Temporary problem on 2.4 GHz band

[TheLyppardMan]

Background: I was using my ISP-supplied router (FRITZ!Box 7530 AX) for about a week, prior to the problem I am about to outline. My original plan, if the test had gone OK would have been to sell my ASUS router on e-bay, so I reinstalled the stock firmware and did a factory reset. Anyway, the FRITZ!Box had some serious shortcomings, so I abandoned that idea and reinstalled my ASUS router. These are the steps I used: 1) Installed latest Merlin firmware; 2) Performed a full factory reset; 3) Imported my last saved configuration file for that particular build; 4) reformatted my USB flash drive and then used YazDHCP to import my list of network clients wirh fixed IPs (which in my case, is all my known devices); 5) Rebooted the router.

Everything seemed to be working fine, but last night, just before I was about to go to bed, I tried to scan a document using my Canon Pixma TS8250 multifunction printer/scanner, but I kept getting an error message saying that my laptop couldn't communicate with the scanner. I tried rebooting my computer and restarting the Canon device, but no change. The printer said it was online, so I tried printing a Word document with just one line of text. That did print, but it was very slow (much slower than usual). My next step was to disconnect my laptop from the 2.4 GHz band and connect to the 2.4 GHz band. It did connect, but said there was no internet (the Canon device can only connect to the 2.4 GHz band, so I wanted to check that it wasn't an issue with the printer being on a different band to my laptop). One other strange thing was that the ASUS GUI listed my Canon printer as being connected, but the utility I use to monitor my network, "Who's On My Wi-Fi" did not show it in the list of connected devices. Anyway, I decided at this point to reboot my router and after that, everything returned to normal. One other observation: I have my Honeywell Evohome Controller (for my radiator thermostats) connected to a guest network on the 2.4 GHz band and if that gets disconnected from the internet for any reason, I usually receive an e-mail when the service is restored, but that didn't happen, so that would suggest to me that the guest network was still working OK. I may be able to add some additional information to this post in a few minutes, but I want to post it now as I don't want to risk losing what I have written so far.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

The printer was showing as being connected to Wi-Fi all the time I was having the problem. If I'd have thought, I could have checked the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi on a few other devices, such as my lounge TV (which only wants to connect to the lower band for some reason) or on my mobile phone, but it was getting late and I'd had a busy day, so my thinking was a bit below par. I did check the Wi-Fi signal with the inSSIDer app, but that didn't show anything unusual.

 

[Crimliar]

Not seen this with a Canon device, but certainly with some of the horrible HP drivers over the last few years if the IP address of a device changed, then it could mean having to reinstall the device. If you dig into the settings for the Canon devices I'll bet that they have a set IP address, which if changed may allow them to work!

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Not seen this with a Canon device, but certainly with some of the horrible HP drivers over the last few years if the IP address of a device changed, then it could mean having to reinstall the device. If you dig into the settings for the Canon devices I'll bet that they have a set IP address, which if changed may allow them to work!

I can't find anything to suggest that a fixed IP has been set in the printer itself, but I have it set to a fixed IP in my DHCP settings. I have had this problem a few times recently and on at least one occasion I had to reinstall the drivers to get it to work, but I didn't check on those occasions for the connection anomalies I mentioned in my OP. I'm just wondering if this has something to do with the auto power off feature as I've not always used that and I don't think I had any problems when it was disabled, so I've disabled it again and we'll see what happens.

 

[Woody]

Background: I was using my ISP-supplied router (FRITZ!Box 7530 AX) for about a week, prior to the problem I am about to outline. My original plan, if the test had gone OK would have been to sell my ASUS router on e-bay, so I reinstalled the stock firmware and did a factory reset. Anyway, the FRITZ!Box had some serious shortcomings, so I abandoned that idea and reinstalled my ASUS router. These are the steps I used: 1) Installed latest Merlin firmware; 2) Performed a full factory reset; 3) Imported my last saved configuration file for that particular build; 4) reformatted my USB flash drive and then used YazDHCP to import my list of network clients wirh fixed IPs (which in my case, is all my known devices); 5) Rebooted the router.

Everything seemed to be working fine, but last night, just before I was about to go to bed, I tried to scan a document using my Canon Pixma TS8250 multifunction printer/scanner, but I kept getting an error message saying that my laptop couldn't communicate with the scanner. I tried rebooting my computer and restarting the Canon device, but no change. The printer said it was online, so I tried printing a Word document with just one line of text. That did print, but it was very slow (much slower than usual). My next step was to disconnect my laptop from the 2.4 GHz band and connect to the 2.4 GHz band. It did conenct, but said there was no internet (the Canon device can only connect to the 2.4 GHz band, so I wanted to check that it wasn't an issue with the printer being on a different band to my laptop). One other starnge thing was that the ASUS GUI listed my Canon printer as being connected, but the utility I use to monitor my network, "Who's On My Wi-Fi" did not show it in the list of connected devices. Anyway, I decided at this point to reboot my router and after that, everything returned to normal. One other observation: I have my Honeywell Evohome Controller (for my radiator thermostats) connected to a guest network on the 2.4 GHz band and if that gets disconnected from the internet for any reason, I usually receive an e-mail when the service is restored, but that didn't happen, so that would suggest to me that the guest network was still working OK. I may be able to add some additional information to this post in a few minutes, but I want to post it now as I don't want to risk losing what I have written so far.

I don't know if this is of any help:

I have an AC86U running now 386.10 (but for me, the issue showed up on all Merlin versions) - completely vanilla - no openVPN and DNS set to ISP etc.

From time to time - maybe every 2-3 weeks (I can't identify a pattern) the 2.4Ghz devices kind of get a connection rejected - either for a new device (or a device that has been asleep or powered down) connecting or a device renewing it's IP via DHCP (DHCP running on the router).

For devices already connected, they continue fine - I am just talking about new connections, the like of which your printer would make after sleep.

I can't identify what is causing the issue, but for me, the fix is to physically pull the power cable out, and then re-insert after a few minutes. This always works - and for me, is different to a reboot or using the switch on the back (which doesn't fix it).

Again, I'll repeat: the only thing that works for me is to pull the power cable physically out (and then back in again - obvs..). Your mileage might vary.

Woody.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

I don't know if this is of any help:

I have an AC86U running now 386.10 (but for me, the issue showed up on all Merlin versions) - completely vanilla - no openVPN and DNS set to ISP etc.

From time to time - maybe every 2-3 weeks (I can't identify a pattern) the 2.4Ghz devices kind of get a connection rejected - either for a new device (or a device that has been asleep or powered down) connecting or a device renewing it's IP via DHCP (DHCP running on the router).

For devices already connected, they continue fine - I am just talking about new connections, the like of which your printer would make after sleep.

I can't identify what is causing the issue, but for me, the fix is to physically pull the power cable out, and then re-insert after a few minutes. This always works - and for me, is different to a reboot or using the switch on the back (which doesn't fix it).

Again, I'll repeat: the only thing that works for me is to pull the power cable physically out (and then back in again - obvs..). Your mileage might vary.

Woody.

The weird thing in my case was the printer was still connected to the router in some fashion, as shown by it's appearance in the list of connected devices in the router's GUI and the fact that I could still print from it, albeit very slowly. I have a strong feeling it is related to the auto power off feature, as I'm sure I didn't have any issues prior to turning that on, so I have disabled it and will see how it goes.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

The problem is back. I've tried everything, including a reinstall of the Canon drivers, but to no avail. However, I have just conencted to the 2.4 GHz band using my mobile and the download/upload speeds are virtually non-existent (3.75 Mbps download and 0.46 Mbps upload with a ping of 101 ms).

 

[TheLyppardMan]

I decided to do a full reset of the router and set everything up from scratch. This solved the problem using the Merlin firmware, so I suspect that when I restored the DHCP clients list using YazDHCP, straight after uploading my last saved configuration for the same Merlin build, something got messed up, but I've no idea why. Anyway, I've switched back to the ASUS official firmware and done another full reset. Everything is working fine now, including my Canon printer/scanner.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

I spoke too soon! This evening, I tested the internet speed on my TV, which for some reason, will only connect to the 2.4GHz band, and it gave a download speed of 9Mbps. After that, it couldn't even complete the test. I then tried using my Samsung Galaxy A22 and Windows 11 laptop from PC Specialist. Both gave a similar result to the TV. However, after removing some static IP clients from the DHCP server, which resulted in a partial reboot of the router, the download/upload speeds returned to normal (see below). The 5 GHz band is not being affected by any of this. So the pattern seems to be that it works for a day or so and then the problem recurs. Could it be that I have a faulty device?

This is what inSSIDer was reporting when the problem was occurring earlier this evening. As far as I could see, everything looked normal:

 

[TheLyppardMan]

I've sent the router back for a refund as there was clearly something wrong with the 2.4 GHz band.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Here's the results of the comparison test between my ex-RTAX88U Pro and my ISP-supplied FRITZ!Box 7530 AX