the issue. The separate IoT network works fine too. Thanks @skypx for the suggestion and the instructions on how to do it! (I did have a little bit of trouble working out that resetting the node to factory default is done by holding the WPS button at power-up, not the RESET button; that was a strange choice on Asus' part.)

I also followed this advice and never looked back. Thanks to advice here and Skypx

 

[Bandito]

Well, things have been going pretty smoothly for me for the last couple of weeks, but today proved to be problematic.

I first noticed that my iPhone wasn’t getting Internet access, so I switched WiFi off and back on again and it started working for a couple of minutes and then lost its Internet connection again. So, this time I tried pinging the router and everything looked good. I also pinged Google’s DNS servers and they also responded as expected. My work PC seemed unaffected as I had just completed a Teams meeting, but when trying to access another device on the network from my iPhone, it failed. Next, I tried rebooting the iPhone and while it still maintained Internet access, I still couldn’t access the other device on the network.

Since everything seemed to be hit or miss, I decided to reboot the BQ16s. This seems to have resolved the issues for now, but this has been a different problem than what I have experienced in the past. Previously, I would be unable to ping the router or Google’s DNS servers when I lost Internet access. This time all was good with those two services, so I have no idea what would cause Internet access to fail on just some devices.

As it’s now January, I’m hoping there will be another firmware update this month that will further stabilize the network.

[Crossing my fingers]

 

[garysteel]

Well, things have been going pretty smoothly for me for the last couple of weeks, but today proved to be problematic.

I first noticed that my iPhone wasn’t getting Internet access, so I switched WiFi off and back on again and it started working for a couple of minutes and then lost its Internet connection again. So, this time I tried pinging the router and everything looked good. I also pinged Google’s DNS servers and they also responded as expected. My work PC seemed unaffected as I had just completed a Teams meeting, but when trying to access another device on the network from my iPhone, it failed. Next, I tried rebooting the iPhone and while it still maintained Internet access, I still couldn’t access the other device on the network.

Since everything seemed to be hit or miss, I decided to reboot the BQ16s. This seems to have resolved the issues for now, but this has been a different problem than what I have experienced in the past. Previously, I would be unable to ping the router or Google’s DNS servers when I lost Internet access. This time all was good with those two services, so I have no idea what would cause Internet access to fail on just some devices.

As it’s now January, I’m hoping there will be another firmware update this month that will further stabilize the network.

[Crossing my fingers]