Users needed to test Wi-Fi stability on Linksys WRT3200ACM & WRT32X on OpenWrt 21.02

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
787

@Brillie
Yes, the patch is based on master. I think you need to adapt it, but it's a very small change. Look for modifications made to the .dts files. Rango is for WRT3200. There is an equivalent for WRT32x. Apply the same changes there, and you will see the Switch appear again under Network in LuCI. You might also browse the commit history and find the commit that disabled the switch and one of the Ethernet adapters. My patch reverts that only for WRT3200.

788

Thanks for the info. Iā€™m just regular user. I can only apply patches. Making changes to dts files is something I never have done.
Is it possible thad you can make a patch for the wrt32x?

789

With DSA one can port-mirror, and if multi CPU port is a concern there is PR4982 allowing one to patch that in to a build.

2 Likes
790

Hi,

I have some issues with some WiFi clienbts on WRT1900ACS: It takes minutes until they get an IP (DHCP is relayed by the OPNsense router). Is this related to the issue tracked in this thread?

Best,
wrter

791

No.

This thread was about frequent silent breaking of connectivity, and that bug was solved a few months ago...

1 Like
792

3 posts were split to a new topic: Linksys wrt3200acm, third ethernet, DSA port mirroring?

793

OpenWrt 21.02.2 images which fix the issue are live on the firmware selector. I've updated the links on the main post.

1 Like
794

Just to add my experience hereā€¦ Iā€™ve seen the frequent WiFi disconnects disappear since the fix by nbd. However I am after 3-4 days seeing the WiFi crash completely on both 5ghz and 2.4ghz the only way to restore is a reboot of the device using a master build. Looking at the comments others appear to be having the same problem.

Additionally I can not get channel 149 to work at all the 5ghz WiFi doesnā€™t come up for me on that channel using a WRT32X. How are others getting this channel working? I am able to use channel 100 @ VHT160

I have also been using the ā€œfree DFS patchā€ for a while on the httpstorm branch as well.

1 Like
795

21.02.2 is working great on my WRT3200 and, without a doubt, resolves the original issue from this thread regarding wireless dropouts.

I am wondering: is it time to close this thread now?

There are other issues with mwlwifi such as 5 GHz radio crashing at times and requiring a reboot. Other issues as well. But none are related to the original issue from this thread and that bug has been successfully fixed.

I figure we can always create new threads for these separate issues if necessary.

4 Likes
796

Have you seen any pattern in the crashing? I was seeing the same thing when I last tested, and just ended up going back to 19 train code because I didn't feel like dealing with the issue, or rather my kids didn't feel like dealing with it, and I didn't feel like dealing with them not wanting to deal with it LOL. I do have one device that I may try upgrading on as there are other devices close enough to not be too impactful if the wireless radio crashes.

797

Unfortunately not much of a pattern. Although it often happens around the 3rd day after boot, it also sometimes happens after as little as 12 hours or even as much as 10 days. No useful logging either.

I can totally relate. I ended up switching my kids devices, their school Chromebooks, and my wifeā€™s devices over to 2.4 GHz as a temporary solution for the past few months. Their devices have had zero interruptions at all since that time even with 8+ hours of Google Meet per day.

I have kept my devices only on the 5 GHz radio to continue testing in hopes of reproducing the crash and getting clues or patterns. Also, I can tolerate the random bits of downtime much more compared to my kids.

I donā€™t hold up much hope for fixes to any remaining mwlwifi wireless issues. However, I will never give up trying and continue digging in.

2 Likes
798

8 posts were split to a new topic: WRT1200AC mwlwifi troubles with STA mode

799

I used to be able to reproduce the 5 GHz radio crash (chipset crash) approx. once every 3 days on average. It always required rebooting the router to bring the 5 GHz radio back up.

This may be a coincidence, but since ditching irqbalance, I have not been able to reproduce a single occurrence of the 5 GHz crash in a little over 30 days now.

4 Likes
800

21.02.2 seems to have solved wifi. BUT a 'new' problem is reboots locking up the device. The 3200 would try the patience of a saint! I typically swap to OEM partition before ul factory Openwrt images. Then at least the '3-switch partition switch' can get you working fast, if on OEM. ChargerDad understands why, lol!. Shame - bc OEM configuration is dreadful. The 3200 has consumed 'a lifetime' to 'debug' - imo bc of the closed 'unsupported' firmware! Now? It's an expensive dumb OEM AP - shame bc better AP options are available at less cost. 'Important stuff' is now on a Openwrt x86 mini-pc - works perfectly for the same price, serious processing power and still draw only in the 'watts range'. My advice to anyone making this move (hence my posting) is, make sure you understand 'partition swaps' and the recovery methods - you will need them!

1 Like
801

Thanks for confirming this - I was just about to do a fresh build of 21.02.2 on my router and I wasn't sure if I still needed the patch or not.

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802

No luck here.. I fresh installed 21.02.02 on WRT3200ACM and setup 2 firewall zones (lan and guest) both forwarding to wan (with port rule for DHCP and DNS for guest). The interfaces with static ip on different subnets with DHCP enabled. I did not create Bridge VLAN filtering at first.
Then I enabled radio0 and 1 for both zones:

  1. lan 5ghz:
  1. lan 2.4ghz:
  • essid: lan
  • frequency: N channel auto 20mhz
  • network: lan
  • security: WPA2 PSK (CCMP)
  • 802.11r enabled on domain 123a
  1. guest 5ghz:
  • essid: guest
  • frequency: AC channel 36 80mhz
  • network: guest
  • security: WPA2 PSK (CCMP)
  • 802.11r enabled on domain 456a
  • Isolate clients
  1. guest 2.4ghz:
  • essid: guest
  • frequency: AC channel auto 80mhz
  • network: guest
  • security: WPA2 PSK (CCMP)
  • 802.11r enabled on domain 456a
  • Isolate clients

I restarted the OS and router many times, but on 5ghz wifi lights are blinking and some of my devices can't authenticate (my desktop can). After I create 2 VLANs and enable VLAN filtering for br-lan, change it on the interfaces of lan and guest nothing changes. Still problem with auth. Any idea?

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803

issue?

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804

I had a similar issue. Created my lan wifi network on 5ghz and 2.4 ghz, and a guest network on 5ghz and 2.4 ghz. You first have to change the MAC addresses of the guest networks so they don't overlap with the lan wifi ones.

Even after doing this, my router would freeze within a few minutes after booting up. The workaround for me was to delete the guest wifi network from the 5 ghz radio. It seems like the 5ghz radio will not work with more than one wifi network running. I don't know why. The guest wifi on 2.4 ghz ran without any issues, and wifi in general has been stable for me after this change.

805

It works, try the second option from the above link.

806

Checking back in on this thread from Nov. I previously resolved stability issues by using the SNAPSHOT build ^.

I recently moved (more DFS switching in new area) and did a fresh install to OpenWrt 21.02.3 r16554-1d4dea6d4f (on WRT3200ACM), as a result I am seeing a lot so occasionally my 5GHz drops and re-connects 1m later. Sometimes though, all of my devices drop and do not come back at all until I restart either the router or the radio (2.4 GHz network appears to be un-impacted). When this happens my system log is also flooded with daemon.err hostapd: Failed to set beacon parameters messages, I have not had a chance to get the messages before these start flooding my logs yet unfortunately.

Are there still known issues with the latest 21.02.3 official versions that are/were being bi-sected above? I was under the impression that this issue was resolved but that appears not to be the case? Additionally it looks like the recommendation is to just hard-code channel 36 in some cases, I am going to try that next but wasn't sure if the latest version is known to have these issues above or not.