Hi, I have a WRT1200AC, and ac wireless stopped working. bgn still works. I can see the network on Android devices with good reception, but right after trying to connect the reception disappears.
The Wireless scan in Luci on ac does not find any network eventhough there are ac networks in the neighborhood.
Restart log of the interface looks good:
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: interface state ENABLED->DISABLED
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: AP-DISABLED
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 disabled_11b_rates=0
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.197442] device wlan0 left promiscuous mode
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.202069] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered disabled state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674529.216869] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x40
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674529.324474] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x100
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'wlan0' link is down
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 user.notice mac80211: Failed command: iw phy phy0 set antenna all all
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice netifd: radio0 (2250): command failed: Not supported (-95)
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 user.notice mac80211: Failed command: iw phy phy0 set distance 0
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.err hostapd: Configuration file: /var/run/hostapd-phy0.conf
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674529.790179] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0xffffffff
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.907301] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.914385] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered blocking state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.919837] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered disabled state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.925411] device wlan0 entered promiscuous mode
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.930310] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered blocking state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.info kernel: [674529.935746] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered forwarding state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: interface state UNINITIALIZED->COUNTRY_UPDATE
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: interface state COUNTRY_UPDATE->HT_SCAN
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674529.941994] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x100
Tue Mar 19 15:21:17 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674529.955077] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x40
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674530.178260] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x40
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.info kernel: [674530.348675] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered disabled state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: Switch own primary and secondary channel to get secondary channel with no Beacons from other BSSes
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674530.398470] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x40
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674530.506584] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x100
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 daemon.err hostapd: Using interface wlan0 with hwaddr 00:25:9c:13:f1:9f and ssid "BMO[ac]"
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674530.582611] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x100
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674530.595671] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x42
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.debug kernel: [674530.704749] ieee80211 phy0: change: 0x40
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.info kernel: [674530.890949] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.info kernel: [674530.897501] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered blocking state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 kern.info kernel: [674530.902949] br-lan: port 4(wlan0) entered forwarding state
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: interface state HT_SCAN->ENABLED
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: AP-ENABLED
Tue Mar 19 15:21:18 2019 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'wlan0' link is up
I played with Beacon Interval and DTIM, so I deleted all networks on that radio and tried to create from scratch with defaults.
How is the antenna configuration on this device, I guess the external antenna is ac 5GHz, while the internal one is 2,4GHz bgn?
Hi DFS does not work proper in this driver. what is option dtim_period '3' ?
One more thing you can not change the cuntry code. You have to use what ever cuntry code your router defaults to. eg my router is from france so I have to use fr even tho I am in the UK if I change to GB the driver crashes.
I deleted all SSIDs on ac wifi again and did wifi config. Now the scanning finds neighbor networks again. So I can only use frequencies outside the radar detection because it is not working on my hardware?
Sorry, but why is this restriction? The WRT1200AC and its series is quite a standard Openwrt device. Does DFS work on Linksys stock firmware? Does any of the others WRT1900 or WRT3200 work in the complete ac range?
I mean in Germany there is almost the complete channel range 52 – 64 (5,25 – 5,35 GHz) and 100 – 140 (5,47 – 5,725 GHz) restricted for DFS I learned today. So there isn't much space anymore for non-DFS channels. I thought the switch to 5GHz would give more freedom on channels than over-populated 2,4GHz, but not auto-channel-hopping is required per design, while auto-channel on 2,4GHz is often discouraged from. If all clients do auto-hopping, the whole channel usage won't be more stable and everyone is hopping.
DFS means a mechanism to allow unlicensed devices to use the 5 GHz frequency bands already allocated to radar systems without causing interference to those radars. The concept of DFS is to have the unlicensed device detect the presence of a radar system on the channel they are using and, if the level of the radar is above a certain threshold, vacate that channel and select an alternate channel.
I actually meant, why is the restriction, that this important function doesn't work on my hardware? I can't even use half of the frequencies. Is that working on Linksys stock devices?
It's been a while since I've used Linksys stock, but I'm almost positive that there wasn't even an option to select dfs channels on my wrt1200, meaning there was only 36-48 149-165.
Hi When I use the 5 ghz radio on my wrt1200acm I stick to chan 36. I am sorry I cant be of more help but the driver is by Marvell not OpenWrt we just include it in the build. To send a mesage to the bloke working on the driver go to that link and make a new issue. Link:
The DE region code is not recognized by mwlwifi. See here for more information. You will have to remedy this yourself at a driver level. The issue thread has more information on how.
DFS wasn't really available on any other model apart from the 3200ACM (88W8964 chipset) on the stock Linksys firmware. As a result, the 1200AC & 1900AC(S) has shaky support for it, but at least it is there and it is better than nothing. The radar pulse detection (perhaps only with the 88W8864 chipset as in the 1200AC and 1900AC(S)) has issues in that it is too sensitive/not calibrated correctly against background noise, because it was never intended by Linksys/Belkin to support DFS out of the box. Now, this calibration data or whatever that is causing it to give out false positive radar detection and thus give an unstable 5GHz DFS experience is probably within the proprietary firmware binary blob, and not available for public perusing like the driver interface/hooks as what is available on GitHub. This probably won't be fixed given that Linksys/Belkin will have to re-certify their hardware with the FCC and ETSI, and with 802.11AX coming soon - renders this to 'not happening'.
So for supporting DE region code I would need to patch the driver and recompile the kernel module?
Which region code is working, so I can just use that? EU seems to be available in your linked patch.
Does that mean, Linksys was solving this by just blocking the DFS channels on the WRT1200AC hardware, only providing the few non-DFS channels in the GUI? If so I wouldn't call that device ready for german or european market. Only solution would be to switch to a 3200ACM. I bought the WRT1200AC especially for the 5GHz functionality.
As there are not many 5GHz networks yet I could live with the few non-DFS channels, hoping that other future devices from better manufacturer in the neighborhood will have better support for 5GHz and will be using those DFS channels.
The EU country code does not exist. It is an ISO-reserved country code for special use on EU official business only. If you don't want to recompile the firmware, use the FR country code. I believe 0x30 (EU-ETSI) is tied to FR .
As for your second statement, I wouldn't say that Linksys was blocking it, it was just that the device was never certified for it - so they just never coded it in. While Linksys and mwlwifi share the same proprietary firmware, the driver-wrapper around the binary blob is different in the stock firmware. What's more, is that I'm not even sure if 802.11h (DFS and Transmit Power Control) is required to be 802.11ac certified. Plenty of (extremely cheap) dual-band ISP GPON fiber modem/router combos around my neighborhood (including mine) also don't show DFS availability. Presumably as cost-cutting and time-saving measures from the certification process. So you can say that it isn't ready for the German or European market, but it doesn't matter as long as they still remain Wi-Fi Alliance, ETSI, or FCC certified - if it's good enough for the regulators, it's good enough for the market.
It sucks, I know - but regulators have really cracked down on open source firmware and radios. The choice was locking down the entire router firmware or only locking down the radio, leading us to where we are now. Not being able to fix or add features like we used to be able to on ath9k/ar71xx/ath79. If your next device will still be a WiFi 802.11ac device, mt76 followed by the ath10k chipsets are more open and thus probably have a more stable 5GHz experience. But I'd strongly recommend mt76 since it has the smallest amount of stuff obfuscated by a proprietary radio firmware binary.
I selected the FR country code now, with channel 140 (non DFS), but it's failing:
Thu Mar 21 15:15:09 2019 daemon.warn hostapd: wlan0: IEEE 802.11 Configured channel (140) not found from the channel list of current mode (2) IEEE 802.11a
Thu Mar 21 15:15:09 2019 daemon.warn hostapd: wlan0: IEEE 802.11 Hardware does not support configured channel
Thu Mar 21 15:15:09 2019 daemon.err hostapd: Could not select hw_mode and channel. (-3)
Thu Mar 21 15:15:09 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: interface state COUNTRY_UPDATE->DISABLED
Thu Mar 21 15:15:09 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: AP-DISABLED
Thu Mar 21 15:15:09 2019 daemon.err hostapd: wlan0: Unable to setup interface.
Thu Mar 21 15:15:09 2019 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan0: interface state DISABLED->DISABLED