Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2023 3:18 Post subject: Adding third VAP disables the other two VAPs
Router = Nighthawk AC2300 Smart WiFi Dual Band Gigabit Router (R7200)
CPU = MediaTek MT7621 v1 (880Mhz)
DD-WRT version R54109 (Nov 2023)
I've spent 3-4 hours investigating this problem and hence I am now reaching out to the forum for advice or confirmation.
For the last year I've had 2 virtual APs on a main 2.4Ghz radio. That has been working fine. However, if I add a third VAP then then other two immediately revert to an "Unknown" state.
I have since (1) updated to the current beta release and (2) cleared out the NVRAM to ensure that I had not put the system into a tizzy. But in all cases, and with all fidgeting around with the params, nothing is working. If I remove the third VAP then the other two virtual radios return to a working state.
Post a screenshot of the "Wireless_Basic" and "networking" tab (do not mask the MAC addresses)
I really appreciate the consideration of your interest in my issue. Please excuse my short delay but I had temporarily got locked out of my main router after futzing with the firewall rules.
Before taking you up on your offer could I instead make the following comments? I rarely post to forums as I like to resolve all issues myself. But I'm just at the end of my ropes with this issue.
1) Inferring from your request, I went and looked at all the MAC addresses. They are all correct before and after I add the new VAP. I'm not sure how they could go bad or become corrupted but I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary.
2) I went and repeated all my steps again prior to penning this posting. I added a third VAP (new) for the 2.5Ghz radio. Thereafter the two main VAPs revert to an "Unknown" state and dd-wrt believes that the main radio is disabled. Then if I set VAP #3 to a "Disabled" state then the system reverts back to normal. All the related parameters seem logical, correct and with the same MAC address assigned to the VAPs as with the main radio.
Yes, that's all very nice, but each VAP needs an individual virtual MAC and not the same MAC as the main radio
I see where you are going with this so that provided me some insight and incentive to look into this issue further.
Through a bit of trial and error I seem to have got VAP#3 online.
For the reference of others, here's what I did. Basically I had to turn off VAP # 3 so that I could change the MAC addresses of VAP#1 and VAP#2 on the networking panel. Then, when I turned on VAP#3 again, the system didn't go into a mental meltdown state and hence I could then change the MAC address of VAP#3 + update its label.
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Wireless / Basic Settings
Set "Radio Mode" of CHROMECAST to disabled (VAP#3)
Setup / Networking
Change MAC address for wlan0.1 - IoT (VAP#1)
Change MAC address for wlan0.2 - GUEST (VAP#2)
Wireless / Basic Settings
Set "Radio Mode" of CHROMECAST to "AP" (ie. enable it)
Setup / Networking
Update MAC address of wlan0.3 (VAP#3)
Set "Label" wlan0.3 (bridge # br3) to CHROMECAST
Thereafter a refresh only shows the 3 bridges and no wlan0.1 .. wlan0.3 which is probably correct.
That's not very helpful I asked for screenshots and not that you change something.
I am a 30 year professional tech support person so I do this 24x7 for a living. What I just sent was the final answer to the problem and hence this is super helpful to the community at large. I could have just done nothing in turn but I just took the time to find a workable solution, annotate it, double check it and then post my step-by-step changes for future persons to reference. No need to send you screen snapshots as your indirect suggestion was the answer to the core issue.
