Help with Troubleshooting

[yayCollie]

Hey, I hope this is the right section of the forum.
I replaced my ISP's router/modem when we switched over to a different ISP, I bought the ASUS RT-AC3100, along with 2 RT-AC68U, I planned on using the 2 AC68U's for a mesh network as they came as a bundle for a decent price. For awhile there hadn't been any issue's
Although I still don't think the transmissions are optimal, the ISP's fiber interpreter is in the basement and I don't have any CAT cable wired anywhere in the house, so my parent router is stuck in the basement. I had put an AC68U on the first and second floor for the mesh network. As I said it was fine for awhile, and then at one point somehow the fiber optic line got messed with somewhere in the neighborhood, and it eventually got fixed. After a couple weeks from that I had an issue where the RAM or possibly the storage of the AC3100 was full and kept trying to write something too it (it was fully updated and everything), I ended up factory resetting it and the mesh nodes. Again another couple weeks it was fine, but now I'm dealing with random droppage where the nodes on both floors (and potentially the parent router, I haven't confirmed that) are disconnecting from the Internet. I started digging around the system log's more everytime it happens and tried finding out what the cause to be.
Potentially I think it's a hardware issue (I might've bought these used, I can't remember), or maybe a power issue, I was going to try getting a UPS for the parent router. I'm not sure what to do as I can't find any real culprit, I wonder if it's because of multiple reasons.
I don't know how mesh technologies work so much, Would my node on the second floor need to have direct access to the parent router, or is it fine just routing through the first floor node, if its the first thing than it's probably experiencing issues due to how far the signal is from it, but then also the node on the first floor is having issues as well and there shouldn't be issue's really. I just wish my mom would let us have CAT wired through the house lol.
Anyways, if anyone has any ideas or things I can do to test that'd be great. Also maybe I should buy a newer ASUS router?

 

[Tech9]

You perhaps got hit by wrong ASD update Asus pushed to millions of routers and made some of them temporary unusable and unable to recover themselves. There is information here on SNB Forums (including how to recover) as well as on many other places all over Internet.

ASUS routers knocked offline worldwide by bad security update

ASUS has apologized to its customers for a server-side security maintenance error that has caused a wide range of impacted router models to lose network connectivity.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[yayCollie]

You perhaps got hit by wrong ASD update Asus pushed to millions of routers and made some of them temporary unusable and unable to recover themselves. There is information here on SNB Forums (including how to recover) as well as on many other places all over Internet.

ASUS routers knocked offline worldwide by bad security update

ASUS has apologized to its customers for a server-side security maintenance error that has caused a wide range of impacted router models to lose network connectivity.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

Hey, so I went and I removed the offending file, although the number at the end was an 8 instead of 6, so It may not be the offending one, but removing it shouldn't hurt either way according to that article. My firmwares are upgraded past that date, and I believe I performed the factory reset past that point of the security bulletin. Hopefully this resolves it, but I was going to see if I can SSH into my other Mesh Nodes to see if that's also there as well. Or maybe it's just in the parent router.

I could try merlins fw for my router's as well. Thanks

 

[Tech9]

Your nodes may be affected as well. I was fighting with some routers in AP Mode totally blocked by this update.

 

[yayCollie]

I've factory reset them and before that I had removed the offending file, but I'm still having the same issue. Not sure what to do at this point...

 

[Tech9]

If you look around SNB Forums RT-AC68U and variants issues with AiMesh are common. In my opinion this router was kept alive for so long and AiMesh compatibility was added to it only for marketing purposes - to make the owners of most popular Asus router buy more Asus routers. It's >10-years old hardware and currently on life support. Where to go next? You decide what you are comfortable with. I personally wouldn't add more Asus routers and dig deeper in AiMesh compatibility jungle.

 

[yayCollie]

Do you mean that you wouldn't use ASUS routers entirely, or just that not to use these AC68U's for anything anymore and that newer ASUS routers are fine. I'm pretty tight on money right now so it'll be a bit before I can upgrade these nodes

 

[Tech9]

I personally have only one Asus router (RT-AC66U B1, one of the latest RT-AC68U variants) in use as VPN exit point in another country and it will be replaced after few months with different device. I don't like when the manufacturer blocks my router with automatic updates they think I may need. I also have one RT-AX86U purchased for Asuswrt and Asuswrt-Merlin experiments only. My main network and Wi-Fi system is different equipment.

Do you have Ethernet wires? I would use the routers as Access Points instead of AiMesh nodes.

 

[yayCollie]

I guess I'll look into different companies products then. I was going to do this anyways if I couldn't resolve this issue.
at least I learned how to SSH into a server...

 

[Tech9]

Wi-Fi spectrum is shared between all users and you'll never have consistent results with wireless backhaul and dual-band routers. Tri-band routers have better chances, but nothing beats Ethernet backhaul. Explore options to wire the routers and you'll see significant performance increase with what you already have (if not defective or damaged). This is the first thing to do before you look at other hardware vendors. All home "mesh" systems are evolution of simple repeater with lots of marketing involved. One of the best are Amazon's eero (Pro) and Google's Nest Wifi (Pro)... believe it or not. Some users around run Asus router for easy GUI with familiar features and something else for Wi-Fi.

 

[yayCollie]

I'll probably go with Ubiquiti

 

[Tech9]

If you want to go SMB route check TP-Link Omada solutions. The best price/performance for home use and more hardware choice than Ubiquiti UniFi. We have folks here running from single AP to entire system. There are multiple threads with example hardware as well. Wired and wireless "mesh" options.

 

[yayCollie]

Like I said I'm pretty broke right now, so for now I've updated all my asus routers with ASUSWRT-Merlin FW's and hope for the best until I become more competent