Release Zenwifi XT8 Firmware 3.0.0.4.386_43170

[yoonlim]

And here I was, thinking my Roborock was the issue... Hadn't vacuumed upstairs for a few days and now when I wanted to, it wouldn't connect either. Been fiddling around all morning but couldn't fix it. Apparently I'm not the only one...

My roborock s6 MaxV can't connect to WiFi as well when using this version 3.0.0.4.386.43169/3.0.0.4.386.43170

 

[MrZzzzzzz]

Loaded FW 3.0.0.4.386_43170 without any initial issue, but after couple of hours I noticed some strange behavior.
I have a set-up where the main XT8 router is configured as AP and a second mesh node is connected with with a dedicated 5-GHZ-2 backhaul. I have about 30 devices connected.

I noticed the following:
* Some devices connected to the node dropped the connection at irregular intervals (w/o a drop in the connection between node and AP)
* Some devices (including a Chromecast and a Xerox printer) refused to connect with the closest device, only connecting to the farthest node. Even when forcing to bind with the closest node the devices refused to connect. While other devices did not show this behavior and connected w/o a problem to the closest device.

Then I found that the main XT8 router showed a RED light. Although this normally means the internet connection is gone, several devices connected both with the main unit in AP mode and the mesh node were connected with the internet. The connection with the internet was still there.. A reboot of the XT8, and reboot of all devices including my fiber router did not solve the problem. The main XT8 kept red light.

So after a couple of attempts with a complete power down cycle I decided to go back to FW 3.0.0.4.386_42095 for both XT8's. And this has solved my issues. Not only did the main unit reboot to a status with the WHITE led on, devices started to reconnect to the closes mesh device and maintained a stable connection so far.

Seriously doubt how well the latest FW version was tested... And definitely thinking twice before installing the latest version while running the previous version without problems.

 

[RogerSC]

After installing 3.0.0.4.386_43170, both my laptops and phones (connected to the mesh node, not the main router) drop the connection every few minutes (connected but no internet). I had to revert to old firmware
Also strange that it is 55MB instead of 72MB as before

​

I noticed the difference in size between the firmware versions as well, but assumed that they took out some debug pieces from the latest. That would also explain the lack of the weird log messages about "not mesh client" and "already in UDB" *smile*.

Been up for over a week with no problems here on this firmware. Don't do anything exotic though, just vanilla stuff, routing and wireless mesh. No Sonos, or old smart phones, no robo-vacuum cleaners, USB disks, or DFS channels. Been totally reliable, even when switching between wired and wireless backhaul, and using the 5GHz-2 radio for clients via 3-band smart connect. Happy with this firmware so far. Just stays up and works. I do feel kind of weird about it, though, with all the complaints that I've been reading, like I must be on borrowed time here.

 

[kamil666]

About 12h of ping and 0 packet loss on software 42095 - good!

On firmware 43169/43170 it disconnected frequently - bad

 

[Raven76]

About 12h of ping and 0 packet loss on software 42095 - good!

On firmware 43169/43170 it disconnected frequently - bad

Same for me!

ps: I feedback the issues to Asus, please do this you too. So perhaps they look at it...

 

[agrifoni]

I've noticed that, when the issue occurs on one device, disconnecting it from the network, then reconnecting it, solves the issue for a short time.
I've tried to downgrade to 42095, then upgrade again to 43170 and I've found that the devices with issues has changed (some devices that had the issue before, now are ok, and viceversa). I still can't understand

 

[agrifoni]

I've downgraded again to 42095 but my only mesh router keeps optimizing continuosly (every 10 minutes) or so (blue led flashing), thus disconnecting all devices from it for few seconds.
Any hints?

 

[agrifoni]

I had to hard-reset the mesh node (pressing the WPS button while turning on) to obtain a more stable connection between the node and the router. Still not understanding...

 

[fullhack]

Loaded FW 3.0.0.4.386_43170 without any initial issue, but after couple of hours I noticed some strange behavior.
I have a set-up where the main XT8 router is configured as AP and a second mesh node is connected with with a dedicated 5-GHZ-2 backhaul. I have about 30 devices connected.

I noticed the following:
* Some devices connected to the node dropped the connection at irregular intervals (w/o a drop in the connection between node and AP)
* Some devices (including a Chromecast and a Xerox printer) refused to connect with the closest device, only connecting to the farthest node. Even when forcing to bind with the closest node the devices refused to connect. While other devices did not show this behavior and connected w/o a problem to the closest device.

Then I found that the main XT8 router showed a RED light. Although this normally means the internet connection is gone, several devices connected both with the main unit in AP mode and the mesh node were connected with the internet. The connection with the internet was still there.. A reboot of the XT8, and reboot of all devices including my fiber router did not solve the problem. The main XT8 kept red light.

So after a couple of attempts with a complete power down cycle I decided to go back to FW 3.0.0.4.386_42095 for both XT8's. And this has solved my issues. Not only did the main unit reboot to a status with the WHITE led on, devices started to reconnect to the closes mesh device and maintained a stable connection so far.

Seriously doubt how well the latest FW version was tested... And definitely thinking twice before installing the latest version while running the previous version without problems.

I can confirm that I had the exact same issues. 42095 has been solid for me.

 

[bokolobs]

I have two XT8s in AP mode with wireless backhaul and these two firmwares brought issue with re-keying for backhaul (each "Group Key Rotation Interval" seconds, by default once an hour) - traffic between node and main router is lost for 5-10 seconds. Therefore, clients are connected to node and node is connected to the main router. but there is no network connection. I tested different backhaul settings and nothing helped.

I'm not a big fan of huge re-keying intervals, so I had to roll back to the march firmware.

I'm experiencing exactly this after upgrading to 43170. My file server, which was very stable just a couple of weeks ago, started dropping connections. And I was getting >1.5% packet loss using ping. There would be >10 timeouts in a row. I thought I was losing my mind. @kamil666 pointed me to this thread and I downgraded to 42095. I sent 20,000 packets from a client on the mesh node to a server connected to the main router via ethernet. Out of 20,000, I lost 2. I don't know if that is acceptable, but it's better than 1.8% packet loss and complete dropout of the mesh node for 5s or so. At least now, I'm not dropping the connection to that server that has a 3s disconnection limit.

I don't quite understand what "Group Key Rotational Interval" means, wha it does, and how I can change it in the settings. But everything is working right now. Although I need to do some IP binding and backhaul channel optimization, I'm afraid to touch anything.

 

[agrifoni]

How often does the mesh node optimize the wireless back haul (blue led flashing) after a reset? I would like to understand if it's normal that mine does it so often...
The connection quality between the node and the router is -64db.

 

[RogerSC]

How often does the mesh node optimize the wireless back haul (blue led flashing) after a reset? I would like to understand if it's normal that mine does it so often...

Doesn't seem normal to me. The blue flashing seems to be part of powering up here, but haven't seen it aside from that. I figured it was just the AiMesh coming up, but could be optimizing on power-up. Never see the disconnects that you're seeing that are associated with blue flashing after power-up and the mesh working.

Talk to support? Sounds like you might be up for an RMA? You've done full factory resets, that's about as ground-level as you can get.

 

[Saveliy410]

I don't quite understand what "Group Key Rotational Interval" means, wha it does, and how I can change it in the settings. But everything is working right now. Although I need to do some IP binding and backhaul channel optimization, I'm afraid to touch anything.

This is security-related setting on "Wireless - General" page for each band. What it actually does is that each time the interval expires two sides of wifi connection update their keys which are used to encrypt connection. Re-keying is supposed to be smooth and should not affect traffic flow. By default it is 3600 seconds (one hour), but there are some "solutions" in the internet to issues related to re-keying where people suggest to increase this interval to 84600 (24 hours), so that you're experiencing the issue only once a day if there is no other possibilities to solve the issue. It's good that we have a possibility to downgrade to 42095.

Why I'm thinking that something wrong with the interval is that I was testing my network with low values - 30, 60, 120 seconds and experienced 10 seconds packet loss each 30, 60 and 120 seconds. So I'm pretty sure that if not the actual re-keying process is broken than at least something broken related to that process.

 

[mrbill]

43169/43170 was mostly stable for a day then the constant node drops started occurring. I'm baffled why so many can use 42095 firmware as that too had frequent node drops. I had to go all the way back to September of 2020 and use a stable 25790. Sad thing is my network is mostly out of the box using a wireless backhaul.

 

[bokolobs]

This is security-related setting on "Wireless - General" page for each band. What it actually does is that each time the interval expires two sides of wifi connection update their keys which are used to encrypt connection. Re-keying is supposed to be smooth and should not affect traffic flow. By default it is 3600 seconds (one hour), but there are some "solutions" in the internet to issues related to re-keying where people suggest to increase this interval to 84600 (24 hours), so that you're experiencing the issue only once a day if there is no other possibilities to solve the issue. It's good that we have a possibility to downgrade to 42095.

Why I'm thinking that something wrong with the interval is that I was testing my network with low values - 30, 60, 120 seconds and experienced 10 seconds packet loss each 30, 60 and 120 seconds. So I'm pretty sure that if not the actual re-keying process is broken than at least something broken related to that process.

Thank you for the explanation. After downgrading to 42095, I haven't experienced that 10 second packets lost. So I hope everything is OK now.

 

[bokolobs]

43169/43170 was mostly stable for a day then the constant node drops started occurring. I'm baffled why so many can use 42095 firmware as that too had frequent node drops. I had to go all the way back to September of 2020 and use a stable 25790. Sad thing is my network is mostly out of the box using a wireless backhaul.

I feel you. Mine is just about 2 weeks. So I experienced a week of good connection and after updating twice since last week, it was all troubleshooting.

 

[Raven76]

43169/43170 was mostly stable for a day then the constant node drops started occurring. I'm baffled why so many can use 42095 firmware as that too had frequent node drops. I had to go all the way back to September of 2020 and use a stable 25790. Sad thing is my network is mostly out of the box using a wireless backhaul.

Is your node perhaps too distant from the main router?! With 42095 I've absolutely no a single drop with four XT8! (with 43169 I found some ping lost and at least one mesh reconnection)

This is my situation, with the power of the signal between the nodes...

edit ps: perhaps a radar interference?

 

[mrbill]

Is your node perhaps too distant from the main router?

My node registers 50 dbm.

 

[Raven76]

My node registers 50 dbm.

Good signal... did you controlled if there is a radar interference?!

 

[agrifoni]

Sorry for the bit "out of topic". I've discussed with Amazon about the return and I'm thinking about moving to netgear orbi given the recent issue I have with XT8. Is it worth the almost double price?