AC86U crashes when computer connects

[ColinTaylor]

The first "slot" for each band of the guest networks uses subnets 192.168.101.x and 192.168.102.x. Check that your WAN connection is not using the same address range. A workaround might be to use only use slots 2 and 3, and not slot 1, as they use the normal router subnet.

 

[ragnaroknroll]

I'm not completely sure how to check the address range the WAN connection is using. But I did try moving the 2.4GHz and 5GHz Guest Networks to the #2 and #3 slots, and got mixed results. In some combinations, my PC just refused to connect to the Wifi. The ability of my PC to connect also appeared to be correlated to the sequence in which I turned off either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz Guest Networks. Finally, my PC is able to connect when only the 2.4GHz Guest Network is turned on, but that seems to affect the stability of other devices connected to the regular 2.4GHz network. Not quite sure what's going on here, so have turned off the Guest Network feature entirely now.

 

[ragnaroknroll]

Hi All

Firstly, thanks a lot for your assistance isolating the cause of the issue I was facing.

Just wanted to check if anyone had any ideas on why the Guest Networks might be interfering with normal wireless performance in this way, and if you had any other suggestions on how it might be overcome without having to sacrifice my ability to use the Guest Network feature.

Thanks!

 

[ColinTaylor]

Did you check whether the router's WAN IP address was conflicting with those of the guest networks?

 

[ragnaroknroll]

Really sorry, but could you please let me know how I should go about checking this? I'm not very conversant with some of this terminology and am mostly figuring my way through this.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Just log into the router and go to Network Map and look at the "WAN IP" under "Internet status". Even though it's highly unlikely, check that the address doesn't begin with 192.168.101.x or 192.168.102.x. Better still make sure it doesn't say 192.168.x.x.

 

[ragnaroknroll]

Ah! It was that straightforward

Yup, I can confirm that the WAN IP is very different from 192.168.x.x.

 

[ColinTaylor]

What devices do you have connected by Ethernet to the router's LAN ports?

From what you've said it seems fairly easy to force this error to occur? I suggest that you disable JFFS custom scripts and configs, reboot the router and see if the problem still exists.

 

[ragnaroknroll]

@ColinTaylor - Thanks for your suggestion. In the process of toggling the "Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs" setting and the various Guest Networks slots on and off, and repeatedly rebooting the router, I've managed to find a combination of settings that seems to not cause the crash and reboot issue, while keeping both the "Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs" setting and Guest Networks enabled. Will report back here if the problem resurfaces in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed..

PS: I have no devices connected directly to the router's LAN ports.