Smart Connect Rules 'Apply' Button Not Working

[JDB]

Hi,

Recently purchased a RT-AC88U, and for the most part very impressed with it and the extensions the AsusWRT Merlin F/W brings.

I've solved various setup niggles but am left with 1 outstanding which has led to me finding what I think is a bug (or 2)...

The root issue is 2.4Ghz speeds are very poor - and I live in the middle of nowhere, so pretty sure it's not interference, the site survey is clean. I can't get more than ~25Mbps consistent throughput (it bursts to 30Mbps occasionally). The reported connection speed on the client list is 144Mbps though, so I can't work it out! Seems to be the same on multiple devices, so pretty sure it's the router.

I have Smart Connect enabled, so most of the time I end up on the 5Ghz band and it's not an issue, and so with this in mind I went to adjust the Smart Connect settings to make the 5Ghz even more favourable and this is when I hit a brick wall! Updating the Network Tools>Smart Connect Rule page is seemingly not possible as the 'Apply' button does nothing. The 'Default' button works just fine. I've tried most browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox on OSX, I.E. on Win7). You click and nothing, doesn't even attempt to load/apply anything.

The second issue (display only), is the home page shows 'Tri-Band Smart Connect' whereas the router is dual-band only. Once you select the tab it shows dual-band options only, so pretty sure it's a non-issue, but would be good to fix I suppose!

Any suggestions on the 2.4Ghz speed issue welcome, but mainly wanted to report the issue with the Smart Connect Rule apply and home page display issues.

Many Thanks!

 

[JDB]

Just noticed it also attempts to show the 2nd 5Ghz band MAC on the home page system status tab (which of course is not present)

 

[JDB]

Similarly, Advanced Settings>Wireless>General shows current channels for 3 bands (the 3rd being undefined on my router as it doesn't exist)

 

[RMerlin]

Asus only recently added Smart Connect support to the dual-band RT-AC88U, so it's possible that there are still a few webui issues or hardcoded strings that expect Smart Connect to be tri-band.

I'll see if I can reproduce the Smart Connect page malfunction.

 

[JDB]

Yea I figured these were Asus bugs. Hopefully you can fix them quicker than them

Is there somewhere I can submit them direct to Asus as well?

 

[RMerlin]

Yea I figured these were Asus bugs. Hopefully you can fix them quicker than them

Is there somewhere I can submit them direct to Asus as well?

First, make sure you can reproduce the issue running their latest firmware (which might be newer than the code used in mine, so it could have been fixed already). If the issue is still there, you can send them a bug report at networking_support<at>asus<dot>com.

 

[JDB]

I can confirm the Apply button works in 3.0.0.4_380_3941 (it's actually mentioned in the release note).

All the Tri-band stuff remains though, not that it's a biggy.

I managed to change the Smart Connect rules to steer towards 5Ghz far more aggressively before re-applying the Merlin F/W. After a factory reset running stock firmware the 2.4Ghz slowness issue remained though. I also tried every conceivable combination of setting RE b/g protection, N Only, Legacy, Auto etc etc etc. Always the same result.

I have worked out it is an overall router 2.4Ghz bottleneck, not a per-client or overall router bottleneck. For example;
2.4Ghz Client A: Streams internet radio (200k, so basically nothing on my 46Mbps connection)
2.4Ghz Client B: Downloads some large file (at the 25-30Mbps 2.4Ghz allows)

The internet radio gets choppy as Client B is stealing all of the 2.4Ghz bandwidth!

If Client B moves to 5Ghz it can download at just over 40Mbps (as you would expect on a 46 meg connection) and it has no impact on the Client A stream.

For now it's not a huge issue as the majority of my devices (that I care about) use 5Ghz. But I'm beginning to think the 2.4Ghz radio in my router actually has a H/W fault.

 

[RMerlin]

Smart Rules page fix backported from 380_3941.