RT-AC86U (AIMesh) losing internet

[BlindHope]

Hi

First time poster so please Mod move my thread if in the wrong place.

A bit of context first - I am technical but not good at networking, at all! So any help please needs to be in baby language!

About 2 years ago, from reading these forums I bought a pair of RT-86U's, put my ISP router into bridge mode, and used the two routers as an AI mesh (hardwired), applying a set of settings I found in these forums that people said seemed stable, including separate guest and private networks, and turned off auto firmware updates for fear of exactly what is happening now - things breaking! My version is 3.0.0.4.386_41634

Our internet has been absolutely rock solid in the last 2 years, more so than anyone in our area (based on neighbourhood whatsapp groups giving out about their internet the whole time). But out of nowhere last Friday our internet dropped. An "on/off" brought it back.
Then over the weekend it got worse - the "no internet" red light was showing on the router, I couldnt log into the router login page even though my laptop was connected, and my AIMesh node got "lost".
I brought it back 2 or 3 times through various unplugging and re-logins, re-finding the aimesh node, and Monday night it seemed ok. I thought maybe I "flushed" some weird bug.
Today I came home from work and it was down again, and button-based on/off wouldnt get rid of the red "no internet" light, and only a direct unplug of both my ISP router and the asus has me able to post here.

What could it be? Has my asus router been worn out, or has my ISP changed some weird meta setting thats messing up my bridge? Any ideas (in baby language) welcome!

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @BlindHope.

Which specific routers do you have? AC or AX class?

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi

First time poster so please Mod move my thread if in the wrong place.

A bit of context first - I am technical but not good at networking, at all! So any help please needs to be in baby language!

About 2 years ago, from reading these forums I bought a pair of RT-86U's, put my ISP router into bridge mode, and used the two routers as an AI mesh (hardwired), applying a set of settings I found in these forums that people said seemed stable, including separate guest and private networks, and turned off auto firmware updates for fear of exactly what is happening now - things breaking! My version is 3.0.0.4.386_41634

Our internet has been absolutely rock solid in the last 2 years, more so than anyone in our area (based on neighbourhood whatsapp groups giving out about their internet the whole time). But out of nowhere last Friday our internet dropped. An "on/off" brought it back.
Then over the weekend it got worse - the "no internet" red light was showing on the router, I couldnt log into the router login page even though my laptop was connected, and my AIMesh node got "lost".
I brought it back 2 or 3 times through various unplugging and re-logins, re-finding the aimesh node, and Monday night it seemed ok. I thought maybe I "flushed" some weird bug.
Today I came home from work and it was down again, and button-based on/off wouldnt get rid of the red "no internet" light, and only a direct unplug of both my ISP router and the asus has me able to post here.

What could it be? Has my asus router been worn out, or has my ISP changed some weird meta setting thats messing up my bridge? Any ideas (in baby language) welcome!

Unfortunately the AC86U is known to be problematic over time - some have called it a "ticking time bomb". However I would try a hard factory reset using the WPS button and reconfigure from scratch (not a backup). Not a bad time to update the firmware if you haven't already (do that before you do the factory reset). In fact just in case your router has some sort of malware or something on it best to hard reset both before and after updating - you'll need to reconfigure it a bit to do the upgrade, just enough to get into it, then upgrade and reset again, then redo all your settings.

There was an issue recently where routers started having high CPU and other problems due to a mess up by Asus, it was mostly resolved by a reboot but some required a factory reset. You'd know if you were having that issue if you logged into the GUI and saw the CPUs running high. Sometimes you couldn't log into the GUI at all, so that symptom matches, however that is also a symptom of failing hardware.

However regardless, before giving up on it, it is always a good idea to update and factory reset and see if it resolves your issues. Take screen shots or write down your settings first.

Start with the node, upgrade it to latest firmware then shut it off. Once your main is reconfigured, factory reset the node and re-join it to aimesh.

If you are still having issues, use your second 86 as your main router and the other as the node, maybe it will handle just being an access point better than being a full router (if it is starting to die) and worst case if it locks up, you still have internet just not as much coverage. Heck, maybe if you're going to reset them both anyway, just swap them, the one that has been doing the "lighter workload" may be ready for a turn as the master router. If you do this, you may not know whether it was a hardware issue or the reset that fixed it though.

If it was me I'd want to see if it was a hardware issue so I'd probably do it like it is and if still having issues, then swap them, but that will require you to reset them both and redo them again so that may be more work than you want to do, and it may make more sense to just swap them. If at that point the node has issues, then you know it is failing and can replace it with something else.

The symptoms you describe do not sound like an ISP issue. Not impossible, but it is unlikely anything they did would lock up the GUI on the router or interfere with Aimesh.

 

[BlindHope]

I was really hoping to not have to re-do everything again! But youre probably right to do that.

Even more strangely, after the on/off yesterday and all normal wired and wireless devices are working today, but my work laptop which uses an always on vpn refuses to connect saying something along the lines of "you may be using a proxy which is not supported by always onvpn".

I'll have a go at the reset per instructions above and see how i get on

 

[BlindHope]

Small update; I did a firmware update for both routers and the vpn issue is gone and all devices seem to be connecting again. Hopefully the gremlins have been flushed - if not I'll go through the steps outlined above. Thanks for help!