GT-AXE16000 6GHz Radio Dead

[leonn]

EDIT: toggling WPS on/off may fix 6ghz not showing for macos/ipados

I replaced an old AX92U with the AXE16000 and noticed an unusual bug where if you change the region a few times it completely kills the 6GHz radio and nothing but a factory reset fixes it.
It's possible something else could cause this as I initially began troubleshooting when 6GHz was offline assuming region restrictions.
However, changing the region is repeatable on all current and beta asus-wrt firmware.

Not only that but a restore from a working cfg to a fresh reset still renders 6GHz offline.
This is an issue with 386, 388 and the current beta as well..

Can someone guide me in the right direction for where in nvram etc. I could look?
My hopes is it's just a simple flag somewhere..

Very unusual bug.

 

[RMerlin]

Could be because you are switching to a region that does not allow the 6 GHz band - not all of them do.

Keep the region to the one you are in.

 

[leonn]

Could be because you are switching to a region that does not allow the 6 GHz band - not all of them do.

Keep the region to the one you are in.

Those were my exact thoughts after the first setup. 6GHz didn't show up at all so I switched it to a different region assuming the firmware took into account current 6e rollouts.
Oddly enough when switching back or to any other region it no long switches the 6GHz band on.
It's like they forgot a line in the code for turning it back on when a valid region is selected.

Now the 6GHz network is up after the last reset but it seems intermittent, very unusual.
My settings are largely default with a few tweaks on other bands, no cfg restores.
I wonder if i have a faulty unit coupled with the buggy firmware?

I'd like to see what experiences others have had with the 6GHz band.

 

[leonn]

The culprit may be my new macbook. Looks like I'm not the only one who's having issues with it seeing 6e networks on it.
I updated my ax210 to work on win 10 and now with two clients I can see it's up correctly on the ax210.

 

[WMar]

Could be because you are switching to a region that does not allow the 6 GHz band - not all of them do.

Keep the region to the one you are in.

I don't see the region setting in AXE11000 stock firmware. is It under Merlin? If yes, does Merlin have UNI control for different region?

 

[Tech9]

I don't see the region setting in AXE11000 stock firmware.

Some routers in different regions have it.

 

[RMerlin]

I don't see the region setting in AXE11000 stock firmware. is It under Merlin? If yes, does Merlin have UNI control for different region?

The setting to change region is only available for routers manufactured in certain regions. It's not available in the US due to FCC requirements, for example.

 

[leonn]

For anyone with the same issue there's a post on macrumors discussing it, seems there's some bug/feature either in asus-wrt and/or apple's implementation but toggling WPS on seems to allow the macbook to detect and connect.

I managed to get it to work with WPS toggled on then off which suggests a bug in asus-wrt, ymmv.
Though it shows as "limited compatibility" unless you have combined ssids (or so apple says) - we're being penalised for managing separate ssids it seems..

Another observation is the 6ghz network doesn't always seem to be active and on occasions seems to just disappear until an reboot even when scanning with an ax210.

Haven't had a chance to test the network until now, not to mention I added a 10gbe nic to my pc and a usb to 5gbe to my nas all at the same time thinking it would all just work - boy was I wrong.
pcie nic doesn't reconnect when rebooting the router - needed to use an older firmware.
usb to 5gbe intermittently disconnects - might need to use an ifconfig script until I figure it out..

 

[leonn]

I've tested this a bit more over the past few days and found that when I reboot the router 6GHz stops working and I have to toggle WPS on for 2.4, then toggle it back off.
What's up with this anyway? wps is definitely off when toggled off but it's like some flag is left behind that keeps macbooks happy - I'll try looking into this later if I find a good tool.

I installed merlin as I noticed it has support for aimesh now - it's been a few years since I last checked..

Figured I could use /jffs/scripts/service-event etc. to nvram set wps_enable=1, commit then restart_wireless but I don't see $2 = wireless at any point, am I missing something?
I've resorted to using a different filter but since I can't get $2 to = wireless it's a bit tricky without resorting to hard coded delays..
Any ideas how I could cleanly accomplish a wps on, wireless_restart and wps off, wireless_restart after boot?

EDIT: below is what changes with wps toggled vs a fresh reboot from wifiinfoview - It doesn't natively support 6E but the raw dump looks fine..

Element ID: 5 (traffic indication map) missing in wps toggled
Element ID: 11 (bss load) different
Element ID: 255 different
Element ID: 221 (vendor specific) different