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Unexpected Guest Network Behaviour

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dsh23

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I have a RT-AC86U set up in AP mode as a primary AI mesh router and a RT-AC88U as the single (ethernet backhaul) attached node. This has been stable for ~12 moths since setup. I have recently created a guest network which also works well, except for one thing: disabling the guest network does not remove the broadcast/visibility of the SSID _and_ clients can still authenticate and connect to the guest network after it has been disabled. Disabling here refers to opining the admin page on the primary and selecting "disable" for the guest network.

This seems contrary to the concept of "disable" to me. My expected behaviour would be that on disabling the guest SSID, this would no longer be visible and certainly clients would not be able to connect and access network services as if they were fully enabled.

Has any one else observed this, or does anyone have any insight as to why this might be?
 
I don't have direct experience with your issue, but since no one else has offered anything yet.....

The obvious: did you *apply* the change after making the selection :)

I'm not an AP guy but going on what I've read in other posts, I'd suggest:
1 - turn off the AP and see if the behavior works as expected.
2 - make the change, remove the AP, then add it back so that it loads a fresh configuration from the main router. I'm guessing changes aren't always propagated.
 
I have a RT-AC86U set up in AP mode as a primary AI mesh router and a RT-AC88U as the single (ethernet backhaul) attached node. This has been stable for ~12 moths since setup. I have recently created a guest network which also works well, except for one thing: disabling the guest network does not remove the broadcast/visibility of the SSID _and_ clients can still authenticate and connect to the guest network after it has been disabled. Disabling here refers to opining the admin page on the primary and selecting "disable" for the guest network.

This seems contrary to the concept of "disable" to me. My expected behaviour would be that on disabling the guest SSID, this would no longer be visible and certainly clients would not be able to connect and access network services as if they were fully enabled.

Has any one else observed this, or does anyone have any insight as to why this might be?
I have observed the same behavior. More interesting in my experience is that the node will broadcast the SSID, clients will connect to it *but there is no internet connectivity* (so a slightly different experience than what you're seeing).

What I ended up doing in one case was the removal/reset of the node as @dosborne suggests.

Yesterday however I was able to remove the guest network from the node by rebooting the node, and disabling the guest network on the primary router at the same time.

I then re-enabled guest network on the main router and left it only on the main router. I'm running RT-AX86U as main and RT-AC66U B1 as node, both running Merlin 386.4B2. My node is likewise hard-wired.

I suppose I could try non-Merlin firmware, but I run a couple of scripts on the mesh just to keep track of things.

(I have also noted an odd behavior particular to guestnet 1 (the first on 2.4gHz) and 4 (the first on 5gHz): sometimes the node will refuse to register a client until that client has registered on the main router - it then hands off just fine. But that's a separate issue.)
 
Time has been limited to test the various possible combinations and incantations. However the following have yielded little progress:

1. Powering off the node and just running the primary: everything works as expected. Disabling the guest network means it goes away and former clients to that SSID lose all connectivity.

2. Removing the node from the mesh and then (re)adding, and then activating the guest network: The guest network is only available on the primary. ie. the guest network is not propagated to the node. So effectively the same behaviour WRT guest as 1.

3. (after 2) Rebooting "system" via ai mesh management console: guest SSID is now propagated to the node, but the original problem occurs - disabling the guest network does not affect the broadcast from the node. Guest network remains up and active. There is no broadcast of the guest SSID from the primary, just the node. Disabling the radio on the node then kills the guest SSID. But this also negates the purpose of a mesh :)

The only thing I can think of that I haven't done so far is completely rebuild from scratch. Given everything else works fine and the errant behaviour is only observed on the node, I'm inclined to expect little change, but these are temperamental devices.

@dev_null your observations are encouraging in the sense that I'm not completely unique/mad. If this were a bug I would have expected more reports, I'll do a complete rebuild before a file a report with Asus.
 
I have a RT-AC86U set up in AP mode as a primary AI mesh router and a RT-AC88U as the single (ethernet backhaul) attached node.
Just to be clear, both devices are configured as access points (in AiMesh)? So what device are you using as a router?
 

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