Unstable WiFi on both RT-AC68U and RT-AC87U, forced to reconnect wireless clients

[sfx2000]

In terms of our clients both iPhones have been through iOS 8.1.X, various iOS 8.2 and now on the latest iOS 8.3 BETA so they been through various software editions with various WiFi drivers, same goes for the iPad Air 2.

The MacBooks have been on Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 and 10.10.3 with the same issues. I have also tested with a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Nokia Lumia 930 having the same issues.

Check the nvitems for 11h as indicated in RMerlin's excellent FAQ - enabling them may solve a lot of issues...

iOS 8 and OSx 10.10 - both have been pretty painful on WiFi issues - most don't have issues, but some do, and when they do, they're persistent and a big challenge from a user perspective.

 

[DaveMishSr]

Greetings,

I'm having some stability issues with both Asus RT-AC68U and RT-AC87U on both the 2,4GHz and 5,0GHz band.

It has nothing to do with range or the signal itself, my clients are bascially spread out within 5-15 meters and all have great singal strength and quality. The bandwidth and connection itself is working very well on all the devices.


My problem is that both cellphones (iPhone 6 + 6 Plus), our iPad Air 2 and our two MacBook Pro's (one 13" Retina and another 15" Retina) seems to completely drop the WAN connection using the WiFi.

They dont drop the WiFi and still have great connection but WAN connections get slow or not working at all and a simple disconnect and reconnect fixes this emiddietly.


I have tried with the latest official Asus firmware, and with both 378.50 and 376.49_0-5. Its the same issue with all of them.


The one thing I've tried thus far is to run WiFi Analyser (Android) and pinpointed the best channels for both 2,4GHz and 5,0GHz in my area as the "auto" function doesnt seem to be doing anything. But this haven't done anything to improve upon this issue. I have also tried to disable and enable various advanced features to no avail.


In terms of our clients both iPhones have been through iOS 8.1.X, various iOS 8.2 and now on the latest iOS 8.3 BETA so they been through various software editions with various WiFi drivers, same goes for the iPad Air 2.

The MacBooks have been on Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 and 10.10.3 with the same issues. I have also tested with a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Nokia Lumia 930 having the same issues.



None of my desktop clients running cable is having any issues at all. What might be the source of my problems? Seems odd that both routers would be defective? And they have worked for quite some time before, but not as of the past 1-2 months or so. I'm not 100% sure when this issue started to kick in to be honest, but now wireless clients needs to reconnect at least 4-5 times per day making the WiFi extremely unstable and forcing us to disconnect them altogether as many push notifications on our phones etc rely on working WAN over WiFi for us to get notifications at all and we don't want to risk our phones being in our pockets with WAN bugs for several hours until we notices.

I don't know if this has been mentioned or if you have already tried it but here goes. Try changing the DTIM setting to "1" (Wireless|Professional) for both bands. This sends out a DTIM packet on each beacon rather than every 3rd beacon as is the default setting. That keeps your clients from sleeping and that appears to be one of the issues with Apple products. Be aware though that lowering the DTIM setting will make your clients consume more power as they will spend little, if any, time sleeping.

Also, disable STP if you haven't already. My go-to-move is to do a reset to factory defaults and disable STP immediately. That enables flow acceleration and also allows my 2.4GHz clients to connect at 40MHz bandwidth (they will only connect at 20MHz otherwise). Then I enable telnet and overclock to 1200/800 and go from there.

 

[Haggster]

I don't know if this has been mentioned or if you have already tried it but here goes. Try changing the DTIM setting to "1" (Wireless|Professional) for both bands. This sends out a DTIM packet on each beacon rather than every 3rd beacon as is the default setting. That keeps your clients from sleeping and that appears to be one of the issues with Apple products. Be aware though that lowering the DTIM setting will make your clients consume more power as they will spend little, if any, time sleeping.

Also, disable STP if you haven't already. My go-to-move is to do a reset to factory defaults and disable STP immediately. That enables flow acceleration and also allows my 2.4GHz clients to connect at 40MHz bandwidth (they will only connect at 20MHz otherwise). Then I enable telnet and overclock to 1200/800 and go from there.

Sorry for sounding ignorant, but what exactly is STP and where do you enable or disable it?

Thanks a lot for the advice above!

EDIT: ok, I actually found out what it is and how to switch it on/off... if you're using a modem as a bridge and connect that to the WAN port of the RT-AC87 (and let the AC87 take care of the PPPoE login) then it'd be a bad idea to disable STP, correct?

 

[Veldkornet]

I have loaded Hoggmes custom fork of Asus Merlin as it features the capability of disabling regulations such as 802.11h and 802.11d before I consider starting to modify the bootloader.. Thus far it seems to be doing wonders, nothing has yet to hang and the 802.11ac connection towards our MacBook Pro's seems much healthier.

I have Asuswrt-merlin 378.53 on my RT-AC87U, and by default on 2.4Ghz 802.11d is disabled, and on 5Ghz 802.11h is disabled by default. However, I seem to be having the same problems with all of our Apple devices. I mostly use my iPhone 5s though, and all goes great until all of a sudden the WAN just sort of dies... IT's still connected to WiFi, but the internet is just dead slow. Usually the quickest resolution is to just disable and re-enable the WiFi on my iPhone.

Pity, because everything works great except this...

 

[bodean]

Has this issue been fixed in recent firmwares?

 

[jimbojames79]

I am also having this issue. Running 3.0.0.4.380_3264. Has anyone been able to resolve it?

 

[huygens_25]

In EU Asus enforces 802.11h. However, Macs tend to work better if you also enable 802.11d, so you need to set the reg mode to 802.11d+h on the Professional tab (it defaults to just 802.11h).

Is this option available on the official firmware also or only on your Merlin fork?

I'm asking because I don't find it in the professional tab and I'm asking myself if the feature was remove from newer firmware or was never there to begin with.

 

[RMerlin]

Is this option available on the official firmware also or only on your Merlin fork?

I'm asking because I don't find it in the professional tab and I'm asking myself if the feature was remove from newer firmware or was never there to begin with.

This option is no longer configurable, since the portion of the code controlling it is now closed source.

 

[huygens_25]

This option is no longer configurable, since the portion of the code controlling it is now closed source.

Thank you for the information. Then I still need to find out why on my iPhone and iPad, I often lose the wifi for several tens of seconds. It doesn't happen on the android phone of my wife nor on her Mac. And it also doesn't happen on my laptop (Win7+Linux).
So a problem pure iOS-ish.

 

[Georg Armbruster]

I'm also facing this issue... I'm running two RT-AC87U (380.61) in two offices and both face the same behaviour - Iphones and Ipads loose their connections but will reconnect a couple of seconds later. (sidenote: Originally I had this with a certain Intel chipset as well, but disabling some power saving options in their local client settings solved this).

For the Apple-products: I tried various different settings but to no avail. I'm willing to try new things - if you have an idea I'd be glad to hear it!

Kind regards
George

Things I tried so far (among others):
- assigned a fixed channel
- reduced channel width
- disabled STP
- reduced DTIM to 1
- increased RTS threshold to 2306
- activated WMM APSD
- deactivated beamforming both types

 

[DT1]

Switch off WMM APSD for both Wi-Fi (2,4 and 5 GHz in Professional tab) on both routers. All other settings by default. It helped me with tons of iOS devices and Asus routers.

 

[Georg Armbruster]

Switch off WMM APSD for both Wi-Fi (2,4 and 5 GHz in Professional tab) on both routers. All other settings by default. It helped me with tons of iOS devices and Asus routers.

Didn't help in my settings though Any other ideas floating aroung - everything is gladly appreciated!

 

[bandit8623]

Both my wife's and my htc 10 will not stay connected via 5ghz either . Seems setting to N only helps a little . Also my older LG g2 disconnects too just not as frequent. 68u here

 

[bandit8623]

I fixed my 68u. I cleared nvramandfactory reset. then updated to latest firmware . Then factory reset again. Now all 2.4 and 5g have been connected since the update yesterday !

 

[L&LD]

I fixed my 68u. I cleared nvramandfactory reset. then updated to latest firmware . Then factory reset again. Now all 2.4 and 5g have been connected since the update yesterday !

I wish everyone would do that before chasing their tails on most likely bogus issues.

Glad to here it worked for you.

(Btw, a reset before you flashed wasn't 'technically' needed).

 

[bandit8623]

I wish everyone would do that before chasing their tails on most likely bogus issues.

Glad to here it worked for you.

(Btw, a reset before you flashed wasn't 'technically' needed).

So it turns out problems starting coming back after I reinabled ipv6. Turned off ipv6 and all us good again. I'm using native mode with Comcast . Firmware issue ?

 

[L&LD]

So it turns out problems starting coming back after I reinabled ipv6. Turned off ipv6 and all us good again. I'm using native mode with Comcast . Firmware issue ?

Guess? Comcast issue.

 

[bandit8623]

Guess? Comcast issue.

Doubtful since I was having the same issues when I had centurylink too.

 

[bandit8623]

Guess? Comcast issue.

Also all 2.4 ghz clients work fine no disconnects .

 

[L&LD]

I don't know. Lots of ISP's are not up to snuff with IPv6, even today.