RT-AC3100 - intermittent connection -between- devices

[fatherom]

Hi all,

First time poster. I have a AC3100 that I bought in July 2017. It's running f/w 3.0.0.4.386_46065.

I have an iPhone and a laptop connected to the 5ghz radio. Each device works perfectly fine on its own (internet connection, etc). When I try to ping the laptop from the phone (using a ping app I downloaded from the app store), it works about 50% of the time.

This problem used to happen very rarely (once every month or more). Now it's happening about 50% of the time. Sometimes the ping works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm pinging by IP address.

Not aware of anything actively changing in our home network in the past couple weeks, but trying to nail this down has been tough. I'm willing to look at logs or config settings or whatever people may recommend to help me track this down.

Thanks all,

Chris

 

[fatherom]

bump...anyone?

 

[L&LD]

Boy, you're patient!

Which phone? Which o's? Which laptop? Which o's? Which WiFi card? Which drivers?

Still running the same firmware on the router?

 

[fatherom]

Boy, you're patient!

Which phone? Which o's? Which laptop? Which o's? Which WiFi card? Which drivers?

Still running the same firmware on the router?

Thanks for responding.

I recently upgraded the router FW to 3.0.0.4.386_48260. It hasn't changed the behavior.

Since I posted the original post, I've played with this more and haven't gotten anywhere. Keep in mind this problem started happening about a month ago, never happened before that, and when it does happen, it happens about 50% of the time.

My iphone is an iphone7+. I have a Toshiba z20t laptop running Windows 8. The devices are a bit inconsequential. The problem seems to be the switch within the router, not allowing one device to see the other. I can pick several combinations of two devices within my network and they'll randomly be able to ping each other, and randomly NOT be able to ping each other. It's maddening.

The main symptom is I run infuse on my Apple TV, and I access SMB shares on various PCs in my house. I can access the shares 50% of the time. At that moment, I'll grab my laptop or phone and try a ping. The ping fails. Then, after a few minutes, the Apple TV can access the SMB shares...I then quickly do a ping from my laptop or phone, and the ping works. Same thing happens with Remote Desktop. It works when the pings are working...it doesn't when they're not (as one would suspect). It's like the IP address isn't even reachable at those moments (again, about 50% of the times that I try).

As a temporary workaround, I added a USB flash drive to my router, and shared it over SMB. THAT is accessible always via the Apple TV (which is hardwired to the same router). However, loading the initial list of folders in the share sometimes takes a VERY long time...but it always eventually succeeds. For the other shares that work intermittently, infuse will actually say "an error occurred" at those times when the SMB/ping isn't working.

I would love to diagnose this, but part of me wonders if the switch is bad in the router somehow. I wonder if there's a way to see anything in some kind of router log that would show the traffic not getting to its destination sometimes and making it to the destination other times.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

 

[degrub]

did you do a full factory reset followed by manually configuring the router ?
no restore of config after firmware upgrade.

what happens if you put each on a different frequency band ?

 

[fatherom]

did you do a full factory reset followed by manually configuring the router ?
no restore of config after firmware upgrade.

what happens if you put each on a different frequency band ?

I have not done a full factory reset yet. Was hoping to avoid that, but would be willing if people thought it could help. It's the main router for the house and everyone uses it constantly.

It's not really a wifi thing either. I connected my laptop directly to the router with an ethernet cable and still couldn't access other shares on the network. So even ethernet-connected devices have the issue.

 

[degrub]

Never could or sometimes ?
Was that pinging or trying to get to a directory ?
Could you see the device holding the folder ?
What OS’s and versions are holding the shares and what versions are trying to access ?
Are you running Pro version of win8 or home version ?

someone else here had random issues that turned out the be a sonos speaker that was not playing nice and i think required a firmware update.

if you have a number of IOT thingies, try taking them all off the network and add them back one at a time while testing share access. You may have to bump kid devices, if any, at the same time.

 

[fatherom]

Never could or sometimes ?
Was that pinging or trying to get to a directory ?
Could you see the device holding the folder ?
What OS’s and versions are holding the shares and what versions are trying to access ?

The pings / accessing smb shares / remote desktop connection issues I'm having work about 50% of the time, and fail 50% of the time. I was just showing my daughter...I had a console window up and was trying to ping one machine from another. Worked fine...two minutes later "destination host unreachable"...five minutes later working fine again. It's bizarre.

The pinging of an IP address and having it fail sometimes, and having it work other times is the most basic way for me to showcase the issue. It doesn't matter if I'm pinging from a Windows laptop, or a ping utility on my iphone, or from my Windows desktop. It all behaves the same way...working about 50% of the time, seemingly randomly.

I'm running Windows 7-10 on various devices in the house, my iphone is on the last iOS. I definitely recognize I'm new here, and am willing to follow various advice. But, as a software engineer, I definitely know at least a little bit. I don't believe the OS/device is the issue, since it seems to happen on ANY device in the house talking any other device in the house. And this problem started happening seemingly out of nowhere quite suddenly (never had any issues before at all). It's really quite perplexing.

 

[degrub]

Before replacing the router, i would do the hard factory reset and manual config per the @L&LD method.

i used to work with the original ethernet cable with vampire taps for drops. Having a tap go bad was a joy to track down.

 

[degrub]

I know many of the asus routers allow you to monitor cpu utilization, but most switches run independent of the cpu. I don’t know this router.

if you set up iperf tests running parallel streams between two lan devices, maybe that would show the dropouts ?

is there anything in the logs that show clients dropping and returning ?

how are ip address assigned ?

how hot does the router get ?

 

[fatherom]

I know many of the asus routers allow you to monitor cpu utilization, but most switches run independent of the cpu. I don’t know this router.

if you set up iperf tests running parallel streams between two lan devices, maybe that would show the dropouts ?

is there anything in the logs that show clients dropping and returning ?

how are ip address assigned ?

how hot does the router get ?

Haven't tried iperf. I'll likely give that a shot. What I've noticed is that once a connection is finally established (like SMB or Remote Desktop) then the connection stays. When things go south is during that initial step of trying to establish a connection...it's at that moment where the IP address isn't reachable (if it decides at that moment not to be reachable).

Nothing in the logs showing any problems.

I have a couple of devices that have manually assigned IPs. Everything else is DHCP.

Router doesn't get any warmer than it ever has (had it in the same spot behind my TV for about 3 years now).

 

[degrub]

if you run the test between two devices with manually assigned IP addresses, do they have the same issue ?

How are the manual assignments done - reserved in the router or at the device ?

 

[degrub]

there is a new Merlin firmware version for this router if you want to try that after hard factory reset and manual configure.

Download | Asuswrt-Merlin

www.asuswrt-merlin.net

 

[fatherom]

if you run the test between two devices with manually assigned IP addresses, do they have the same issue ?

How are the manual assignments done - reserved in the router or at the device ?

Manual assignments are reserved in the router.

The manual assignment doesn't seem to help...those IPs that are manually assigned are equally unreachable (50% of the time) as the dynamic assigned IPs.

 

[degrub]

are there any energy saving or green ethernet ports involved ?

if you go to the connected device table, are entries coming and going ?

Otherwise, i am out of ideas short of a full reset, different firmware ( merlin) , or replacement.

@L&LD , @ColinTaylor - any ideas ?

 

[fatherom]

are there any energy saving or green ethernet ports involved ?

if you go to the connected device table, are entries coming and going ?

Otherwise, i am out of ideas short of a full reset, different firmware ( merlin) , or replacement.

@L&LD , @ColinTaylor - any ideas ?

Don't know about any energy saving or green stuff involved...I don't think so.

No, I don't see entries coming and going for the devices in question (when looking at the router's Network Map).

I just tried the iperf birectional test. When iperf works, it works fine. When it doesn't, it just sits there. At that same moment, pings stop working. A few minutes later, everything is working fine. A few minutes later, it stops working. But once iperf is connected and sending data, it stays working. It seems to be that initial step of contacting the destination that 50% of the time fails. It's soooooo strange.

Thanks for all your ideas and help so far, btw...I tried to manually assign IPs to all the devices I typically use, it didn't help.

 

[fatherom]

Otherwise, i am out of ideas short of a full reset, different firmware ( merlin) , or replacement.

Is there some way for me (via ssh/telnet) to access more involved logging that may be present in the router, to potentially see the switching "errors" happening (can route to IP, can't route to IP, can route to IP, and so on)

 

[fatherom]

Another data point, been seeing a lot of these in the logs lately

Apr 26 11:13:53 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(527): eth2: Auth AC:9E:17:80:88:50, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:13:53 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(556): eth2: Assoc AC:9E:17:80:88:50, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:19:41 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(491): eth2: Deauth_ind CC:08:8D:56:6E:FB, status: 0, reason: Disassociated due to inactivity (4), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:19:41 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(508): eth2: Disassoc CC:08:8D:56:6E:FB, status: 0, reason: Disassociated because sending station is leaving (or has left) BSS (8), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:27:46 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(527): eth2: Auth CC:15:31:C7:9E:53, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:27:46 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(556): eth2: Assoc CC:15:31:C7:9E:53, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:34:34 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(527): eth2: Auth CC:08:8D:56:6E:FB, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:34:34 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(556): eth2: Assoc CC:08:8D:56:6E:FB, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:54:51 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(491): eth2: Deauth_ind 6E:79:8D:73:46:85, status: 0, reason: Disassociated due to inactivity (4), rssi:0
Apr 26 11:54:51 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(508): eth2: Disassoc 6E:79:8D:73:46:85, status: 0, reason: Disassociated because sending station is leaving (or has left) BSS (8), rssi:0
Apr 26 12:09:16 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(527): eth2: Auth 6E:79:8D:73:46:85, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Apr 26 12:09:16 syslog: wlceventd_proc_event(556): eth2: Assoc 6E:79:8D:73:46:85, status: Successful (0), rssi:0

These are iOS devices (not devices I'm having issues with, or testing with really) and from the research I've done, these are normal and harmless and mainly a result of the iOS "private wi-fi address" functionality.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@fatherom Do you have any other networking devices connected to your LAN, e.g. switches, repeaters, access points, powerline adapters, etc?

If you're sure this is also effecting Ethernet-only connections (i.e. it's not WiFi problem) then I'd say this is a hardware issue.

But before spending money on new hardware I'd do a hard factory reset just to be sure.

There's no need to follow complicated reset "guides". First make a backup of your current settings (Administration - Restore/Save/Upload Setting) and then follow these instructions: https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1039077. After doing a bare minimum setup check to see if the problem still exists. If it does that would strongly suggest a hardware problem. Now you can restore your old settings from the backup file.

 

[fatherom]

But before spending money on new hardware I'd do a hard factory reset just to be sure.

Thanks, yeah, I plan to do a factory reset soon (just have to find a time when the family can deal with no internet for an hour or two). I'll report back once I do so. I took screenshots of all the config things I've changed, so I may manually re-configure anyway.