ASUS RT-AC88U Disconnection problems.

[Nic Shepherd]

Hi,

Since the new year, I have been having troubles with my RT-AC88U.
The problem is that randomly (at least no pattern I've noticed) all devices in the house will lose connection. Wired and Wireless for anywhere between 5secs to 5mins. The internet still remains connected however nothing loads and anyone playing a game disconnects immediately. The windows System Tray icon never changes to the No Internet Symbol and all phones still show that they are connected to the Wi-Fi.
I can't find any issues with my limited knowledge.

Things I have tried:
- Reboot probably 1000 times.
- Fresh Install. Even flashed with correct, and latest Merlin firmware.
- Ensure all cables are in good condition and are connected properly.
- Disconnected all in-essential devices to test interference. No noticeable devices.
- Google errors shown in System Log (I personally have no idea what any of it means.)
- Change MAC address of the Router to allow rebind of WAN IP and renew leases (Correct me if I am wrong and that doesn't do what I think it does.)
- Removed our RT-AC66U_B1 from our AI-Mesh. Again, no foreseeable problems but wanted to be sure it wasn't the cause, removing it hasn't fixed anything.
- Contact ASUS Support, spent hours on the phone repeating myself.
- Contact Virgin Media, supposedly no issues on their end, they sent a tech out who then refused to attempt to fix anything as we weren't using their Hub as a router but as a modem.
- Checked both PC's for viruses etc, even clean installed both.

Extra Information:
Am from the UK, so I use Virgin Media (only ISP with a package that suits the whole family.) we pay £70 a month for the best package from them, it has been perfect (minus standard maintenance outages) since we took the plan about 6 years ago. The speeds are 250MB Down and 50 Up.
I have owned the RT-AC88U for 2.5 years, and the RT-AC66U-B1 for the same period before that we were using the standard HUB 3.0 we got with Virgin.
We have 0 internet restrictions.
AI Protection is on, default settings enabled.

I have no idea if this means anything but haven't seen it before and it started showing up around the same time as the issues started happening.
System Log:
https://pastebin.com/WKWenHkz

If there is anything I missed or need to add, I am happy to assist. Would like to try and work this out, before I inevitably give up and spend money on a new system or change provider.

 

[L&LD]

What is the 'latest RMerlin firmware' you installed? Release, beta, alpha? All are possible.

After flashing the firmware, did you perform an M&M Config? Without using a saved backup config file? Please see my signature below for a link to further details of an M&M Config.

Are any devices able to connect both wirelessly and wired? Are they doing so (or attempting to)?

What services, options, and scripts are you running on your router or network if any, besides AI Protection?

Are you running any third-party A/V or firewalls (or pi-hole, etc.)?

How did you determine that the LAN cables are good?

The easiest and most direct way to troubleshoot this fully and properly would be to do a full M&M Config on your main router and add client devices one by one until the issue shows up.

I would also be using new SSID's (that have never been connected to before by any of your devices) at least to test with. Making sure the SSID is 8 alphanumeric characters long with no punctuation or spaces, no smiley faces or other special characters. The password should be 16 characters long with the same restrictions.

You can easily try the new SSID's by creating a guest network (as a test).

 

[Nic Shepherd]

What is the 'latest RMerlin firmware' you installed? Release, beta, alpha? All are possible.

After flashing the firmware, did you perform an M&M Config? Without using a saved backup config file? Please see my signature below for a link to further details of an M&M Config.

Are any devices able to connect both wirelessly and wired? Are they doing so (or attempting to)?

What services, options, and scripts are you running on your router or network if any, besides AI Protection?

Are you running any third-party A/V or firewalls (or pi-hole, etc.)?

How did you determine that the LAN cables are good?

The easiest and most direct way to troubleshoot this fully and properly would be to do a full M&M Config on your main router and add client devices one by one until the issue shows up.

I would also be using new SSID's (that have never been connected to before by any of your devices) at least to test with. Making sure the SSID is 8 alphanumeric characters long with no punctuation or spaces, no smiley faces or other special characters. The password should be 16 characters long with the same restrictions.

You can easily try the new SSID's by creating a guest network (as a test).

Hi,

I flashed with Release firmware for both routers.
I have never heard of M&M Config, will look into that.
I haven't backed up ever since I normally just leave everything default.

Neither of our PC's use wireless, there are two Xbox's and a PS4 that can connect both wired and wirelessly - but how would this cause an issue? Not sure how you'd find out if they are making those attempts, I'd assume if they are wired then they wouldn't bother trying to connect wirelessly.

Absolutely default settings, apart from SSID names and the occasional port forward or DMZ but neither of those are in-use at the moment.
No Third Party firewalls.

I visually checked LAN cables for damage or loose connections, and successfully pinged all wired devices so I presumed all cables are in good working order.

I will attempt to look into M&M. Is it complex? I am entry level when it comes to Networking, I'm just a little more tech-savvy than the rest of my family.

Does our SSID need to be alphanumeric, is it okay to have 8 characters? I didn't think SSID's allowed for special characters, emoji's or punctuation. Password is 19 characters long again only alphanumeric.