I have x3 RT3200's setup in an 802.11s mesh. For months it has been 100% stable, but now recently either one of my two extension nodes becomes inaccessible even though the other stations list the inaccessible node as still connected. Rebooting my main router restores connectivity, but then eventually one of the two extensions nodes will again become inaccessible. By inaccessible I mean I cannot access the web interface or ping the affected node.
I believe this issue has surfaced as a result of a change reflected in a fairly recent snapshot.
The receive and send packets seem to increase during the period of inaccessibility (which I don't understand)? See the first station (presently inaccessible) rx/tx packets increase:
Any suggestions for how to diagnose / resolve this issue?
I can view the log of an affected node by rebooting the main node, which restores connectivity to the previously affected node, but then I do not know what to look for.
I had an issue a few days ago with my 802.11s too, can execute this command and post the output here?
iw dev wlan1 mpath dump
I saw new routes where added with NEXTHOP being 00:00:00:00:00:00, which is incorrect, eventually my devices were loosing connectivity. So let's find out.
So the two different nodes are listed there by the 5Ghz WiFi MAC address. Each entry has the node's 5Ghz MAC repeated twice. I think the same is shown on each of the other nodes for the respective remaining two nodes out of the three. Does this look right?
@smileys29 may have the same issue that I am experiencing with mesh at the moment.
What dictates which node is the master node in mesh to which other two nodes connects? How can I force one particular node to be the master node? Since it looks like the one that breaks is the one to which the other two connects.
Maser node? If you are utilising HWMP there is no master node. Each node tracks and discovers other nodes and adds them to the routing table. Nodes connect to each other choosing the "best radio path". That's why they are marked as Mesh Stations (mesh STAs) or ad-hoc stations.
Interesting. I am going by what my android phone reports using 'WiFi analyzer'. It shows 3x 5Ghz access points (one for each node) and a hidden SSID. The hidden SSID has a mac address of one of the nodes. I assumed that it is this that the other two nodes connect to?
Yeah any idea why the same MAC shows up twice in path? Wouldn't you expect path from one MAC to another MAC? Trying to find another monitoring tool to see if I see the other hidden SSID's. Right now I only see the one. Maybe this is a problem.
Yeah, nah, I don't know why. I was confused at first to and check online to see if for others was like that, and it was. If I check LuCI, I see this downstairs:
Actually now I see all three hidden SSID's on WifiInfoView. So that's reassuring.
The weird thing is that when one node becomes inaccessible, it is still listed by the other nodes as connected and even bytes transferred increase:
So like even now during messaging my 2nd extension node has become inaccessible. It seems it becomes inaccessible following a period of inactivity. So perhaps it is a power saving issue or something?