Wired backhaul and WiFi Connectivity

[Zim]

Running an AX11000 router with 4 XT8 Mesh nodes (all are connected via 1G wired backhaul using MoCA2).


1.) Lately, I'm noticing that the devices on my 2.4Ghz band have intermittent connectivity issues. Could this be due to excessive amounts of IoT devices and cameras on the 2.4Ghz (somewhere in the count of 90+)? If so, other than removing some devices how can I optimize and eliminate connectivity issues?

2.) Devices on my 5Ghz bands (both bands) also intermittently disconnect and reconnect. Could this be because the 2- 5GHz bands, even though on different channels 44 and 157 both on 80 MHz, are interfering with one another?

3.) The devices hard-wired to the mesh node (that has a wired backhaul) also seem to intermittently disconnect and reconnect. This is quite noticeable on streaming sites where I get buffering circle from time to time. Could this and all the problems be related to the wired backhaul? The MoCA setup shouldn't be an issue because things were working fine till I released the 2nd 5Ghz band for wireless devices.


I'm also running the usual scripts, Diversion/Skynet etc and I have tried disabling and enabling with no effect to the above issues.


Any suggestions on how I can troubleshoot and fix these issues?

 

[OzarkEdge]

Running an AX11000 router with 4 XT8 Mesh nodes (all are connected via 1G wired backhaul using MoCA2).


1.) Lately, I'm noticing that the devices on my 2.4Ghz band have intermittent connectivity issues. Could this be due to excessive amounts of IoT devices and cameras on the 2.4Ghz (somewhere in the count of 90+)? If so, other than removing some devices how can I optimize and eliminate connectivity issues?

2.) Devices on my 5Ghz bands (both bands) also intermittently disconnect and reconnect. Could this be because the 2- 5GHz bands, even though on different channels 44 and 157 both on 80 MHz, are interfering with one another?

3.) The devices hard-wired to the mesh node (that has a wired backhaul) also seem to intermittently disconnect and reconnect. This is quite noticeable on streaming sites where I get buffering circle from time to time. Could this and all the problems be related to the wired backhaul? The MoCA setup shouldn't be an issue because things were working fine till I released the 2nd 5Ghz band for wireless devices.


I'm also running the usual scripts, Diversion/Skynet etc and I have tried disabling and enabling with no effect to the above issues.


Any suggestions on how I can troubleshoot and fix these issues?

I don't think you have it narrowed down enough to draw any conclusions. For example, 3) when you released 5-2 for client use only, you disabled failover to wireless backhaul. If the wired backhaul is marginal and/or causing connectivity issues, there is now no backup backhaul and your wired clients are then also affected... for example.

OE

 

[tgl]

I agree you need to narrow things down more. But I'd suggest that there's a clear place to start: if your wired clients are seeing problems, chase that first. The wireless issues might all be down to that anyway, and even if there are additional problems on the wireless side, whatever is affecting the wired clients is certainly hurting wireless too.

I seem to recall that some versions of the XT8 firmware had issues with wired backhaul. Check out the per-firmware-version threads over in the ASUSWRT - Official sister forum for details, and try experimenting with different firmware releases. Newest is unfortunately not always best when it comes to ASUS firmware.

Another thing that'd be worth checking into is whether the MoCA backhaul setup is rock-solid or not. For this you'd need to plug some wired machine directly into the MoCA jacks (not via the XT8s) and run a long series of pings to the base router. Once that shows zero ping drops and no unreasonable delays, repeat from a machine plugged into the XT8s and thence to MoCA.

 

[Zim]

I don't think you have it narrowed down enough to draw any conclusions. For example, 3) when you released 5-2 for client use only, you disabled failover to wireless backhaul. If the wired backhaul is marginal and/or causing connectivity issues, there is now no backup backhaul and your wired clients are then also affected... for example.

OE

Thanks @OzarkEdge

I'm quite certain the MoCA wired backhaul is solid. Initially has some wiring issues that caused the nodes to randomly show flashing blue light, but after fixing the wiring and installing a PoE filter, I have ALL the mesh nodes with a solid white light. This has been consistent for about a month now.

I agree you need to narrow things down more. But I'd suggest that there's a clear place to start: if your wired clients are seeing problems, chase that first. The wireless issues might all be down to that anyway, and even if there are additional problems on the wireless side, whatever is affecting the wired clients is certainly hurting wireless too.

I seem to recall that some versions of the XT8 firmware had issues with wired backhaul. Check out the per-firmware-version threads over in the ASUSWRT - Official sister forum for details, and try experimenting with different firmware releases. Newest is unfortunately not always best when it comes to ASUS firmware.

Another thing that'd be worth checking into is whether the MoCA backhaul setup is rock-solid or not. For this you'd need to plug some wired machine directly into the MoCA jacks (not via the XT8s) and run a long series of pings to the base router. Once that shows zero ping drops and no unreasonable delays, repeat from a machine plugged into the XT8s and thence to MoCA.

Thanks @tgl for the suggestions. I just had the issue pop up again. Immediately checking the sys logs I noticed this msg pop up a dozen times and some devices lost connectivity. After about 20 minutes the msg stopped appearing and devices reconnected.

kernel: CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_change_station : WLC_SCB_AUTHORIZE sta_flags_mask not set

Digging into the log, I'm noticing that this exact msg has appeared 1000+ times in the last month. The timing of these messages likely coincides with the time of the spotty wifi connectivity.

My search into that msg did not yield anything fruitful that would help me understand what this means or how to resolve it. @RMerlin himself has mentioned this is debug logging, but some other folks running XT8 have run into and mentioned similar issues with no solution.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Thanks @OzarkEdge

I'm quite certain the MoCA wired backhaul is solid. Initially has some wiring issues that caused the nodes to randomly show flashing blue light, but after fixing the wiring and installing a PoE filter, I have ALL the mesh nodes with a solid white light. This has been consistent for about a month now.


Thanks @tgl for the suggestions. I just had the issue pop up again. Immediately checking the sys logs I noticed this msg pop up a dozen times and some devices lost connectivity. After about 20 minutes the msg stopped appearing and devices reconnected.

kernel: CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_change_station : WLC_SCB_AUTHORIZE sta_flags_mask not set

Digging into the log, I'm noticing that this exact msg has appeared 1000+ times in the last month. The timing of these messages likely coincides with the time of the spotty wifi connectivity.

My search into that msg did not yield anything fruitful that would help me understand what this means or how to resolve it. @RMerlin himself has mentioned this is debug logging, but some other folks running XT8 have run into and mentioned similar issues with no solution.

Browsing Google makes it feel like an AX11000/firmware issue. All I can think to do is to reproduce the issue on a basic Asuswrt install and contact Asus Support.

OE