Hello, dear forum participants. In OpenWRT, when scanning a wireless network (for access points), the created access point disappears for a short time. That is, when I log into a wireless network from my smartphone in the OpenWRT router environment, and then click "scan wireless network", at this moment there is a brief interruption in the operation of the created access point to which the smartphone is connected, after which the scan tab in the smartphone freezes and does not display the scanned network map. If you do the same thing, but from a PC via a LAN connection, then there will be no problems. Is it possible to ensure that the access point does not turn off for a short time while scanning the wireless network? Or maybe we should shorten the time interval for disabling the access point when scanning the wireless network? So that the access point does not have time to completely disconnect from the smartphone? Is there any way to fix this in the configuration? After all, if you create an access point in your smartphone, it won't disable the connected client while scanning the wireless network. In addition, if you create an access point on a Windows computer using a Wi-Fi adapter, the access point will also not disappear when scanning the wireless network card. Why does it disappear in OpenWRT? Is there any way to solve this problem? If you run the command "Save this network and connect to it automatically" on your smartphone, it won't help.
After that, we are waiting for the scanned network card, at this point the access point is interrupted and the smartphone loses the network, respectively, the "scan" tab freezes. -
Also, the channel analyzer does not work if you watch it through your smartphone :
If you are using a computer to control the router via the web interface, everything is fine. It turns out that these functions are useless in OpenWRT when using a smartphone. But this problem could be solved, as the router's mobility is lost. Imagine if the "scan wireless network" function worked via a smartphone, the router could be connected to any of the available points in the hotel, from other places where it is impossible to connect a LAN cable to the WAN port of the router. After all, a router with OpenWRT could be fully used offline and made completely wireless. But unfortunately, the "Scan Wireless Network" function does not work via smartphone. I think developers should think about this problem.
Since you seem to be thinking about it, why won't you solve it ?
Unfortunately, I do not have the necessary knowledge, so I turned to the forum of knowledgeable people, perhaps someone has the necessary information. I think that the developers have all the necessary knowledge to solve this problem.
[quote="frollic, post:5, topic:231851"]
[/quote] It didn't help, I click "Scan by radio" - as soon as the scanning starts, the access point in the smartphone immediately disappears for about 5 seconds, respectively, the scanning stops in the interface of the web browser that is installed on the smartphone. There is no such problem on the computer, but there is a problem on the smartphone, I checked on two different smartphones. To scan the network, you need to connect your laptop to the router, because the laptop does not have time to lose the access point in 2-3 seconds after it is disconnected and then turned on. If you access the web interface from your smartphone, in "Services" > "Radio Scanning", then during scanning, the router with OpenWRT briefly disables the access point for literally 2-3 seconds, and because of this, the data from the analysis of scanned networks does not have time to load and display in the web interface, because the smartphone loses the access point. access. Is there any way to ensure that the access point does not disconnect during the scan? Or maybe reduce the access point interruption time, or reduce the scan time - this should help... But how and where to set it up, I'm asking for help.
Yes, it is likely technically possible. But also likely to be quite difficult, and depend upon undocumented commands that are different for each manufacturer's WiFi chipset.
Who is this 'we'?- you are free to research and implement the necessary changes to OpenWrt code to do this. If you are unable, perhaps you can pay someone to do it. If you are unwilling to do that, then maybe begging/demanding someone else to do the work for you is an approach. I don't know how effective that will be.
It seems your understanding of how WiFi connections work is worse than mine, and mine is not good.
As I said above, yes, it is likely technically possible. But also likely to be quite difficult, and quite possibly depend upon undocumented commands that are different for each manufacturer's WiFi chipset. (If such commands are available).
The smartphone and Windows PC are likely using a technique called 'passive scanning', which depends on features in WiFI chipsets that are not documented to an extent that people producing OpenWrt code can use. Information about Active and Passive scanning can be found here:
There might be, if the WiFi chipset in your Access Point supports passive scanning and someone writes the OpenWrt code to support it. I'm not aware of any such development, but I haven't looked particularly.
Thanks for the reply. The problem may be in the chipset of my router's radio module, however, if I access the web interface from my computer using the TP-Link Wi-Fi adapter, the scan works fine. But the smartphone resets the network when the access point disappears for 2-3 seconds. Theoretically, if you reduce the scanning interval, then I think the problem will be solved. The scanning process takes too long, which leads to disconnection of the client (smartphone) because the access point is not responding during the scan. If you shorten the scan time, the problem should be solved. But how to do it? Problem. Sorry for this translation of words, I don't speak English, I write and read through a translator, so the translation sometimes loses its meaning, I also write "I", and the translation translates as "You".
I recommend that you teach yourself more about how WiFi works before you start to suggest technical solutions for other people to produce to resolve the issue you are experiencing.
I understand that this is frustrating, and not what you want to read or hear. Your questions and suggestions show that you lack the level of background knowledge to be able to participate effectively in developing OpenWrt software. This is a shame, but you can teach yourself to come up to that level, and in the meanwhile you can contribute in other ways, such as writing documentation to help people new to the software; and later, perhaps test software produced by others and provide feedback. You can possibly also write documentation in your best-known language to help other people who do not speak or read English.
Often you will find that other people have experienced the same problems that you have, and it is worth searching for this to understand their experiences and read what replies and other information they have found before possibly asking the same questions yourself.
Good luck with your researches, and welcome to the OpenWrt community.
You give absolutely wrong advice when the solution is very close. I installed the OpenWrt firmware version "21.02.7" and everything worked! In the version from 23.05.x to the latest version - it does not work! So who does not understand this problem - you or me?
It worked. Firmware versions before "21.02.7" - works. Firmware versions from "23.05.x" - does not work. Not only I found the problem, but also a person from GitHub. He had a similar problem. He wrote that in the old version of the OpenWrt firmware, the time spent scanning networks was much less than in the newer ones. What I thought, try to install the old version of the firmware, the result is higher. Everything worked.
I understand that replacing the new firmware with the old firmware is not quite a way out of the situation, but no one gave me any good advice, I rolled back to the old firmware version "21.02.7" and network scanning worked on the smartphone. On versions 23.05.x to 24.10 - does not work. Platform mt76x8
You're now running an unsupported (EOLed) release.
My firmware "Xiaomi Mi Router 4C" version of OpenWRT 21.02.7 is working fine, scanning wireless networks in the smartphone browser is not interrupted, the access point of the router in the smartphone does not disappear during network scanning. In new versions of the OpenWRT firmware (starting from 23 and up to the latest version), the problem repeats itself. The problem was solved by me - upgrading to an older version of OpenWRT (21.02.7). However, I think the problem can be solved on the latest firmware versions as well. But so far, no one has given any useful advice on how to solve the problem on the latest firmware version 23... 24. Rolled back to version 21.02.7 Thanks.
I'm glad you found a solution that works for you.
Perhaps you can find out why the old version works better than the new one for you, and share that here. You probably want to be running a supported version and not an End Of Life (EOL) version of OpenWrt on your hardware, but you have the freedom to choose.