ASUS RP-AC56 1200mbit extender completely not working in AP mode?

Is there any way to put DD-WRT on this and get it working that way? I have been trying to get the RP-AC56 to work in Access Point mode for weeks, to no avail.

H

Dave Barnes said:

Is there any way to put DD-WRT on this and get it working that way? I have been trying to get the RP-AC56 to work in Access Point mode for weeks, to no avail.

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I dont think DD-WRT is released for this one.
Either way, ASUS Support emailed me the 26th of December and told us to stay calm and await an update from them, they just wanted to get back from their holidays...
Good thing is that they have pulled the latest firmware, but the first release-firmware is equally bad and non-working in my opinion. hopefully a new firmware comes shortly.

I'm glad I found this thread. This device has driving me crazy since Yesterday to get it to work... I think I will return it on Monday. I can't believe that Asus sell a product that is so bad.

Per Ohrberg said:

I'm glad I found this thread. This device has driving me crazy since Yesterday to get it to work... I think I will return it on Monday. I can't believe that Asus sell a product that is so bad.

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And yet again: A swede . Seems what they have shipped to Sweden is crippled completely.

Peter Gustavsson said:

And yet again: A swede . Seems what they have shipped to Sweden is crippled completely.

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I have exactly same issues with my RP-AC56, AP mode not working. But not in SWE, I bought it from amazon.de and try to use it in Finland.

I'd just like to echo all the comments above about how disappointing it is that some of these devices are this bad. Fortunately I have installed other RP-AC56's & they are working fine, not perfect but fine, so I know that they can be a good product. Unfortunately I spent hours yesterday trying to get 2 of these units working & they simply won't 'play ball'. I am convinced that this is a Gateway or DNS issue based on the fact the devices won't 'talk' to other devices on the network (other AP's , modems, routers etc) when they are 'failing'. My devices could connect (Samsung Note 4 & Windows 8 laptop) so it providing me with an IP address but would not 'talk' outside of device. Interesting at one point the clients iPhone4 would not connect at all, presumably an IP address issue.
What's also interesting is that my 2 will both working independently however when one starts working the other stops: i.e. reboot one - it works, other stops, reboot other, same result reversed.
I also went through almost all the procedures that the OP went through to no avail. The fact that these RP-AC56's don't turn off DHCP server by default when in AP mode does ring alarm bells.
This is another lesson in the 'never buy a Mark1' no matter what product it it, IT or other. They are always full of 'bugs'.
I am based in France & purchased these through a licensed distributor & they will be going back for replacement. My question is who pays for my time wasted - no one!
I am/was a big fan of ASUS products & this has serious damaged their reputation in my eyes.
I'm looking forward to the FW update, let's hope it comes soon.

Hi,
I bought the RP-AC56 today and I have the same problem. I'm living in Italy, so it's definitely not a country specific problem.

Here's another complaint on another forum: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7416460?start=0&tstart=0

Did you have any update from ASUS in the meantime?

I will try to return the AP.

Hi all,

Have had 2 RP-AC56's for 3 days now and had problems as well. Luckily I found this thread and opened a support request to Asus.
Narrowed down the problem though.

Setup:
- 2x RP-AC56 in AP mode
- fixed IP's
- Connected to gigabit switches
- Provider cable modem is the DHCP server
- using both 2.4 and 5Ghz
- SSID's are the same on both AP's but different for 2.4 and 5Ghz bands
- Disabled the DHCP servers in the RP-AC56's.

Did all sorts of experiments and everything was very unstable. After reading the topic I decided to let it rest wait for Asus support reply.
But I left the setup running.

Seems that rebooting a device causes problems for both devices but if they run...... they run....
Pretty stable EXCEPT when roaming.

When I go upstairs and my laptop (or phone) associates with the other AP connection is lost.
Noticed that after a while the connection comes back online so started timing the period. Appears to take exactly 5 minutes.

Then I connected to the AP using a PC using Ethernet to connect to LAN to check if the system log would reveal what happens
- When Roaming my laptop associates with the AP correctly but there is no communication with any device on the LAN.
- Used wireshark and there is just a lot of arp requests being sent but no answers
- Then after 5 minutes there is the following log entry on the AP:
-> kernel: PeerDelBATxAdaptTimeOut()

And after that it starts communicating with the rest of the network again.

Let's see what the engineers at Asus come back with.

Now this page https://wikidevi.com/wiki/ASUS_RP-AC56 suggests it can run a custom padavan firmware
Might be a mistake because I can't find a firmware image but maybe one of you have found one?

Hi again.
I have got my unit replaced but is has exactly the same problem! It stops working after a while and my Wifi devices are not able to connect properly.
It gets connected but nothing happens... Sorry to say but this ASUS unit seems like crap... Any Firmware update yet ASUS??????

I have emailed Asus today again. I really want these working, and now we see a lot of people from around Europe suffer the same issues. And even when getting replaced units, they get the same problem. We truly need a working firmware. I emailed them and wrote to them on Facebook. Lets see.

Hi All,

As per my post on Jan17th; has anybody been able to reproduce this scenario? I'm in contact with Asus support and they are setting up my config in their test lab to see if they can reproduce.

Would be good to know if we can narrow down the problem.

I did additional testing and found something interesting:
'hand over' between 2 access points seems to be problematic and it takes up to 5 minutes after hand over until I can access the network again (although my laptop is already associated with the access point).

Now what I did is spoof the MAC address of my wireless adapter.
couldn't do that with the driver but used Technitium MAC address changer.

If I change MAC I get a new IP address and can work immediately after hand over!

Moving between the AP's with the new MAC address gives the same problem (adapter associates with new AP but no connection traffic coming in or going out for a couple of minutes).

Can anybody confirm the same behaviour?

Thanks!

Good thing I came across this thread before I hit the order button! I was going to have two RP-AC56, but living in an old house withour permanent patch cables, I was going for extending only. I feel that I should wait or pick some other brand. Any recommendations? I want seamless roaming, white units and preferably the option to put the leds out (like Merlin does on the router - I love that!). It's sad though, since I really like the look and Asus playing with Asus sounds like the way to go.

So this last week I've taken delivery of RT-AC68U and RP-AC56. I'm also having issues with the AP working correctly with the RP... I can access the unit over my network by using the RT connection and using the allocated IP address of the RP. I've given the RP the same network SSID and password for the network (is this correct/can I do this?) but I can't connect to the unit via the WiFi connection.

UK based and purchased off Amazon UK

I know this is basically what others have reported but putting on here hopefully Asus take a bit of notice...

steetiehj said:

So this last week I've taken delivery of RT-AC68U and RP-AC56. I'm also having issues with the AP working correctly with the RP... I can access the unit over my network by using the RT connection and using the allocated IP address of the RP. I've given the RP the same network SSID and password for the network (is this correct/can I do this?) but I can't connect to the unit via the WiFi connection.

UK based and purchased off Amazon UK

I know this is basically what others have reported but putting on here hopefully Asus take a bit of notice...

Click to expand...

You're posting to the wrong forum then. I would contact Asus directly if you want them to be aware of these issues you have.

There are some Asus employees here, but their role(s) seem very specific.

L&LD said:

You're posting to the wrong forum then. I would contact Asus directly if you want them to be aware of these issues you have.

There are some Asus employees here, but their role(s) seem very specific.

Click to expand...

I have also contacted them... and linked up this thread

I'm curious what responses you have gotten from Asus support.
1st line has been really responsive but I'm stuck at the phase where the R&D department is looking into it.

In IT you always have to keep the option open that you're wrong but I feel that I have a pretty strong indication of the problem.

I borrowed a copper tap to be able to capture all traffic that comes in / goes out of the RP on the wired interface and ran wireshark on my laptop at the same time to be able to capture all the traffic (even did a check on the 802.11 wireless link layer but that seems to be all ok when roaming and reassociating).

My simple and reproducible test case as described in an earlier post:
Setup:
- 2x RP-AC56 in AP mode
- fixed IP's
- Connected to gigabit switches
- Provider cable modem is the DHCP server
- using both 2.4 and 5Ghz
- SSID's are the same on both AP's but different for 2.4 and 5Ghz bands
- Disabled the DHCP servers in the RP-AC56's.

Roaming from 1 access point to the other makes me loose connection for about 5 minutes. After that I'm back online (unless I start roaming again).


What happens?

- When my laptop decides there is a better signal from the other AP it reassociates
- This seems to go fine
- Client (laptop) starts sending ARP requests to figure out where the gateway is located (can be found in the client trace)
- This is broadcasted over the network (copper trace)
- Provider (cable modem) router responds to the ARP request (as expected) on the correct port so the router has learned the new location of the laptop (ARP response is P2P and no broadcast)
- RP-AC56 does not seem to forward the ARP response to the laptop (response doesn't show up in the wireshark trace)
- Gateway is removed from the ARP table of the client and no traffic is possible.
- Client keeps sending ARP requests and after 5 minutes the first response is forwarded by the RP
- Back online!

My thought was that both AP's sync the arp tables somehow and a timeout has to occur before everything starts working again.
If it's that simple I would have expected Asus to be able to reproduce the issue (and fix it) swiftly.
They even sent me a drawing from the test lab to verify my topology since they wanted to try and reproduce the issue.

No feedback yet (for about 1.5 week).

I still would be interested to know if this matches the experience of other users....
As stated before changing the MAC address of my wifi card results in immediate reconnect (Technitium MAC address changer)

this does of course support my ARP table timeout theory.

Would appreciate to learn about other peoples reproducible issues.

dev-jam said:

My simple and reproducible test case as described in an earlier post:
Setup:
- 2x RP-AC56 in AP mode
- fixed IP's
- Connected to gigabit switches
- Provider cable modem is the DHCP server
- using both 2.4 and 5Ghz
- SSID's are the same on both AP's but different for 2.4 and 5Ghz bands
- Disabled the DHCP servers in the RP-AC56's.

Roaming from 1 access point to the other makes me loose connection for about 5 minutes. After that I'm back online (unless I start roaming again).

Click to expand...

Hi

I mostly want to add another voice to the thread. I also experience issues with using the RP-AC56 as an AP.

I have done no extensive testing myself, or even trying to understand exactly what goes wrong, but from your description my issues seems very similar.

My setup is currently
RT-AC68U as router (and DHCP server)
RP-AC56 as AP (DHCP turned off, not static/fixed IP)
One common SSID for 2.4 band and another for 5 for both devices

In addition I have another repeater and AP further down the chain in order to cover my entire house, but they do not seem to matter to the issues I have.

I have tested static IPs, and removing the remaining components (two RP-N12) without seeing any improvement. I also have another RP-AC56 that I didn't even bother to unpack until problems are resolved.

When I move around in the house my phone and my laptop experience occasional issues in connecting to the network. After a while it works again, but I never tested the exact circumstances. For now I just live with it. I have set up an extra SSID from the RT-AC68 I can connect to when experiencing the issues as long as I am within range.

I was not in contact with ASUS support myself yet, but am hoping for a new firmware to solve it.

I had heard much good about ASUS and chose it for range and versatility when upgrading to AC. Not too impressed so far. My former Apple setup was less flexible, also only N and not even dual-band everywhere, but at least worked flawlessly.

I've received a response from Asus. 5 minute 'hand over' time unfortunately seems to be 'as designed' for these devices. I might do some tests to see if I fully understand the technical reasoning behind this but for now it's case closed.

Asus response:
<<
Our R&D department came with the conclusion after testing and checking the case thouroughly. That this is normal behavior for the device. The full reason as below:

The reason why RP-AC56 takes 5 minutes to switch the connection is because the thorough algorithm behind it. The process as following:
1. AP makes inquiries to each client every 30 seconds see whether there are any packets to transmit.
2. Makes inquiries 3 times in a row, if there’s no packets to transmit
3. Kick out the client
4. Clients has to re-establish the connection with own profile
5. Connection established.
Therefore, it might take longer to re-establish the connection between RP-CA56

<<

Dev-jam: I'm in the US and I picked up the repeater and I'm having issues with the US version as well. I saw you posted the Asus response. Any chance you could ask Asus some follow up questions: how can things be working within the norm when the product shipped with a firmware that is no longer available on the Asus support site after problems were reported? Why was it taken down? Is normal behavior with the currrent firmware listed on the support site (which means we should roll back)?

If you are unable to re-open the case or re-open dialog with the Asus you are working with, I will try to open an Asus support case myself. Thanks.