Wifi disconnects

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Hi,

I am lucky in that my location has no wifi interference. No other wifi access points are visible or reachable from my location apart from the ones I own.
I find that even though I have not moved, my laptop is disconnected from the wifi and internet stops working. If I manually disconnect and reconnect the wifi, it starts working again without any problem.
What is the best way to investigate this? My theory/guess at the moment is that the openwrt disconnects the client for whatever reason, but the client does not notice. So we have the openwrt thinking the client is disconnected, and the client thinking it is already connected, and thus no traffic passes.
This is not in idle cases. I can be watching a youtube video and it stops streaming until is reconnect the wifi.

2

logread ; logread -f should provide some clues.

2 Likes
3

Also, let's look at your configuration...

Please copy the output of the following commands and post it here using the "Preformatted text </> " button:
grafik
Remember to redact passwords, MAC addresses and any public IP addresses you may have:

cat /etc/config/network
cat /etc/config/wireless
cat /etc/config/dhcp
cat /etc/config/firewall
2 Likes
4

When the problem happens, there are no extra lines added to the logs. Either the openwrt logs, or the client laptop dmesg/syslog logs. So, in this case the logs are no help at all as nothing appears in them.
At this time I am suspecting a wifi firmware bug in the client laptop.
00:12.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (rev 20)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX201
00:12.3 0280: 8086:a0f0 (rev 20)
Subsystem: 8086:0070

5

I think there are two problems/bugs I am seeing.

  1. One is a wifi firmware bug where all wifi access fails
  2. and another one where partial access fails.
    The "partial" case is where I can ping some hosts behind the openwrt and not all of them and then after a wait, they all come back again. Checking the logs show no knew lines in the logs, so nothing to report there.
    The symptom is ARP failing for some hosts and not others.