I have an iPhone 11 that frequently loses WiFi connectivity from my RT3200 configured as a dumb AP. Other devices do not experience this (newer and older iOS devices, miscellaneous laptops, etc).
This RT3200 is running a snapshot I complied a few days ago, but the losing connectivity has been pretty constant ever since I switched to using the RT3200. Prior to the RT3200, I was using a Netgear R7800 and I did not experience these disconnects on this particular iPhone 11.
Here is an example output from logread
with time stamps that correspond to the disconnection:
Sun Feb 27 08:02:45 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:02:45 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Sun Feb 27 08:02:47 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)
At the time that occurred, the screen was on, and I was using the phone. I noticed the WiFi symbol change to LTE. The behavior stabilized a bit but came back about 15 minutes later as you can see in the more complete logread
output:
more complete logread output
Sun Feb 27 07:34:35 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 2)
Sun Feb 27 07:34:35 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-CONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 07:34:35 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)
Sun Feb 27 07:34:35 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: EAPOL-4WAY-HS-COMPLETED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:02:45 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:02:45 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Sun Feb 27 08:02:47 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)
Sun Feb 27 08:08:14 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 2)
Sun Feb 27 08:08:14 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-CONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:08:14 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)
Sun Feb 27 08:08:14 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: EAPOL-4WAY-HS-COMPLETED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:08:30 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:08:30 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Sun Feb 27 08:08:31 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)
Sun Feb 27 08:09:07 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Sun Feb 27 08:09:07 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 2)
Sun Feb 27 08:09:07 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-CONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:09:07 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)
Sun Feb 27 08:09:07 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: EAPOL-4WAY-HS-COMPLETED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:10:30 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:10:30 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Sun Feb 27 08:10:31 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)
Sun Feb 27 08:15:39 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Sun Feb 27 08:15:39 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 2)
Sun Feb 27 08:15:39 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-CONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:15:39 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)
Sun Feb 27 08:15:39 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: EAPOL-4WAY-HS-COMPLETED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:30:27 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1-1: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 08:30:27 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Sun Feb 27 08:30:28 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1-1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)
Sun Feb 27 09:34:50 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA xx:xx:xx IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 3)
Sun Feb 27 09:34:50 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-CONNECTED xx:xx:xx
Sun Feb 27 09:34:50 2022 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA xx:xx:xx WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)
Sun Feb 27 09:34:50 2022 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: EAPOL-4WAY-HS-COMPLETED xx:xx:xx
/etc/config/wireless
config wifi-device 'radio0'
option type 'mac80211'
option path 'platform/18000000.wmac'
option channel '1'
option band '2g'
option htmode 'HT20'
option disabled '1'
config wifi-device 'radio1'
option type 'mac80211'
option path '1a143000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0'
option band '5g'
option country 'US'
option beacon_int '101'
option cell_density '1'
option htmode 'HE80'
option channel '149'
config wifi-iface 'wifinet2'
option device 'radio1'
option mode 'ap'
option encryption 'sae'
option dtim_period '3'
option wpa_disable_eapol_key_retries '1'
option ssid 'name'
option key 'xxx'
option ieee80211w '2'
option network 'lan'
config wifi-iface 'wifinet3'
option device 'radio1'
option mode 'ap'
option encryption 'sae-mixed'
option dtim_period '3'
option wpa_disable_eapol_key_retries '1'
option ssid 'guestname'
option key 'xxx'
option ieee80211w '2'
option network 'guest'
config wifi-iface 'wifinet4'
option device 'radio1'
option mode 'ap'
option dtim_period '3'
option wpa_disable_eapol_key_retries '1'
option ssid 'anothername'
option encryption 'psk2+ccmp'
option key 'xxx'
option ieee80211w '1'
option disabled '1'
Finding this wiki page, I tried applying option disassoc_low_ack '0'
to all the wi-fi interfaces. In doing so, I found that an iPhone 13 began experiencing the same wifi dropping so I removed those lines.
Instead, I disabled cell density coverage option cell_density '0'
and am testing that out.