ASUS ZenWiFi AX Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System Not sure if this is the right place to ask…. I am thinking of upgrading my Google Mesh wifi to the above. Has anyone used this and does it...

[robgbc]

I manually updated my XT8 v1s to 3.0.0.4.388_24688 this morning, on the one-year anniversary of switching them to AiMesh AP mode and moving them behind a MikroTik firewall.

The wireless connection remains stable, and the download speeds are excellent, 900+mbps. At this point, barring a hardware failure, I don’t see a need to replace them anytime soon.

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[UK Sentinel]

Changelog for ASUS XT8 (HW Ver: 1.0) incase others have missed this latest release.

 

ASUS ZenWiFi XT8 Firmware version 3.0.0.4.388_24688 (HW Ver: 1.0)

Version 3.0.0.4.388_24688

2024/11/28

Release note:
1.Strengthened input validation and data processing workflows to further protect information security.
2.Enhanced AiCloud password protection mechanisms, safeguarding against unauthorized access attempts.
3.Enhanced device security through improved buffer handling in connection features.
4.Refined data handling processes, ensuring secure and accurate information management.
5. Enhanced file access control mechanisms, promoting a more secure operating environment.
6. Strengthened certificate protection, providing enhanced data security.

ASUS ZenWiFi AX (XT8) – Support

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[dodgydrains]

Have Asus removed all the previous FW from the support page?  I can only see the latest November release.

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[UK Sentinel]

Interesting, I wonder what ASUS are upto ?

I will check again in a couple of days to see if its just a server replication issue as it is Xmas and lots of server updates etc.  if not I will drop ASUS a message and see whats going on

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[UK Sentinel]

@Dodgydrains: So I had a chat with ASUS and seems that for certain ASUS models,  they have removed all previous firmware releases, i.e. the XT8 which we know about.

ASUS say previous firmware’s have been removed due to Issues.

At least we now know the firmware removal was intentional

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• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by UK Sentinel. Reason: added note

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

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[LarryR]

Perhaps they felt that some of the security flaws that have been corrected were critical enough that they did not want people using firmware that still contained the flaws? Maybe their legal team was involved???

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[UK Sentinel]

The XT8 has had an interesting firmware journey

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[dodgydrains]

. UK Sentinel Said:

@Dodgydrains: So I had a chat with ASUS and seems that for certain ASUS models,  they have removed all previous firmware releases, i.e. the XT8 which we know about.

ASUS say previous firmware’s have been removed due to Issues.

At least we now know the firmware removal was intentional

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

I had a feeling it was deliberate as they removed all previous FW at the same time as they released the November FW.

 

No worries for me as I have kept all previous FW for the XT8 V1 on my PC.

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[dodgydrains]

Any ideas what this ‘error’ means?

It is repeated many times in the log:

 

Feb 24 09:45:05 kernel: ^[[0;33;41m[ERROR archer] archer_mcast_activate,577: ADD_PORT: WLAN SSID has already been added: egress_port 7, current 0x0006, new 0x0004^[[0m

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[UK Sentinel]

From what I recall when I spoke with ASUS back in 2022, this was either associated with Broadcom’s NAT accelerator and/or Guest wifi.

Has guest wifi been enabled ?

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[dodgydrains]

I do not use the guest wifi, it is always disabled.

Not had any issues for 43 days uptime.  I’ll just let it continue until something goes wrong and then do a reboot at some point

No issues in 43 days is amazing.

 

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[UK Sentinel]

That killed that theory as I had hoped Guest Wifi was the culprit, 43 days is very impressive

Looking at the log message, nothing to worry about especially if you are not having any Wifi issues and seems as though the archer_mcast service (Broadcom related) is trying to add a new Port 7 to Wifi, but the Port 7 is already in existence hence the error reference.

(my initial thoughts at least) but happy to be corrected.

 

FWIW:

On an Asus router, a “port” is a virtual gateway that allows specific types of internet traffic to reach a particular device on your network, essentially acting as a designated entry point for data coming in or going out from your router.

An ingress port is the incoming port, the egress port is the exiting port.

• ingress – entering
• egress – exiting

Archer is related to Broadcom and is proprietary.

Multicast is a type of IP addressing.

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[Oltex8]

To briefly summarize my XT8 experience  . . . Quantity 3 v1 units used in AP only mode purchased in Jan of 23.  It took nearly 18 months of firmware updates before the mesh would stay operational on the second 5Ghz band for more than a week between reboots.  I was concerned if I could ever leave the home for more than a week as with the automatic reboots there were instances where more than one reboot was required.   So I went through the effort and cost to install Ethernet backhaul.

Then just 2 weeks ago my primary unit completely “lights out” failed.  I tried multiple pin resets, swapped power adapters, etc., but nothing brought the unit back.

I ordered a new xt8 and received a v2.  Besides the different power adapter that appears more robust the v2 unit’s memory consumption is far less.  Even with the daily memory leak after 9 days of operation I am still at only 51% memory use.

I have reached out to ASUS regarding some type of replacement, gift card, credit, etc. regarding the failed v1 unit as it seems a 33% failure rate after less than 2 years is substandard for product quality these days.   In over twenty years of home operational 7/24 network gadgets from many brands I have never had such a failure.  So far my dialogue with ASUS has been disappointing for any kind of “customer satisfaction” actions regarding the failed unit.  I will update if that changes.

 

 

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[UK Sentinel]

Two years is not ideal, you should be able to claim under ASUS Warranty in your part of the world.

https://www.asus.com/us/support/faq/1041323/

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[Oltex8]

. UK Sentinel Said:

Two years is not ideal, you should be able to claim under ASUS Warranty in your part of the world.

https://www.asus.com/us/support/faq/1041323/

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

Agree and thanks.

So far my correspondence with them has been disappointing.  I am sure like most of us the typical RMA process I am accustomed to:

– customer sends company item model, serial number, and proof of purchase (which I have done)

– company sends customer package with pre-paid label for return

– company evaluates failed device and if no product abuse then sends replacement unit to customer

in this case, though, the company has challenged the file formats of my response which I found odd as they were standard iOS (photo of base of unit to provide serial number) and screenshot of Amazon order.

Given the mesh stability issues I experienced during my first 18 months with the product if it wasn’t for the very helpful information on this forum I would have given up on ASUS long ago, but given their hardware failure response it doesn’t seem like they want to retain this customer.

 

 

 

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