[Rick880]

Hi, I need some help here. I am setting up a Netgear R6400 as a repeater (yes repeater, not repeater bridge) and encounter a problem. I use the 2.4GHz physical interface (wl0) for the repeater function and create a virtual interface (wl0.1) with a different SSID for client connections. I can connect to the 5GHz SSID and get to the internet without any problem but no such luck with the 2.4GHz SSID. I had tried to change a few things but to no avail. Things I had tried:

different wireless mode (N only instead of NG-mixed)
short/auto preamble instead of long (default)
ACK timing to 0 or 2250 (default 500)

I had the R6400 in the gateway mode (advanced routing->operating mode) from the beginning and had tried to change it to the router mode. It got worse. Connection to the 5GHz was ok but no internet. So I reverted it back to the gateway mode.

One interesting thing is in the process I did connect to the 2.4GHz SSID 2 or 3 times but once I disconnected it I wasn't able to reconnect again with/without reboot.

Thanks in advance for any help.


Edit:

Router model: Netgear R6400 v1
DD-WRT firmware used: r44236 (08-22-2020 build)
Repeater WiKi guide: https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wlan_Repeater

[egc]

Please follow the forum guide lines (link in my signature at the bottom) so that we can give better support.

Always state router model (you did) and build number.
Also what guides you have been following to setup.

For all we know you are using the very bad build 40599 (explained in the forum guidelines)

Repeater wiki:
https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wlan_Repeater

[Rick880]

Sorry about missing the necessary information as required per forum guidelines. I had edited the original post accordingly.

Here is one thing that is kind of peculiar. I notice that the network configuration wl0.1 in Setup->Neworking->Port Setup has a MAC Address of 12:xx:xx:xx:xx:2E whereas all other MAC addresses start with 10 (10:xx:xx:xx:xx:yy and all addresses have the same "xx:xx:xx:xx"):

eth0: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2B
eth2: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:3E
vlan1: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2B
vlan2: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2B
wl0.1: 12:xx:xx:xx:xx:2E

In order to get a comparison I configured the router as a Repeater Bridge and had the wirelss configured the same as in the Repeater. Here are the respective MAC addresses in Port Setup:

eth0: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2B
eth1: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2D
eth2: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:3E
vlan1: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2B
vlan2: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2B
wl0.1: 10:xx:xx:xx:xx:2D

So where does this 12:xx:xx:xx:xx:2E (wl0.1) in the Repeater come from? Shouldn't all the MAC address have the same "10:xx:xx:xx:xx" like the case of the Repeater Bridge? Also the missing eth1 in the case the repeater doesn't look right to me. Have I looking into the right direction?

[egc]

A repeater is something completely different from a repeater bridge.

My advice as you have been tinkering a lot reset to defaults by doing from the Command Line Interface (telnet/putty):

[Rick880]

[Rick880]

After I read the VAP document uploaded by egc, I realized that the virtual interface (wl0.1) in the Repeater is simply an implementation of the guest network. So setup up another subnet for it and bound it to a second DHCP did it.

Thanks, egc.