Wifi Calls have started dropping between AiMesh Nodes... Trying to pin point Issue.

[Venom]

Hi All,
I am having problems troubleshooting my issue. I live in a very rural area with just about no cell service coverage. Verizon is the only one. I get one bar of signal if I stand in my yard and hold my phone up. Wifi Calling is what I use 100% of the time.
Initially when I installed My Asus Aimesh system it would always drop out between nodes, But after a few Firmware updates it had started to work perfectly for the last couple of years. My Main Router is a RT-AC5300 with Firmware: 3.0.0.4.386_48377-g3e428e2. I have 3 AiMesh Nodes. Two are RP-AC1900 that are Wired with Firmware: 3.0.0.4.386_51255-g486ded6. The third is a RT-AC68U connected Wirelessly with Firmware: 3.0.0.4.386_51255-g486ded6.

I used to be able to walk from My house to my workshop and vice versa without dropping a Wifi call as well as work around my yard. One of the RP-AC-1900 units is in the Workshop. Here is my troubleshooting problem. The Main Router and the AiMesh Nodes all updated to the latest software on the same day My Google Pixel 7 Pro got an update. Within a day I started experiencing drop outs on Wifi Calls when switching between nodes. I went through the settings on my cell phone and it appears they added a new setting to Wifi Calls. Before you had one option to use Wifi Calling if a Verizon signal was not available. Now you have two settings one that makes the cell signal a priority and one that makes the Wifi signal a priority. Using either setting I have the drop outs between nodes. To further make things difficult they have upgraded to Verizon 5G. Now I get one bar of cell signal randomly as I walk around without lifting the phone up into the air. I am using the Wifi Priority setting on the Phone. According to what I have read The Wifi Priority setting will always pick Wifi over the Cell Sgnal. As I walk to my house from the workshop looking at the phone I see when the Wifi Signal stops and it then tries to connect to the cell signal which is not there. Then the phone says no Mobile Signal available call lost. Then it takes the phone a minute to regain a Wifi Signal from the Houses RT-AC5300.

What is the best way to troubleshoot whether my problem is the AiMesh setup or the Cell Phone.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi All,
I am having problems troubleshooting my issue. I live in a very rural area with just about no cell service coverage. Verizon is the only one. I get one bar of signal if I stand in my yard and hold my phone up. Wifi Calling is what I use 100% of the time.
Initially when I installed My Asus Aimesh system it would always drop out between nodes, But after a few Firmware updates it had started to work perfectly for the last couple of years. My Main Router is a RT-AC5300 with Firmware: 3.0.0.4.386_48377-g3e428e2. I have 3 AiMesh Nodes. Two are RP-AC1900 that are Wired with Firmware: 3.0.0.4.386_51255-g486ded6. The third is a RT-AC68U connected Wirelessly with Firmware: 3.0.0.4.386_51255-g486ded6.

I used to be able to walk from My house to my workshop and vice versa without dropping a Wifi call as well as work around my yard. One of the RP-AC-1900 units is in the Workshop. Here is my troubleshooting problem. The Main Router and the AiMesh Nodes all updated to the latest software on the same day My Google Pixel 7 Pro got an update. Within a day I started experiencing drop outs on Wifi Calls when switching between nodes. I went through the settings on my cell phone and it appears they added a new setting to Wifi Calls. Before you had one option to use Wifi Calling if a Verizon signal was not available. Now you have two settings one that makes the cell signal a priority and one that makes the Wifi signal a priority. Using either setting I have the drop outs between nodes. To further make things difficult they have upgraded to Verizon 5G. Now I get one bar of cell signal randomly as I walk around without lifting the phone up into the air. I am using the Wifi Priority setting on the Phone. According to what I have read The Wifi Priority setting will always pick Wifi over the Cell Sgnal. As I walk to my house from the workshop looking at the phone I see when the Wifi Signal stops and it then tries to connect to the cell signal which is not there. Then the phone says no Mobile Signal available call lost. Then it takes the phone a minute to regain a Wifi Signal from the Houses RT-AC5300.

What is the best way to troubleshoot whether my problem is the AiMesh setup or the Cell Phone.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

Turn on airplane mode and then enable wifi only. That will tell you if the issue is due to switching to cell during the transition between wifi access points or some other bug with that transition.

Every phone I've ever seen including my own pixel has always had the two prioritize options, the only way to tell it "never use cell" is airplane mode.

 

[sfx2000]

One other thing to look at - check settings for some called "WiFi Assistant" - there, if there is a setting for "Auto Switch to Mobile Network" - see if that is enabled or not...

When enabled, if the WiFi coverage is low, it'll move over to the 4G/5G network automatically, if disabled, it'll camp on WiFi until WiFi is lost...

I don't have a pixel, but I do have a OnePlus Nord on T-Mobile, and that does help a bit...

 

[drinkingbird]

One other thing to look at - check settings for some called "WiFi Assistant" - there, if there is a setting for "Auto Switch to Mobile Network" - see if that is enabled or not...

When enabled, if the WiFi coverage is low, it'll move over to the 4G/5G network automatically, if disabled, it'll camp on WiFi until WiFi is lost...

I don't have a pixel, but I do have a OnePlus Nord on T-Mobile, and that does help a bit...

My pixel doesn't have that, my old Samsung did though. In developer options you can tell it to disable cellular while on wifi, which might help here, it would take longer to switch and thus maybe less sensitive.

My guess is that the carrier has improved their signal (long reach 5G rolled out on the 600mhz band) and that is what is causing this. It now sees a usable signal when it thinks wifi is poor. Unfortunately calls almost always drop when switching from wifi to cell and vice versa.

 

[Venom]

Okay, put the phone in Airplane mode with Wifi. The same thing happens. If I keep walking then it drops the call, but If I walk very slowly from the shop to the house and when the Wifi signal get very weak I stop walking, It still said the call was connected but we could no longer talk. I stood there and in about 30 seconds the Wifi Icon disappeared and then a new Wifi Icon appeared with a strong signal. It did keep the call and we could talk once again. .
It appears the problem is with the AiMesh. This is exactly how it behaved years ago when I first installed it.

 

[drinkingbird]

Okay, put the phone in Airplane mode with Wifi. The same thing happens. If I keep walking then it drops the call, but If I walk very slowly from the shop to the house and when the Wifi signal get very weak I stop walking, It still said the call was connected but we could no longer talk. I stood there and in about 30 seconds the Wifi Icon disappeared and then a new Wifi Icon appeared with a strong signal. It did keep the call and we could talk once again. .
It appears the problem is with the AiMesh. This is exactly how it behaved years ago when I first installed it.

Could be as simple as someone in the area got a new router, or is using a new channel that is interfering with your signal, etc. Or you have some new electronic/bluetooth device that has added to interference. Or your phone firmware update caused it to be less aggressive on the roaming. Since you had several updates happen in the same timeframe (and there are also unknown variables) hard to say for sure. Within android developer settings you can enable a more aggressive wifi scanning, will use a bit more battery but supposedly makes it roam faster. Or you could try messing with roaming assistant settings in the Asus, making the home router disconnect you earlier. Or try different channels, decrease the power of the house router, etc.

The fact that you have good signal seems to imply not a failing router, just a connection that is holding on too long, which is common in multi-AP setups.

 

[Venom]

Thanks for your help, I will try some things and report back...

 

[Venom]

Okay, First I played around with the Asus router roaming assistant settings. That did not help. Then went onto the Android Developer Settings and turned off Wifi Scan Throttling... Bingo, that fixed it. Now as I walk from the Workshop to the house I see the Wifi signal get low, it briefly shows 5G then a full Wifi Signal all in the blink of an eye.. The Wifi Call stays continuously and works great.

Thanks for the help!!!

 

[drinkingbird]

Okay, First I played around with the Asus router roaming assistant settings. That did not help. Then went onto the Android Developer Settings and turned off Wifi Scan Throttling... Bingo, that fixed it. Now as I walk from the Workshop to the house I see the Wifi signal get low, it briefly shows 5G then a full Wifi Signal all in the blink of an eye.. The Wifi Call stays continuously and works great.

Thanks for the help!!!

Yeah I had to do that on my old Samsung to stop it from sticking to my outside AP when I came back inside. My Pixel seems better about it but mine is an older Pixel than yours. They must have changed something in the update that made yours more "sticky". Hopefully not a big change in battery life, I don't think so though.

 

[sfx2000]

Then went onto the Android Developer Settings and turned off Wifi Scan Throttling..

Nice to know, and thanks for sharing.

Sounds like you have things working now...

 

[drinkingbird]

Okay, First I played around with the Asus router roaming assistant settings. That did not help. Then went onto the Android Developer Settings and turned off Wifi Scan Throttling... Bingo, that fixed it. Now as I walk from the Workshop to the house I see the Wifi signal get low, it briefly shows 5G then a full Wifi Signal all in the blink of an eye.. The Wifi Call stays continuously and works great.

Thanks for the help!!!

Another comment I'll make, us Pixel users are guinea pigs for updates, before they roll them out to the wider Android community. So it could very well be the next update will improve the behavior that you were seeing. However as long as you don't see significant impact on battery life, I'd just leave it disabled. Maybe test again after the next update but given your setup/situation, it does seem like you want it to roam quickly and aggressively so throttling probably isn't a feature you want enabled regardless.

It gets confusing as they keep changing this stuff to, before it was a feature you had to enable, something like "more aggressive wifi scanning" now it is one you have to disable, but clearly it is the same "feature".

 

[Venom]

I have to agree with us being Guinea Pigs on the Android Updates..lol I had just upgraded last year from a Pixel 3XL. It still worked great and battery life was still strong. This morning when I got up I looked at the the battery on the Pixel 7 Pro. Seems to be the same as usual so far. I used the phone a lot yesterday and she never missed a beat moving from node to node after I turned off Wifi Scan Throttling. The other thing with these Google phones is that they were originally all the same Android Software for all the carriers. Then a few years ago they bowed down to carrier pressure and started having different software for each carrier. My Pixel 3XL was initially horrible at Wifi Calling due to Verizons limitations they had Google put on the phone.