Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 0:52 Post subject: 2.4 Network Keeps dropping clients
I have a Netgear r7000 currently running r48741. I also tried the latest firmware from yesterday, not sure if this is a firmware issue though...
My 2.4 network keeps dropping clients. I thought it was maybe interference with a new ZigBee dongle but I set that to ch 25 and my 2.4 network is on ch 1. I also tried unplugging that, but still have the issue. The 5g network continues to work all the time, it's just the 2.4 that has issues.
Then I started to think maybe I have too many IoT devices connected to the 2.4 and that's causing an issue? Currently says I have 38 clients.
I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this one. Is there logging to enable or debugging? I'm almost ready to factory reset and reconfigure from scratch... Or sadly, try going back to stock firmware, which I would really prefer not to.
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6434 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:46 Post subject:
hmmm...my R7000 is rock solid..on 2.4Ghz (5Ghz is off)
-not bad to post a pic of your wifi settings and advanced wifi page too ...so we can look at your settings..it will be easy to diagnose...
-not bad idea to check your PSU (power adapter)
-some clients could flood the wifi, especially IoT...
-check for another channel like channel 6 or 11... i use 11 + lower, country domain settings (canada)
-not bad idea to reset and manual reconfigure...from scratch...
-some clients may not be happy with Broadcom WiFi AP (rare but happens)..Broadcom WiFi drivers
are closed source and proprietary.. _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55630 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55723 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
I have a secondary Virtual 2.4 for my kids that uses opendns so I can block stuff...
I do have a second backup R7000 with its own power supply, but I don't think that's the issue. The issue happened with both units
I'm noticing that it usually acts up when certain clients are connecting to the 2.4. is there any logging to enable to help troubleshoot?
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6434 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 17:05 Post subject:
ok those settings....are the basic wifi settings there is one more page advanced wifi settings post a pic too..
so far, on this page set
turbo QAM 256 - disable
ACK timing - 900 or 3150
save & apply
also on wifi security page
Some older clients can have problems with Key renewal,and they will show frequent disconnections.
In that case set "Key Renewal Interval" (On Wireless Security Page) from standard 3600 sec to a much higher value e.g. 86400.
You can even set Key renewal off by setting it to 0, although there is a slight wifi security risk. _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55630 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55723 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
I have turned off turboQAM and set Preamble to short. I don't think the key exchange is causing the issue, I prefer to keep that at the default.
I say this because, I have not noticed any 2.4 drops prior to making these changes. Making me lead more towards some kind of interference related to another device in my home, like the zigbee usb dongle, a particular 802.11n usb thumb dongle I was using, or even a netgear ac1900 extender (EX6400v2) I had running in extender mode, which connects wirelessly to both my 2.4 and 5 networks and creates a newly named SSID, which I rarely connect to wirelessly, but I use the ethernet port on the extender to wire a desktop computer to my network.
I think the zigbee dongle is okay, ch 25 on that network is far from ch 1 on my 2.4 network. Originally I thought that was my problem but it still dropped even with that disconnected.
What led me to making this post was when testing things out while I had an old 802.11n usb plugged into a desktop. The 2.4 network wouldn't even last a minute that day without dropping pretty much all my 2.4 clients, even after rebooting the router. This let me to firmware updates and also trying to use my other R7000 to rule out a hardware issue. Both my R7000s had the issue, so I ruled out hardware and likely software (fireware version).
Since then, the extender has been plugged in, but powered off, which now I am thinking is suspect here... Is there logging or debug that I should turn on to try and determine what is happening within the ddwrt router? Syslogd? I need to do more testing with either the extender or the 802.11n usb...
Also I notice that sometimes when connecting devices to my virtual 2.4 network, it sometimes causes drops... My son's chromebook came home from a warranty repair, and when setting it up and connecting to the virtual 2.4, it caused drops. From what I provided, is my virtual network okay? I believe I have configured dhcp for it on the networking tab, screen shot below:
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2023 13:26 Post subject: Re: 2.4 Network Keeps dropping clients
clueo8 wrote:
Then I started to think maybe I have too many IoT devices connected to the 2.4 and that's causing an issue? Currently says I have 38 clients.
Recently I failed to deploy a project because of probably 2.4GHz WiFi interference. I have 20 2.4GHz clients connected to one router (Dlink DIL-868L Rev.A1), each client sends 80 bytes, 30 times per second, to another 5GHz client device in the same network. Although there's no dropping of connection, after a while, the 2.4GHz clients are unable to send out data fast enough resulting in lagging at the 5GHz clients. After reducing the network from 20 to 10 and to 6 2.4GHz clients, the situation improved.
For your case, you mentioned "dropping client" which is not the same as my case, but it's hard to compare directly because my network only have 20 2.4GHz clients, and I never wait long when lagging occurs - I quickly turn off and on my 2.4GHz client to reestablish the connection (but the issue comes back again after a few minutes).
Anyway, I suggest to reduce the number of 2.4GHz clients to the point that you have a stable network, then starts adding more clients. This also aligns with egc suggestion of finding out rogue client.
Please also check if your area has a lot of other 2.4GHz WiFi networks by using a WiFi analyzer app on mobile phone.
I'm interested in your findings and conclusions.
When I get a chance, I will try to play around with the usb wifi dongle as well as the range extender.
I'm kind of all in on the Iot devices... I have at least 12 devices (sonoffs) running tasmota to control lights around the house. I also have at least 4-6 Kasa (tplink) switches/plugs... 2 wyze cams, a few old foscams, myq garage door, logitech harmony remote hub, 5 sonos speakers, 2 nest thermostats...
It would be hard for me to accept the fact that the number of devices is causing the issue. Maybe I setup a new separate 2.4 router that just handles the IoT devices; I always wanted to separate those to their own subnet anyways, but never found the time to do all that. I'm also running a local Home Assistant that brings it all together.
I suspect the issue happens due to a combination of: number of devices, bandwidth required, bandwidth available/interference level. Some devices (streaming IP cam, playing speakers...) requires higher bandwidth than other one-shot devices (switch, sensor...). Interference can come from your house (zigbee, bluetooth, wireless mouse/keyboard, cordless phone...) or your neighbours' houses. I have encountered more than 3 occasions/locations that my Espressif ESP32 board cannot turn on its softAP because of high interference from 200 nearby WiFi networks (FYI your sonoff tasmota is also running on an Espressif module but in STA/client mode).
The most I can do to check for interference is to perform a scan with the WiFi analyzer app. Other than that I'm clueless. I've searched around for more info on the number of devices that a WiFi network can support, and the effect of interference on the WiFi network, but there's no conclusive answer. Probably only someone with low level knowledge of WiFi can give the answer. If you come across any good source, please share.
EDIT: If you can prove me wrong, I'm happy to learn from your success story.
The wifi dongle is a Ralink 802.11n. Not sure what else I can say about it, except it's a mini one with no external antenna, the main piece is smaller than the usb 2.0 connector itself. All it says on it is 802.11n on the front side and a wifi symbol on a side.
So I had time the other day to mess around with this. It turns out this particular wifi usb dongle appears to INSTANTLY cause my 2.4 network to start losing connection to clients. As soon as I unplug that little thing, the 2.4 network stabilizes and the clients all re-connect just fine, sometimes on their own after a short period of time, sometimes after restarting the router or just clicking "apply" on the ddwrt wifi page which appears to re-inits the wifi. I tried connecting other additional 2.4 devices and it does not affect the 2.4 network like this one particular device; so I'm trying to rule out the sheer number of clients on 2.4 causing the issue...
Also, yesterday or the day before I noticed my 2.4 still went out even when this particular wifi dongle was unplugged, so all I learned now is, this dongle is bad, I want to smash it, but there is still something at play here causing my 2.4 to occasionally drop.
UPDATE:
I noticed when I was connecting my son's android tablet to the virtual 2.4 network, I saw some drops. I decided to try deleting the virtual 2.4 network to see if that is causing the issue.
So I tried removing the virtual 2.4 AP as a test... I don't believe I've had any random drops since then. I can confirm that the usb dongle still busts my 2.4 network almost immediately...
Looking at my screen shots of the configuration around the virtual access point (and Multiple DHCP Server settings) for wl0.1, was there anything that stands out that would cause 2.4 drops?
