380.68_4 Wireless Issues even with new router and fresh config

[D3m0nicSoul]

Still having an issue with my RT Ac-3200. Every so many days which is random the wifi stops working. My phone says authentication failed and pcs say unable to connect. This has happened for the last few revision but i am on 380.68_4 now. The only thing i see in the logs is Nov 28 17:21:40 miniupnpd[958]: upnp_event_send: send(): Connection reset by peer which im not sure what that means. In the wireless logs i just see the clients popping up in the list and disappearing. Any help would be greatly appreciated since all of my other posts seem to be getting ignored. Thanks.

PS: Cant upload a file on here so i used mediafire there are some weird things listed in there.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mz74r2t1xe6z0sm/Router_Log.txt

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

BUMP

 

[chibby]

• Did you do a factory reset (+ manual config - not from backup)?
• Definitely wipe JFFS (there are multiple errors in log..)
• Tried disabling UPNP if you suspect it's the culprit?
• Fix hostname of 192.168.2.182 / 183 / 184 .. You posted a spammed logfile -.-

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

• I did do a factory reset after flashing the firmware and manually added back in all my settings.
• Can i wipe jffs without losing any settings?
• Where can i disable upnp?
• The hostname that keeps getting spammed is my xbox one when it goes into low powered mode. Im not sure how to "fix" it.

 

[chibby]

I think the JFFS only contains any custom scripts you might have put there and the normal router settings are stored in NVRAM (but i'm not sure here..). I guess if you make a backup of settings and jffs - just give it a try.. You could restore that in case something got missing.

UPNP: first page of WAN settings.

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

Ok so i reset my JFFS and renamed my xbox one. I also found that my tv kept spamming for the localhost hostname so i set that up as static and set the hostname. So as of now i dont see any log spamming. I have uploaded a new log after restarting. Hopefully you can let me know if you see anything weird.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/w8asfmhd9c832k6/New+Router+Log.txt

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

Still seem to be having issues with the wireless. Its not as frequent but all my devices drop off but the SSID still broadcasts. When i try to reconnect my phone it receives the error Authentication failure. I'm not sure why this is happening but there seems to be nothing unusual in the logs. Also i am using WPA2 (AES) with mac authentication.

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

It seems like every time i update to the newest firmware it happens more frequently. Then after a month it only happens once a week or less often. I really dont think its a hardware problem.

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

So i purchased a new router AC5300 and installed Merlin fresh and resetup everything from scratch. Still having the same issue. So its clearly not my hardware. Also i thought maybe it was the wireless mac filter but even on the 5ghz band where its not enabled i get the same disconnect. Any help would be appreciated since everyone seems to be ignoring me....

 

[Jack Yaz]

Please post screenshots of your Wireless setup pages including Professional tab. Be sure to redact any passwords/phrases before posting.

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

Here they are

 

[Jack Yaz]

Is it only on 2.4GHz you get the drop or 5Ghz too? If the latter, screenshots of those too please.

Comments on things to try on the 2.4GHz:

20MHz is recommended on 2,4GHZ unless you're in a rural area and interfering networks are minimal.
Multi-user MIMO is worth disabling, it causes more problems than it solves.
Beamforming is usually advised to be disabled on 2.4GHz since it's not actually part of the wifi spec, and is hit and miss with stability.

 

[st3v3n]

D3, I was having periodic halts a while back on our 3200, same build, which finally resolved, when I kept an eye on the time/date, which kept going out of sync. Solved it by assigning a tiier 1 time server, and kept checking it, but it never came back and it's been stable now for over a month.

In your log there was a time disparity that stuck out, with so many variables it's only a guess but timing is everything. If something is having it's way with the time/date (no matter how it seems impossible) it might be repeating on your new route. You may consider regularly re-checking the clock/date and sys log for time displacement/disparity. We're lucky to be in an extremely remote area, and allow the channels and devices to select what and where they want. The SSIDs are all the same, except for experimenting, we quit using smart-connect a long time ago. It may/may not be connected, but do you use both WAN/ISP servers or is all your devices routed through one (or two) VPN(s)? Good luck & Cheers.

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

I haven't really used 5ghz but last night i set my phone to 5ghz to test. When i came back to my house today my phone didn't reconnect. So it looks like all networks are experiencing the same problems. I can usually tell by looking at connected devices and only seeing a few. Once i reboot the router all the devices automatically reconnect.

Its really weird because i dont really mess with any of these settings and the issues seem to have all started a few builds ago. I thought maybe my 3200 was bad because it was a few years old but the one i just purchased is having the same issues.

Interesting find. It looks like when i restart the router the time stamps are way off time but once it finishes its boot cycle the time is correct. Under Administration>system the time zone is correct and set to pool.ntp.org Did you change these settings?

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

Here are the 5ghz

 

[st3v3n]

D3, Yes, usually the time variances will settle down and it all depends on the load, or how much is going on with the router. That the symptoms have happened with two different models you have is indeed perplexing.

Administration-Settings is where to enter/apply/test time servers, pool or otherwise. You may/may not have to reboot the router after you apply a new entry, but it will give you a clean start to see how a new server settles down or affects the router in your log. Note any use restrictions single time servers list, since using anything other than national/global pools isn't widely recommended practice. If your router pings the server too much, your router will be flagged. If everyone had to try this the servers would become useless in short order. When there's an isolated or good reason to test, and if it solves your issue, it's worth trying.

Through v380.68_4, our routers used the north American pool. The time issue cropped up in October with the 3200, the only model/build we saw this in. We read isolated reporting of almost identical symptoms, which others (and myself) at first thought could be a bug or worse, such as a hack directed at certain routers; difficult to prove. Similar bugs have disappeared after an upgrade.

Since the single time server fix worked on our 3200, we've seen this instead as a specific set of circumstances that triggers the time variance, ie, how the router is setup, powered-up, routed, tunnels, load, etc. Logs showed that time variances were worse when the router was loaded with new configs or anything requiring a reset or factory default, and that's when the time or date was skewed. Trying to find related posts with sufficient details, logs, photos, to narrow it down took a long time.

We tried different servers in zones where the VPN tunnels exited before settling on the one we stayed with; the problem stopped and we're still on the same server but I still manually check the router and host each cycle to be everything is synced. If the modem appears that it's synced but nothing is routing, I always suspect a timing issue and check the router.

Here are a few links that may give you some ideas. Don't give up on your 3200 too soon. Didn't intend to bury you with details, and good luck.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asus-rt-ac3200-issues-and-impressions.22414/ (setting time/date RT-AC3200, #103, 104, 105)
NIST has a note re upgrades:
https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/services/internet-time-service-its
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/NTPPoolServers
Current nist.gov list: https://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi
http://brentfidler.blogspot.com/2015/02/getting-ntp-server-to-work-on-asus-rt.html
The following is you want to dig deep;
http://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/setup.html

 

[st3v3n]

C3, neglected to mention firewalls, ports that can sometimes be a nuisance, cheers:
https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-f...es/internet-time-service-firewall-information

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

Interesting info. But my time is only wrong when the router is booting up. Based on this post its "normal"
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/time-disparity-error.7915/

I'm not giving up on the 3200 i would actually like to use it as a wired AP along with my AC5300

Its just strange because October was around the time my router started acting up. And it seemed like once i flashed a new firmware it was about every day or every other day the wireless would drop all the clients. Then as time went on it would become less frequent until another firmware update.

 

[st3v3n]

D3m0nicSoul, Didn't intend to inundate you with info. Dictating makes it appear longer than it sounds. Many love the 3200 (and 5300). The 3200 has been a very good router for us, except during October. The timing date issues didn't start immediately after the 380.68_4 upgrade. That update was as trouble-free as I've seen since I started exclusively using Merlin's fork in 2013. I was changing/reverting minor versions of builds and testing VPN configs, and every boot or reboot, the router's timing always became skewed. Sometimes the start/end dates and times for DST fallback/forward was listed opposite what it should be. The GUI immediately would become sluggish, unresponsive and crashed at times. Whenever a client failed to connect or dropped out of the blue, it was the timing off. I was on the verge of RMA'ing it when I finally discovered what was happening.

A week after DST went into effect, it was like it had never happened. The fellows who offered me feedback reported similar symptoms to varying degrees, that just finally went away. The 3200 doesn't take very long to settle down after a revert or upgrade, or hasn't for us until after the 380.68_4 upgrade, and only then showed up during involved testing. The the more involved one gets with it, running two tunnels, scripts, etc, if one does a complete factory default or starts completely from scratch, every subsequent write is tough on the RAM/NVRAM, and the cycle begins to take longer. Most of the younger folks who do this chore aren't especially patient, but patience pays off; if the router isn't completely finished. Many have been fooled, thinking they've bricked the unit when all it needs is a bit longer to run a complete default write cycle. Some units are more sensitive or have less tolerant chips than others, is what one fellow opined. Some units are defective, but not many.

We're sticking with the current FW unless/until RMerlin has time for workup of the Asus closed-source code to merge as much as possible with his features, and the eager beavers will give it a good shake-down before we decide to upgrade again. The gents on the forum who have used the official Asus build seem split about 50/50, like/dislike, par for the course with new releases. it's hard to imagine the 3200 without the full benefits of past RMerlin FW. Our 3200 will move to backup status, and will make a fine AP when we migrate to Opnsense this spring. Considering how minuscule 64kb of NVRAM is, expansion from 64kb to 128kb has many wondering how much it will matter. More is always better. I hope your timing settles down, be interesting to know if trying a single public time server, would make a difference for you. There are several good ones, such as MIT, Boulder, etc. Cheers.

 

[D3m0nicSoul]

I really appreciate all of the info you have given me. That said i have changed my time zone to googles servers and will see if maybe that resolves my issue. Another culprit i maybe suspect is the AIProtection "Infected device prevention and blocking"