Tested version 4.14.115 : 5Ghz big problems with Wr1200JS & Xaomi R3G
I have recompiled an old version 4.14.102 and fine …
Hey @tmomas does the default logging level on the OpenWrt satisfy this? When looking at the System Logs I don't see anything really happening of note. Only that devices are connecting and nothing else.
Is there a better way to get logs out?
Did you test with Apple devices? What were the problems you encountered?
There are no spaces in the SSID, just upper and lower case characters (I just changed it for posting publicly here).
Only using lowercase characters with a length of 18 characters total.
I understand that this lowers the channel bandwidth to 40MHz versus 80MHz, do you know if Apple or older WiFi clients have trouble connecting when using 80 vs 40?
This post over at Ubiquiti seems to indicate older Mac devices have issues connecting on the 80MHz channels on their APs.
https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Wireless/ht20-ht40-ht80/td-p/1375924
But also seems that people have things work better when switching to 80MHz
Anyway, found this post, decided to switch my AC Pro to ht80 and like a miracle all problems on Apple devices disappeared, speed tests are well over 200’s Mbps, no more image loading issues in any of the apps.
https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Wireless/ht20-ht40-ht80/m-p/2719646/highlight/true#M379147
Futher, Apple's own website seems to claim that 80MHz should be fine as long as interference isn't an issue:
no problem with vht80+iphones over here
Apple devices seem to behave a bit different(ly) than others. Make sure you're not drawing false conclusions from what you see.
They want to be able to ICMP ECHO aka ping (at least some of the) network components which DHCP tells them to use. I'm not sure whether it's the gateway or the DNS server or both.
In some way, they seem to assess connectivity of an available SSID in this way.
I think if it's the only option they have, they'll still connect after some delay, so they may appear to stick to one freq band of one AP.
We have an iPhone that doesn't seem to like 2.4 GHz channels (tried 2 different routers, stock and custom firmware, different channels, still not good, even when is couple of meters away. And then by potting it on the 5 GHz band of the same router, it just worked!
It seems like the only way to properly test this would be to monitor your interface with wireguard on the apple device it self and then determine if it got satisfactory responses back from the pings?
The discussion you refer to is not very helpful. People mix up HT80 and VHT80 and almost nobody -- and in particular the OP -- is specific about whether there was a real connectivity problem or the devices just wouldn't connect.
802.11ac devices must support 80 MHz wide channels, but also 40 MHz wide channels. However, in a dual band setup, STAs have the choice which band they will connect to.
This choice is not part of the silicon and is implemented in different ways. From what I observe, STAs make suboptimal choices based on rules of thumb. Often, they will prefer 2.4 GHz due to signal strenght unless one taks care of that, even if 5 Ghz might have the potential for higher data rates. On the other hand, I have a Windows notebook with a Broadcom chipset where I can set several roaming parameters including preferred band, 2.4 or 5 GHz.
What you see is that your Apple WiFi STAs only connect to your AP directly after your AP booted, but not later?
Is your OpenWRT C7 running as a router or as an access point?
How is your DNS configured for those STAs?
Why are you running that snapshot? Have you tried other OpenWRT versions with your C7?
I have an Archer C7 v2 as well. I have had the same issues with apple devices - they would connect fine initially then fall off the network. I solved it by replacing the 'ath10k-firmware-qc988x-ct' firmware with 'ath10k-firmware-qc988x' firmware in the build config. No issues since.
The problems for me started when the default firmware changed to the candela tech firmware back in Dec.
@greearb do you have any idea?
Long ago I worked on some power-save issues that happened with specific mac-books and our wave-1 firmware, but I fixed that problem. It was due to some funky power-save interaction with the macbook. Probably to debug this I would need to get one of the apple devices that has the issue and debug it in detail. Anyone have such a device they would like to loan me?
Sorry, no spare devices to help out, but happy to run any diagnostics if you need me too.
I was seeing it on an iPad air 2 and an iphone xs. Normally would take a number of hours after connecting before dropping off the network. The devices still looked connected but had no communication and the AP showed no devices associated with the 5GHz radios. Nothing in the logs either.
The android and windows devices in the house had no issues.
I'll also add that it has been a few months since I reverted the firmware. You may have made changes to the CT firmware since.
Does the iPhone "dislike" 2.4 GHz or is it completely unable to connect? Which model is it?
Were the routers really technically different? Which router models did you try?
It's IPhone 6s Plus. It really disliked it. It would sometime connect for a short while then disconnects again.
The routers are very different; one is an ISP-supplied ZTE with stock firmware and the other is Asus RT-AC66U with a custom firmware.
Did you operate the RT-AC66U with AsusWRT-Merlin or OpenWRT? Or something else?
What you see is that your Apple WiFi STAs only connect to your AP directly after your AP booted, but not later?
Yeah, essentially shortly after rebooting everything can connect fine, but over time Apple devices will switch over to the 2.4GHz network.
Is your OpenWRT C7 running as a router or as an access point?
Solely as an AP. Have an EdgeRouterX acting as the router.
How is your DNS configured for those STAs?
Via DNS is specified (recommended?) via DHCP which points to a local docker container running PiHole and 1.1.1.1 if that is down.
Why are you running that snapshot? Have you tried other OpenWRT versions with your C7?
I was initially flashing this guy's custom image although I realized that I actually didn't need it since I wasn't doing any NAT on the device. I should probably move back to a stable release version.
Overall, my ultimately conclusion is that I've had solid stability for all devices since my last post now that I've changed the channel width to 40MHz from 80MHz.
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AdvancedTomato. I am using it as an access point. But again the issue was also experienced with the ISP router
I don't wish to hijack the topic; I was only punting put to the fact that it appears that iPhones appear to not like some WiFis sometimes.
Same issue, XiaoMi AIOT AC2350 snapshot firmware. My macbook air M1 took 2 minutes to discover the wireless, that's why I restored the stock firmware.