GT-BE98 Pro Drops 2.4g Band after a few hours

[Giggawatt]

I just set up a GT-BE98 Pro a few days ago and my problem is that it has been dropping all of its clients and not letting them rejoin the 2.4g band.
I was on the most recent firmware for a while but reverted to 3.0.0.6.102_32882, unsure if the Guest Network Pro IoT network was adding to the problem.
When I did this I also did a factory reset after it.

So far the 5g and 6g bands work without issue.

The few settings I have modified:

• LAN: Changed the LAN IP address from the default to the one I was using with my old router.
• Switch Control: Jumbo Frame: Enabled
• DCHP Server: Manually Assigned one IP address
• Administration: Turned off auto firmware upgrade
• Screenshots of Wireless info for 2.4 band are shown below
• WAN:
  • Internet Connection Disabled UPnP
  • Virtual Server / Port Forwarding: Added three port forwards

I have been struggling with this issue for a few days now looking for solutions but nothing has worked so far.

I have looked through the system log but don't see anything obvious to fix.
All I see is when it starts to kick all of its clients but I can't figure out the cause.
Based on others' advice and google I have changed the Channel Bandwith to 20 Mhz and the Control Channel to 6 and restarted the system log.
Thanks for any advice!

Screenshot off WIreless General 2.4

Screenshot of my 2.4 Professional Tab:

[jzchen]

I am on the latest firmware.  I have a single Legacy Network set up encompassing 2.4 and 5 GHz as you probably already have seen.   I have MLO turned ON so all channels are pretty much sequestered to a SSID_MLO.

If it helps any:

[Saltgrass]

You also have WiFi7 disabled, which you did not mention.   I suppose you do not have any compatible devices?

I had a situation where a WPA only device was able to join a WPA2 SSID but would kick another device of that same network.  So, do you have any WPA or WPA transition devices on your system?

[Giggawatt]

Thank you for your reply and you are correct I did forget to highlight that. I am a few days into troubleshooting and turned off all the wifi 7 stuff to reduce the risk it was the cause.

I am not sure if I have any wpa devices. It is definitely possible. 

So would you suggest I drop the security to wpa? I have tried wpa/wpa2 before and eventually everything would get kicked.

Also this morning when I woke up all devices on the 2.4 band were again kicked off.

[Saltgrass]

I also have mine running with everything turned on, so I can't drop to just WPA.

If you know when it happened, you should be able to check the log to see what might have happened.  It isn't easy to understand, but knowing when it happened would help greatly.  If it were to happen around the same time of day, possibly something in your area and not necessarily your own equipment.

You also might start shutting down certain devices and leave them off to see if anything changes.  You might even look at the specs. for certain items to see if you can find their possible security options.

[Giggawatt]

I have looked in the logs and can basically figure out when it happens because a-lot of devices suddenly disconnect over a very short period of time.

Unfortunately the entries before the mass disconnect are very explicit. The main thing which I did address was sometimes a change in the channel occurred.

Figuring out if its a certain device will prove challenging as I have over 60 connected.

Maybe I can review a few files and look for patterns to the mass disconnect. Hopefully identifying the device at the start of each one.

Also before this router I was using a similar speced router RT-BE96U which was working great till the May firmware was released and autoupdated... After that update I turned on the IoT network and messed around with the wifi 7 stuff. However shortly after I made those changes the exact same behavior started (2.4 band dropping all clients). I contacted ASUS (was painful) and they eventually agreed to a RMA but I had to send them my router. So my initial thought was to get this router (was planning on eventually having 2 anyways this just speed up that plan) while I sent that router for RMA hoping that would solve my issues… I was so wrong…

Thanks for your ideas!

[Saltgrass]

I have been looking at the log you posted on the other support site.  It seems eth7 (your 2.4 GHz radio) does quite a bit more associating and disassociating.   In some instances, it shows low signal but not all.

I checked my log, which has a different identifier for the 2.4 Ghz radio, and it does about 1/10 of the activity mentioned above, as mine does.  The other three radios seem to be fairly normal.

It seems the log is from the late afternoon and evening of June 3rd.  If you could pin down the time the problem happened, it may help.

You do not have a 2.x GHz wireless phone, correct?

If you are forwarding ports, that may not be working correctly with the latest firmware, so check if you have not already.

[Giggawatt · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the additional thoughts on this. Our cell phones can connect on the 5g band. Although at the time of the logs they may have been on the 2.4z as I was originally using smart connect and only manually connected my phone to the 5g.

What I did notice was that one of the mac addresses was constantly associating and disassociating. So I figured out which device it was and turned off its wifi.

So far the 2.4 band has been stable for over 8 hours. Which for the past few days is a record.

The device in question was an epson printer that has … you guessed it above a wpa(supposedly wpa2 compatible…) wireless card in it. It is now connected through ethernet.

The reason this started after the newest firmware was because the IoT network they set up on my router allowed me to connect the printer. So I connected it… Where the main network refused to add it.

I hope this device was the main cause and my internet remains stable for a lot linger than 8 hours but its a start.

Thanks for your help! This also means that the router sent in for RMA is probably fine as it may have been this wpa device that was causing havoc in combination with the new IoT network. I will know for sure in a few hours.

[Saltgrass]

The device I had a problem with was also an Epson Printer, Artisan 835.

Did you catch the part about port forwarding not working with the 34491 firmware?

[jzchen]

USB 3.0 noise?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.usb.org/sites/default/...