WRT1900ACS v1 5g Radio Issues (23.0.2)

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi all!

Not sure if this is the right place or not ...

I recently rebuilt my swconfig OpenWrt 19.x WRT1900ACS v1 to dsa OpenWrt 23.0.5. And then the WLAN issue began. :slight_smile:

The iphones would just flat out refuse to connect to the network. Full disclosure I had been running OpenWrt 21.x on the ASUS RT-N56U upstairs and OpenWrt 19.x downstairs before the upgrades to 23.0.5 so I am fully aware there may have been issues before the upgrade but I had no reason to pay attention to which AP was being used so perhaps there were issues before.

I have two issues ... that seem to be pointing to the WRT1900ACS.

I am observing the station associations throughout the day and all of a sudden all 5g connections die and shift to the RT-N56U. If I disconnect the client and reconnect they go to the RT-N56U. If I restart the 5g radio via Luci, then the clients will connect back to the WRT1900ACS.

I have messed with WPA2 PSK, mixed WPA2/WPA3 and WPA3 only. I am pretty sure there are issues with this device and WPA3 from what I am seeing. While I am confident the issue exists with WPA2-PSK only, right now as I type this, it is stable. :slight_smile:

The other issue is my Guest SSID / VLAN just stops its connection to the internet. And to resolve that I need to manually restart my VLAN br.4092 interface.

I am suspecting the HW may be flaky, but not convinced.

I searched the forums and didn't see anything obvious that was recent. I know the WRT1900ACS uses Marvell 88W8864 radios and there may be something involving mwinfo (but can't find the link right now).

I have 3x VLANs / SSIDs hanging off the 5g radio and the same hanging off the 2.4g radio. I checked /etc/config/wireless per this github issue and this gihub issue but the only references to list maclist is with the 2.4 radios which seem OK.

Where should I look?

2

... and the 5g network stopped working and I rebooted .... I looked alive but it wasn't. It eventually came back up and this is what I see ...

image
image1106×616 47 KB

Starting to suspect HW failure ?

Tue Jan 30 10:04:45 2024 daemon.notice netifd: radio0 (2978): WARNING: Variable 'data' does not exist or is not an array/object
Tue Jan 30 10:04:45 2024 daemon.notice netifd: radio0 (2978): Phy not found
Tue Jan 30 10:04:45 2024 daemon.notice netifd: radio0 (2978): Could not find PHY for device 'radio0'
Tue Jan 30 10:04:45 2024 daemon.notice netifd: Wireless device 'radio0' set retry=0
Tue Jan 30 10:04:45 2024 daemon.crit netifd: Wireless device 'radio0' setup failed, retry=0

3

Current SNAPSHOT.

There have been recent updates to mvebu to main/master that specifically speak to some of your issues, and seem to be beneficial to my WRT1900ACS V2.

WPA3 has never worked for me prior, but so far, so good.

Coming from 19.x, the target has moved to DSA. ie: no Switch Menu.

Did you carry over your config?

4

Appreciate the reply ... I rebuilt the configuration from scratch after moving to DSA. The thing is the radio0 (5g) is completely gone at this point ... and now my RT-56U 5g has SSIDs showing not associated and my 5g won't let anything connect anymore ....

5

The Achilles’ Heel of this target.

FWIW, I’m pretty sure you’re probably running 23.05.2 contrary to your title.

Try a current Snapshot build. New commits were added recently that l’ve seen to be beneficial. Primarily for me being able to maintain 5g + wpa3.

6

Thanks. I’ll try a snapshot build before I buy a replacement.

I am concerned about the radio just not showing up in Luci anymore and having issues with the 5G without WPA3 originally, but it’s worth a shot. :slight_smile:

I may buy some NWA50ax’s as a
contingency plan.

Appreciate the follow up!

7

i hear the pro model is even better! about 15 bucks more, 2.5g port 3x3 vs 2x2

8

Misguided?