wireless client cannot see/pin each other

[Mine Ong]

Greetings,

I have finally configured a stable AiMesh at home, or so I thought, until all the sudden my wireless printer (via armbian) stopped working when printing from another wireless computer. I seek your help.

My setup:

• AC68U (both router and node, with firmware Version 3.0.0.4.384.81351)
  • wired backhaul between router and nodes
• An orange pi zero running Armbian serving as a wireless print server
• A windows 10 PC that can be connected both wirelessly, or wired (via USB ethernet) directly to the router.

Everything was working until about 2 weeks ago, and as far as I know, nothing has changed. However, here is the symptom:

• printing works fine when the win-10 PC is connected via USB/wired ethernet
• when the win-10 PC is connected wirelessly, printing does not work
  • cannot ping the the IP address of the armbian print server from the win-10 PC
  • HOWEVER, at the same time, I can ping the armbian printer from another (ubuntu) computer that is connected via wired ethernet.

Both win-10 PC and the orange-pi were connected to the same node wirelessly.

Thus it would appear that wireless devices in my AiMesh, when connected wirelessly, do not see/ping each other. I am at lost as how to resolve this. I would appreciate any suggestions.

regards,

 

[OzarkEdge]

Have you tried disproving your WiFi-to-Wifi theory by testing ping between other clients on the suspect WLAN... to remove the Pi print server and network printing from the equation?

OE

 

[Mine Ong]

no I haven't, I will give it a more thorough test night.

I can, however, print from a *different* win-10 laptop that is connected wirelessly through a DIFFERENT AiMesh node. Will update this thread later tonight.

regards,

 

[OzarkEdge]

no I haven't, I will give it a more thorough test night.

I can, however, print from a *different* win-10 laptop that is connected wirelessly through a DIFFERENT AiMesh node. Will update this thread later tonight.

regards,

How are you managing IP assignments?

For example:
o my router DHCP server pool is 192.168.1.10-254
o I assign client side static IPs 192.168.1.1-9 with the router using 192.168.1.1 and a wired network printer using 192.168.1.2 (the printer/driver seems to prefer a static IP)
o I configure the router to manually assign a few IPs per MAC address from within the router DHCP server pool, .10-254

OE

 

[Mine Ong]

I have similar setup:

• DHCP range: 192.168.1.100-199 for wireless clients (phone/tablets/laptops)
• AiMesh router/nodes and other access-points: static IPs: 192.168.1.245-254
  • AiMesh router is at 192.168.1.254
  • 2 nodes at 192.168.1.252/253
  • several access point/wireless bridges at 192.168.1.245-251, some have USB ports and hence also serve as print server

• servers and media players (wireless or wired): static IPs: 192.168.1.210-240

• home security/automation devices: static IPs: 192.168.1.20-80

The print server in question, an Orange Pi Zero, is connected via one of the AiMesh node wirelessly and with a static IP.

All static IPs are assigned based on MAC address in the AiMesh router via static DHCP table.

regards,

 

[OzarkEdge]

All static IPs are assigned based on MAC address in the AiMesh router via static DHCP table.

To be clear... I read this to mean that you have the router configured to manually assign IPs per MAC address outside of your DHCP server IP pool 192.168.1.100-199... yes?

Merlin advice is to keep these assignments within the DHCP server pool. I'm not sure if it matters here, but I respect his advice.

I hold to these definitions:
o the router DHCP server IP pool includes all router-assigned IPs, both automatic IPs and manually-assigned IPs;
o the router DHCP server IP pool does not include client side user-assigned static IPs.

OE

 

[Mine Ong]

to answer your question: yes.

understood. Will implement the change tonight and report back.

all my clients (except Aimesh router/AP/bridges) are DHCP-enabled; all static IPs are assigned based on MAC addresses stored on the AiMesh router but some of them are assigned outside of the DHCP server IP pool.

 

[karma]

i've had flaky behaviour over time with aimesh. finally gave up and used my node as repeater and all is well. there's definitely something wrong with their firmware.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/r...nnot-see-devices-on-2-4ghz.54397/#post-522852

 

[Mine Ong]

thanks to those who helped. While I haven't fully debug the issue, I realized that it may be caused by a buggy driver for the wireless device under armbian/orange-pi-zero. As I have several spare routers with USB port (Asus 520GU nonetheless), I set one up as a wireless bridge/print server using tomato. Path of least resistance. Don't plan to look back.

I did learn something through this exercise: static IP vs DHCP pool. Thanks,

regards,