Big WiFi issue with latest firmware

[Le_Sage]

Hello,
Don't know if it's due to Merlin firmware or general part of the firmware?

After upgrading my router to the latest ASUSWRT-Merlin firmware (3006.102.5) on my RT-BE88U, I’ve been experiencing major WiFi stability issues that were not present on the previous release.

Symptoms:

• Frequent client disconnections, (smartphone Galaxy S23, motorola Edge, Realme, Ipad, and some IoT) and impossible to reconnect.
• Log shows errors such as:
  • WLC_SCB_DEAUTHENTICATE_FOR_REASON err -30
  • BSS Transit Response: STA reject
  • STA deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)
• Clients sometimes refuse band transitions (2.4 ↔ 5 GHz), leading to forced deauth.
• WiFi 6 (802.11ax) clients are unable to connect in ax or ac mode, only n or a.

What I already tried (without success):

• Disabled Band Steering.
• Disabled WiFi Agile Multiband / Roaming Assistant (802.11k/v).
• Disabled OFDMA, MU-MIMO, Airtime Fairness, TX Burst.
• Switched security to WPA2-Personal only (instead of WPA2/WPA3 mixed).
• Factory reset + NVRAM erase + manual reconfiguration.
• Tried with and without IGMP Snooping.
• Tried adjusting DTIM/Beacon intervals.

Notes:

• These problems started only after the firmware update.
• With the older firmware, all advanced options (OFDMA, MU-MIMO, TX Burst, WPA3, etc.) worked perfectly with the same clients.
• Rolling back to the previous firmware restores full stability.

It looks like something in the latest driver/firmware (Broadcom side?) broke compatibility.
Could you please check if this is a known regression or provide a workaround?

Thanks in advance!

 

[degrub]

downgrade/revert the firmware.
factory reset.
manual config.

there are a few threads on this type of issue with that firmware

 

[Le_Sage]

Thanks, I had already done that, like I said.
So it's a known problem with this firmware... Sorry, I hadn't seen that before, I didn't search enough in the previous posts.

 

[Ripshod]

I don't recall any wifi driver changes. My setup runs fine with 102.5, even the 2.4G IoT devices are happy. Everything is still fine after 7 weeks.

 

[Le_Sage]

I don't recall any wifi driver changes. My setup runs fine with 102.5, even the 2.4G IoT devices are happy. Everything is still fine after 7 weeks.
View attachment 67992View attachment 67993
View attachment 67996

OK thank you for the answer.

Are you using the Wi-Fi scheduler? I've been using it myself for about 2–3 weeks, since I noticed they brought it back in firmware 102.5. So I was wondering if maybe the problem comes from that...

 

[Ripshod]

OK thank you for the answer.

Are you using the Wi-Fi scheduler? I've been using it myself for about 2–3 weeks, since I noticed they brought it back in firmware 102.5. So I was wondering if maybe the problem comes from that...

No wifi scheduler. No major changes to the wifi other than enabling MLO, and setting the wifi to fixed channels (124/160 and 13/20).

 

[Le_Sage]

The most concerning error in the logs is WLC_SCB_DEAUTHORIZE error (-30).
Why does this Wi-Fi error occur? Does it come from the router, or from one of my devices, which are fairly recent smartphones and other equipment (at least Wi-Fi 5)?