5Ghz network fail on Newfi3

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I'm having issues with getting my 5Ghz channel to come up on my Newfi3. I'm on 18.06.8 (and had tried the 19 release, but had other issues) and the 5GHz channel initially came up and worked (albeit poorly) on the 36 channel with 80Mhz width (WPA2, Auto for encryption). But then when I tried to find a better channel (due to the poor throughput), I cannot get the radio to come back online. When I look at the system log, I see error messages, but I'm not sure what action to take. Help?


hu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 user.notice mac80211: Failed command: iw phy phy1 set antenna all all
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.err hostapd: Configuration file: /var/run/hostapd-phy1.conf
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 kern.info kernel: [ 1863.351352] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan1: link is not ready
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: INTERFACE-ENABLED
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: INTERFACE-DISABLED
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: Could not configure driver mode
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice hostapd: nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan1 disabled_11b_rates=0
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211 driver initialization failed.
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: interface state UNINITIALIZED->DISABLED
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-DISABLED
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: CTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.err hostapd: hostapd_free_hapd_data: Interface wlan1 wasn't started
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice netifd: radio1 (10952): WARNING (wireless_add_process): executable path /usr/sbin/wpad does not match process 8123 path ()
Thu Mar 19 16:01:12 2020 daemon.notice netifd: radio1 (10952): Device setup failed: HOSTAPD_START_FAILED
2

Well, I got it going - sort of. I don't think changes made to the config via Luci are fully deployed when applied. I restarted the router and the interface came back up - on a new channel. Now the issue is terrible performance, which was the reason I tried a new channel to begin with. When I run a DSLreports speed test, the speed varies wildly from 160Mbps down to 100Kbps. Not sure what is causing that. On 2.4GHz I get steady performance of 80Mbps on a 20MHz wide channel. Something wonky is going on with the 5GHz radio.