OpenWRT 21.02.1: WPA3 Support not working?

Hi all,
Due to my ongoing issues with a Netgear 6100, OpenWRT 19.07.8 and 5GHz ("ath10k-problem") I bought a "supported" Linksys WRT3200ACM-EU and installed the latest OpenWRT 21.02.1.
To my dismay and negative surprise, the experience had been anything but smooth, and finally I had a major show stopping problem: On both 2.4G (radio1) and 5GHz (radio0), clients could connect and associate, would receive an IP address from the router and were able to ping the router itself and the "Internet" (8.8.8.8). The same was possible from the cabled LAN station accessing the router.
But after a few minutes, Internet connectivity on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz WLAN went down, Wireshark showing that ARP requests by the WLAN-clients for the router's gateway IP were no longer answered. On the LAN station, this problem did not happen. After some try and error, wrestling with an unresponsive LuCI and a number of reboots (SSH login from the LAN station always worked) I have narrowed it down to the use of WPA3 (or WPA2-WPA3 compatibility mode). All my clients (Linux labtop with openSuSE 15.3, Android phone with Android 11, Apple phone with iOS 15.2) do support WPA3, but only after I down-configured the WLAN security on the router to WPA2 (personal) on both 2.4 and 5Ghz , would the WLAN connections and the IP connectivity of the WLAN clients stay up (now over 15h).
Does anyone have experience on using WPA3 with OpenWRT 21.02.1 ? Any obvious caveats I may have missed ? Tipps and Tricks ?
Thanks, Thomas

WPA3 support is probably a no go due to the mwlwifi firmware being closed source and not being updated for sometime. In addition, there has been specific issues with the WRT3200ACM on 21.02 related to the wireless radios

There was a recent commit that fixed what looked to be a regression between 19.07 and 21.02, but it's currently only present in snapshot builds, the 21.02.2 release will have the fix.

Not something you want to hear but you are likely to have many issues with WPA3 on WRT3200ACM you are best to avoid it.

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Hi James,

Not something you want to hear
I am happy to hear any relevant input :wink:
So OK, WPA3 is a minefield and a do-not-go-there area. Not much of a bother, I am currently happy my 5GHz WLAN connection is now stable.
PS: I still had to apply the fix posted in "https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/enfsrm/openwrt_on_linksys_wrt3200acm_fyi_you_may_find" to make 5GHz work, if that's of any interest.

On a side note: I had serious trouble with LuCI when manipulating in the "Wireless" section: LuCI would hang, or time out citing missing "HRX" and similar response, and one time claiming possible corruption of the main LuCI configuration file, which on manual inspection was just fine. Basically any manipulation on the 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks and their hardware (radio0 and radoi1) required a reboot, as LuCI became unusable. I have screenshots of 2 such cases and full log of one of the two cases. If there is interest, I can post it somewhere suitable.

I'm not an expert so I can't really say around the issues with LuCI, but just highlighting that the WRT3200ACM has a very troubled history in regards to the wireless radios generally, so it's not unexpected. You will absolutely want to avoid WPA3, because the firmware and driver haven't been updated in a long time, there's a long complicated history and story behind how we got to this point.

I have seen that problem reported on Reddit before, I have a UK model, but have never had an issues like that, so I don't know if it's a different hardware revision/variant.

What I would say based on recent findings and events is that any of the current 21.02 and 21.02.1 releases are probably not going to be a great experience for the WRT3200ACM as far as wireless goes. Running 21.02 snapshot has the fix for a regression which was causing clients to drop out regularly. Until 21.02.2 is released officially, I'd potentially run a 21.02 snapshot build but it might not be a magic bullet, there are reports that wireless behaviour can still be iffy. Although this even goes back before 21.02. It doesn't help that certain clients i.e. iPhone seem to be more sensitive to it too.

Hi James,
Thanks for the detailed info, I keep my eyes on the currently-appearing-to-be-stable 5GHz WLAN connection. I went so far as to drop the backup 2.4GHz connection, so any problems should be pretty obvious pretty fast :slightly_smiling_face:
And I am happy to wait for 21.02.2.

No worries, there's a few threads here on the forum of a lot of discussion around wireless issues on 21.02 with a lot more detail and comments from developers and much more experienced individuals than myself, but I've just tried to summarise the situation.

I'm potentially going to try 21.02.2 when it gets released, given 19.07 branch goes EOL in March 2022. I've been deliberately holding off and I'm not exactly looking forward to it, given the wireless related issues and the whole DSA migration aspect.

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