Thank you @chadneufeld.
I tried your self compile 21.02.1 firmware yesterday. But the NETIFD package still reported with build-date 2021-07-26 and the WDS Bug is still unsolved.
Updating NETIFD with opkg did not succeed => device gets unresponsive and needs reset. I guess this is due to opkg tries to replace NETIFD on the fly (while system is running) and NETIFD is such an important basepackage of the system and can't be replaced while os is running, so it needs to be available through firmeware on system boot.
opkg install --force-reinstall netifd-packagename.ipk did not succeed.
i had to go with 21.02.0 rc3 for now, where WDS Bug is not present .
Thanks for testing! That's a bummer. I plan to upgrade all my openwrt devices from 19.x to 21.x but this is a show stopper as I use WDS for my dumb AP's and literally can't live without it
Is this bug device or architecture (atheros/ath10k only) specific?
Hi @raphael Did you install the my version of 21.02.1 on the access point and the station? I ended up having to restart my openwrt wds station manually after flashing to get it to connect to the access point. I think there was some issue that occured while flashing 21.02.1 to the station and the access point. After one manual restart, things have been really good.
I don't know why the netifd package is dated or versioned the way it is when I build it. It does contain the latest code, but it get's named the same as the netifd that is part of the official 21.02.
For house to house sharing I'd use AP-STA links and locally route each house into the main house (the one with the Internet connection, which will be running as AP), but firewall them out of the main house LAN. Do you really trust everyone in the other houses enough to bridge them into yours?
Hi @chadneufeld, yes i installed on AP (WDS AP) and Client (WDS Client). And i think i rebooted. Maybe i did something wrong? i did only flash the firmware openwrt-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c7-v5-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin and did not flash initramfs-kernel.bin nor squashfs-factory.bin. Hope I did this the correct way.
Hi @chadneufeld. Today testing again your sysupgrade.bin with reboots. I do have same issues. Having a good stable WIFI WDS connection WDS_AP <=> WDS_Client:
Hey there, thanks for all your testing and compiling. I have to ask again to clarify some specifics out of the discussion. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I got a bit confused between the posts.
Is my conclusion correct that the official built of 21.02.1 has still no updated NETIFD package, so the problems with WDS still occur in the new official version? If this is true, is there another workaround than compiling my own built of 21.02.1 with an updated NETIFD-package for myTL-1043nd_v2?
@c-streif You are right. The updates to NETIFD haven't made it into the 21.02 branch yet so the issues with WDS probably still persist. You have 2 options:
use the master snapshot which has the updates for WDS in it, or
If you do try the image I compiled, make sure to check you list of installed packages before flashing the update so you can make sure to install all of the same packages after updating. And you may need to manually restart your devices after updating to get the WDS link connected properly.
@chadneufeld Thanks a lot for the clarification and for your work on the built (especially for adding 1043v2) I'm not sure which workaround I will give a shot first (probably testing on the weekend), but I will let you know how it is going. Till then, thank's again and have a nice week
Were you able to get WDS working with WPA3-SAE encryption?
I wasted half a day trying to figure out why one router could not see the other. Then on a hunch I tried downgrading the encryption from WPA3-SAE back to WPA2-PSK and suddenly it works.
I am running the 2021-11-10 SNAPSHOT build of WRT1900ACS. Are you able to reproduce this problem on your end?
Hmm, that's unfortunate. Is there a way to disable this option in the builds that use this driver? The current behavior fails silently which is bound to waste others a lot of time.
@cowwoc My setup is using WDS over 2.4GHz with WPA2-PSK encryption. I am running a snapshot from about a week ago.
I just setup a trial with WPA3 over 2.4GHz. Everything seems to connect properly and I can communicate with both the WDS access point and station. The WDS link is between an Archer C7 V2 and a Unifi AC LR access point.
Were you trying over 2.4 or 5 GHz?
This is the wireless network page on my Access point.
I had this going over both 2.4 and 5Ghz but as slh mentioned my hardware depends on the mwlwifi driver which does not seem to support WPA3. I assume that the hardware you mentioned does not use mwlwifi which is why it works for you.
@chadneufeld Can you still edit the topic title to make clear this was an Atheros specific WDS issue? People just keep piling onto this topic with different hardware.
