RT-AC3100 with 45149 fw: no aiMesh icon/ability

[Waldemar]

tl:dr - my AC3100 lost its aiMesh icon and ability within 2 hours of upgrading to 45149. I've been able to reinitialize, downgrade, reinitialize, etc etc., but aiMesh seems to not be an available option any longer.

Hi - longtime Asus router user, was really excited by aiMesh. Set up two 86U's, had trouble getting either to see the other as a node (although that's working now under 45149). Added a 3100, boom! Worked beautifully until Christmas eve. Upgraded that afternoon to 45149, when I came back home that evening my network was down. Saw that the aiMesh icon was missing. Have tried many things: rebooting, power deprivation, reinitializing, downgrading firmware, all to no real avail. Have had the aiMesh icon come back once, but it again departed after about an hour. Sometimes when I reinitialize the 2.4 radio LED does not light up, although the radio is enabled according to all the settings.

Any help or ideas you can offer would be appreciated.
waldemar

 

[JDB]

Where is the icon missing from?

Given you cannot log into a Node at all, I am assuming you mean on the 86U home page? In which case how is this AC3100 related?

Maybe some screenshots would help?


Either way, I find the solution to Asus GUI icon weirdness is often to clear cache of the browser, reboot computer and try again.


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[Waldemar]

Sorry that I wasn't more clear. Up until Monday, the AC3100 was the aiMesh master, and the two 86U's were both aiMesh nodes. At this point, the AC3100 offers no consistent aiMesh capability and I have one of the 86U's in master and the other in node mode. I want the AC3100 back in master mode. It was purchased because of the dual wan, link aggregation, and Smart Connect features, among other things.

As to weirdness, I have done many many reboots of AC3100 (and re-inits) and of the various PCs I have connected to try to figure out where the problem lies. Sometimes the aiMesh option returns, but only for an hour or so.

Here are two current screenshots from the AC3100 after another re-init and downgrade to 32738. Below the "Clients: 2 / View List" area (at 7oclock below) should be an aiMesh button. On the tab from Administration - Operation Mode the wireless router and AP modes should mention aiMesh options, and there should be fifth mode option of an aiMesh node. If screenshots from the working 86U master are desired I can supply those later. I'm off on a virus/malware eradication mission right now for an organization in town.
Thank you!
waldemar

 

[JDB]

Hmmm, that is odd. When my GUI goes made it’s far less precise in what icons it removes!
The latest f/w has had some pretty major changes regards AiMesh (it dedicates a whole radio to backhaul on tri-band routers for example [emoji1751]‍[emoji3603]), so it’s conceivable they broke it on other routers too.


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[Waldemar]

I'll keep trying, hoping that the next fw release fixes the problem or that someone has a flash of insight.

In the meantime the AC3100 works well as an AP extending from the master 68U. I lose those extra features which are why I bought the AC3100 in the first place. Will do some research on whether switching all to Merlin and running the AC3100 as the main unit and the 68U's as AP's would give decent performance. Ideas and advice are welcome. (Fairly big house, lots of concrete, the aiMesh system worked very well, everything on ethernet backhaul.)
w

 

[Waldemar]

New data: it appears that my 2.4GHz wireless is sporadic. Last night I pressed the LED button to turn off the lights, and the 2.4 LED remained lit. This morning I checked, and noted the following: the 2.4 LED never flickers to show activity, Xirrus Wifi Inspector only sees the 5GHz band from this router, and on the Network Map - System Status area, no MAC address is currently shown for the 2.4GHz wireless. A hardware failure of one radio would cause aiMesh to fail, as I understand.

The unit may effectively be out of warranty (I'm currently in Indonesia, they don't appear to sell this unit here though they have the AC88U, and the warranty runs out before my return to the US) but I'll try a bunch of re-inits, extended power-off reboots, etc., to see if the problem is at all intermittent. If someone has further ideas I'd welcome them. Next week I'll take the beast to the local ASUS service depot to see if anyone there has ideas.

If this unit is indeed dead on 2.4, thoughts on just using it as the main incoming router and the two 68U's as AP's? What am I giving up in comparison to a full aiMesh system? (Would rather not have to buy another unit: much tech is more expensive in SE Asia than it is in NA.)
waldemar

 

[JDB]

Don’t be so sure it’s a h/w defect.
I have seen my 88U do similar when acting as a AiMesh node. So far it seems to be down to flakey Ethernet backhaul (which I am in the process of eliminating).


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[Waldemar]

@JDB, right you are about it not necessarily being h/w, and thank you for the help. Just as the problem appeared suddenly, seemingly just after flashing f/w to 45149, so now it has disappeared suddenly, even with 45149. Yesterday, after another init and reflash, the AC3100 persisted with both 5 and 2.4 and with the aiMesh icon visible. I re-inited, rebooted, changed mode several times, and it stubbornly kept working. So just now I made it an aiMesh node under the 68U master, and it seems to be happy. I'll leave it all this way for a week (68U's on 32738, AC3100 on 45149), then cautiously proceed to put things back to AC3100 master and 68U nodes. (BTW, all nodes have an ethernet backhaul to the master available, whether the system chooses to use it or not.)

If anyone has further insights to what happened, I'd love to know. For now I'm happy that things are working.

Best regards (and anticipation of a Happy New Year) to all,
waldemar

 

[Bilal]

Ive just had the same issue with my brand new AC88U. I upgraded to 45149 a few days ago and all was well. Today I added a manual IP to one of my clients and it all went a bit weird. I could no longer log into the iphone app (authentication failed) tried all sorts. My client list was completely empty even after powering the router off and on. The routers webpage kept logging me out constantly too.
I restored to defaults and it worked again however the AIMESH icon has disappeared.
If I restore a settings backup file then all the problems came back. I'm now having to reconfigure the whole damn thing from scratch and I have over 40 clients which I had renamed and assigned manual addresses to various devices like DVRs and NAS.

 

[Grisu]

Set up two 86U's

and the two 86U's were both aiMesh nodes.
If screenshots from the working 86U master are desired I can supply those later.

In the meantime the AC3100 works well as an AP extending from the master 68U.

So just now I made it an aiMesh node under the 68U master, and it seems to be happy. I'll leave it all this way for a week (68U's on 32738, AC3100 on 45149), then cautiously proceed to put things back to AC3100 master and 68U nodes.

We still not even know what router you really have, sometimes 2x 86U and then 2x 68U ...?!?