Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2022 19:27 Post subject: Adding a 5GHz VAP forces wireless channel to 100 (5500Mhz)
I have a R7800 currently running r49197.
As soon as I add a VAP to the 5GHz radio, it forces the wireless channel to 100 (5500MHz). Settings for the physical interface wlan0 still show my previously selected channel, but the wireless status page and connected clients all show that the radio is running on channel 100.
I can consistently reproduce this on builds from last fall through the 6/16/2022 build.
Anyone else experience this issue?
Steps to reproduce:
1. Start with a clean install (nvram erase && reboot) ... maybe not necessary, but keeps things consistent.
3. Apply, reboot. Notice that wireless status page reports that the radio is running on channels 60 + 58 as expected.
4. From wireless settings page, Add a Virtual AP to wlan0.
5. Save, apply, reboot.
6. Check wireless settings page and notice that channel is still set as it was previously (60 w/ Extension LU -2).
7. Check the wireless status page and notice that the reported wireless channel for both wlan0 and wlan0.1 is listed as running at 100 + 106. Connected clients also now report the channel as 100.
Channel 100 is crowded in my area, so I'd like to be able to use a different channel. An insights or workarounds are very appreciated.
_________________ "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost
"I am one of the noticeable ones - notice me" - Dale Frances McKenzie Bozzio
@dale_gribble39 I understand about the center frequency. In this case the chosen channel desn't seem to matter. 60 was what I settled on for providing the repro instructions, but I tried all channels that the GUI would allow me to select in an effort to narrow things down.
@ho1Aetoo I agree that the VAP should have no effect on channel settings, but it seems to have an effect in this case.
I just realized that I left out one critical detail in my reproduction steps. wlan0 needs to be set to radio mode Mesh/802.11s. wlan0.1 is set to radio mode AP. All is well before I change wlan0 to Mesh/802.11s. As soon as that change is made the channel jumps to 100 + 106 and I can't do anything in the GUI to change the channel (even though it still shows whatever I had selected). If I set wlan0 back to radio mode AP, then the channel goes back to whatever I had selected.
I'll grab some screen shots of the details or maybe a video and post immediately after this.
@dale_gribble39 I understand about the center frequency. In this case the chosen channel desn't seem to matter. 60 was what I settled on for providing the repro instructions, but I tried all channels that the GUI would allow me to select in an effort to narrow things down.
@ho1Aetoo I agree that the VAP should have no effect on channel settings, but it seems to have an effect in this case.
I just realized that I left out one critical detail in my reproduction steps. wlan0 needs to be set to radio mode Mesh/802.11s. wlan0.1 is set to radio mode AP. All is well before I change wlan0 to Mesh/802.11s. As soon as that change is made the channel jumps to 100 + 106 and I can't do anything in the GUI to change the channel (even though it still shows whatever I had selected). If I set wlan0 back to radio mode AP, then the channel goes back to whatever I had selected.
I'll grab some screen shots of the details or maybe a video and post immediately after this.
Here are the screenshots that I mentioned.
1. Wireless settings. I have not changed anything other that basic settings as seen in the pics.
2. Wireless status before adding the VAP.
3. Wireless status after adding the VAP.
If I delete the VAP, then channel on wlan0 will go back to what was selected in the GUI. As long as wlan0 is set to Mesh/802.11s and there is a VAP wlan0.1, then channel is forced to 100.
It also seems as if nobody has taken the time to do a proper write-up on how to correctly configure 802.11s mesh on DD-WRT. Could you please give your reference on how you came to this point? _________________ "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost
"I am one of the noticeable ones - notice me" - Dale Frances McKenzie Bozzio
Could you please re-open that ticket and add this thread as a reference and contact the developer? _________________ "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost
"I am one of the noticeable ones - notice me" - Dale Frances McKenzie Bozzio
@dale_gribble39 I could not find any proper documentation on 802.11s mesh mode either. I used all three of the threads you mentioned as reference, as well as a couple of other threads.
Specifically, this thread turned me onto the idea of adding the VAP:
1. Without the VAP, no clients could see or connect to the wireless network. Other 802.11s mesh mode routers can connect just fine, but the network was not visible to normal clients.
2. I wanted to support several older devices that do not yet support WPA3. It seemed like WPA3 was required for the mesh network, but I could enable both WPA3 and WPA2 on the VAP.
@ho1Aetoo thanks for posting the manual override! I will try that when I get back to the router this evening and report back on the results.
@ho1Aetoo quick follow up ... your manual settings also worked for me to get the 5GHz radio operating on the selected channel. I also experienced instability issues and had to set DD-WRT firmware and AC/N Mixed to get it working. It seemed stable with those settings, but even then I could not get any clients to connect to the wireless network.
I may revert to using WDS for now. Happy to help test 802.11s when some of the other issues are worked out.