[Jonathan Morris]

Does Facebook use these routers by any chance? 😉

I did the now-removed update and turned off the auto-reboot schedule, and woke up to see the mesh node sitting on a weak 2.4GHz signal again – so this update certainly isn’t/wasn’t good.

I am still at a loss as to how it will drop to 2.4GHz despite having a good (no, great) signal. There shouldn’t even be a 2.4 connection as you can only choose between ethernet or 5GHz. Even rebooting doesn’t seem to force an attempt to reconnect, but after a while (maybe a few hours) it can fix itself. There’s no logic or consistency, so sometimes I wonder if it’s just pot luck. [The two routers aren’t that far apart; around 10 metres. I’m starting to think I’d be better off just having a single router, which almost covers the whole house]

I’ve turned auto reboot back on, which will hopefully cover me for the time being.

How can it be so difficult for Asus to fix? I’d rather there be a new option added to force 5GHz (or restrict 2.4GHz for backhaul).

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[Jonathan Morris]

Did you install the beta? Might mean it won’t be looking for anything other than betas from now on (not sure if Asus have a beta channel or something?)

I didn’t install the beta posted here in the end, as I didn’t want to lose the AI Protection features, and it offered the update early yesterday.

 

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[Jonathan Morris]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>I got the upgrade this morning and it went smoothly, but TBH it’s too late to tell if there’s any difference.</p>
I’ve got the routers rebooting at 0400 every day just in case of issues, so may stop that to give myself a chance to see if it can be stable for many days. Otherwise I may never tell!

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[Jonathan Morris]

Would this latest beta be available for anyone else to try? (myself!)

And, as it’s been a long time since I’ve used a beta ROM on an Asus router, will it automatically get an update to the next stable version or require a manual install of that too?

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[Jonathan Morris]

UK Sentinel wrote:

FYI: Ok, so I had an interesting conversion with the Project Manager associated with the ET8 yesterday and this morning and alas for the UK we will not be receiving the ET8 in the EU/UK. But early next year in the EU/UK, ASUS will be launching a new ZenWifi 6E model – but model name / specs etc. are still under wraps for now

Before I bought my XT8, I asked a few people in the industry for advice on Wi-Fi 6E and was told not to wait. I thought it odd, as I figured it was all ratified for use in UK/Europe, but it does seem that they’re not generally or widely available yet – and so I am glad I didn’t wait.

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[Jonathan Morris]

I am confused that I got 43181 some time ago, but it is now shown as being released 2021/08/11. Clearly some mistake here? What have they done with things?

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[Jonathan Morris]

https://youtu.be/cqcJ6oP6Ky0

I assume the issue is that it uses 6GHz for the backhaul now, not 5GHz. As such you need other 6E mesh modes, not mixing with the XT8 ones.

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[Jonathan Morris]

I saw this mentioned in a YouTube video posted two days ago that said if you’re using 6GHz for the backhaul, you can’t use a mesh AP on 5GHz. It must be one or the other I assume, hence falling back to 2.4GHz.

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[Jonathan Morris]

Jonathan Morris wrote:

I have been pretty quiet since my last posts here about problems, but in the last week I’ve had major issues again (I am now on 3.0.0.4.386_43181) and it has been very frustrating. I think I might have found a cause though, which is going to be quite annoying if proven. I’ve submitted a report and 6 hours of logging to Asus, but I am not entirely sure they’ll spot the issue. Basically, a week or two ago I connected a USB HDD to the XT8 router, and set it up as a media player and TimeMachine for backing up both a MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. All seemed to work very well, and I was very impressed, but then I noticed that while the TimeMachine backups were enabled, the router was reporting that the HDD was corrupt and could not fix the problem after 3 attempts. It eventually showed the drive as unmounted, and at this point the TimeMachine backups (unsurprisingly) stopped working too. I had to remove the HDD to try and repair it, without success, and therefore had to format it – losing all the data (I do use TimeMachine on a local drive, this was really about dual redundancy, and the media is also stored elsewhere). Nevertheless, it was a pain. Now, at some point during this (what I thought was an isolated problem) the router had in fact rebooted a few times, knocking out the AI Mesh node and causing problems to the point that when I was out, my wife had to turn off the node entirely as it was causing too many issues with her laptop and work (screen sharing) connection. With the HDD removed, the problem went away so I never got around to doing a full reset and starting over (something I may one day do, but it’s also a pain). The node has been connected without fail and all was good. Then on Friday, I decided to hook up a different HDD to the XT8 and set it all up again, and within 24 hours the router crashed again, and it was at this point that I noticed this HDD was now showing as corrupt and the exact same issues as before. That HDD is now removed and I’ve given up on using it for TimeMachine backups. What I’ve got now is a 32GB flash drive connected just for a handful of films I can copy over to watch on my TV – and I’m going to monitor the situation to see if this gets corrupted. If it doesn’t, I’ll probably conclude that it is while doing a TimeMachine backup that the router is crashing, corrupting the data on the HDD and also messing up the network. Consider this a word of warning for anyone else who might potentially use a HDD for storing data not kept elsewhere – you may well lose it!

As an update for anyone interested; I’ve had zero problems with the flash drive connected. This means it was either TimeMachine causing the issue or maybe even an issue powering an external HDD (I might experiment again in the future, this time using an external drive with a separate power supply).

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[Jonathan Morris]

I hadn’t tried connecting a HDD before now (well, I did plug one in to see if it detected it, but never set it up or used it).

The issue I had about the node dropped to 2.4GHz has gone, which is good.

I can live without using the USB port, and I should know in a day or two if the flash drive still works or not – to identify if the issue is down to having a storage device connected, or the TimeMachine aspect.

I am quietly confident that if the router goes wrong again, removing the storage device should fix it.

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[Jonathan Morris]

I have been pretty quiet since my last posts here about problems, but in the last week I’ve had major issues again (I am now on 3.0.0.4.386_43181) and it has been very frustrating.

I think I might have found a cause though, which is going to be quite annoying if proven. I’ve submitted a report and 6 hours of logging to Asus, but I am not entirely sure they’ll spot the issue.

Basically, a week or two ago I connected a USB HDD to the XT8 router, and set it up as a media player and TimeMachine for backing up both a MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. All seemed to work very well, and I was very impressed, but then I noticed that while the TimeMachine backups were enabled, the router was reporting that the HDD was corrupt and could not fix the problem after 3 attempts.

It eventually showed the drive as unmounted, and at this point the TimeMachine backups (unsurprisingly) stopped working too.

I had to remove the HDD to try and repair it, without success, and therefore had to format it – losing all the data (I do use TimeMachine on a local drive, this was really about dual redundancy, and the media is also stored elsewhere). Nevertheless, it was a pain.

Now, at some point during this (what I thought was an isolated problem) the router had in fact rebooted a few times, knocking out the AI Mesh node and causing problems to the point that when I was out, my wife had to turn off the node entirely as it was causing too many issues with her laptop and work (screen sharing) connection.

With the HDD removed, the problem went away so I never got around to doing a full reset and starting over (something I may one day do, but it’s also a pain). The node has been connected without fail and all was good.

Then on Friday, I decided to hook up a different HDD to the XT8 and set it all up again, and within 24 hours the router crashed again, and it was at this point that I noticed this HDD was now showing as corrupt and the exact same issues as before.

That HDD is now removed and I’ve given up on using it for TimeMachine backups.

What I’ve got now is a 32GB flash drive connected just for a handful of films I can copy over to watch on my TV – and I’m going to monitor the situation to see if this gets corrupted. If it doesn’t, I’ll probably conclude that it is while doing a TimeMachine backup that the router is crashing, corrupting the data on the HDD and also messing up the network.

Consider this a word of warning for anyone else who might potentially use a HDD for storing data not kept elsewhere – you may well lose it!

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[Jonathan Morris]

UK Sentinel wrote:

No easy answer unfortunately, send a feedback form and explain issues, hopefully ASUS will add this to there list <noscript></noscript>edit: Add ‘UK Sentinel’ in subject box as this may help get a more positive response

I’ll try and do that later, but sadly I couldn’t see anything in the log so all I can post is what I’ve written here (and from a technical standpoint, I’m not sure Asus will have much to work with!).

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[Jonathan Morris]

UK Sentinel wrote:

Jonathan Morris wrote:

Asus needs to make this more resilient. Incidences like this, and the dropping to 2.4GHz, would make some people too wary to trust it at all.

Agree totally, the only way to keep ASUS kit (general comment) on track is to schedule the occasional reboot (out of hours) not sure if the ZenWifi supports this option <noscript><noscript></noscript>

I am pretty sure you can, but I’d rather not do this except as a last resort. It could very well cause issues with some of my smart home products (including wireless CCTV) and if scheduled in the middle of the night, it could mean that not restarting correctly removes the security.

I’ve had a good run though; since my last post, the node hasn’t dropped to 2.4GHz once (that I’m aware of at any rate!). This was a very odd incident, and I wouldn’t have understood it if it had been a firmware update.. not just sitting idle.

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[Jonathan Morris]

Here’s an odd thing. Around 10 minutes ago I lost the Internet. I figured it was the ISP, but then noticed the router was rebooting.

Okay, odd, but maybe a firmware update? No. Same as before.

But now the node has gone and it doesn’t think I have one. The node itself is flashing blue, and that’s it.

What happened? I didn’t do anything!

Edit: Update; bizarre. I had to bring the node downstairs to try and pair it again (as it wasn’t found when scanned in situ).

I also noticed my guest network had gone down – and wasn’t showing at all. Also weird.

Once downstairs, I did a reset and when it restarted (I expected it to be in new mode) it reconnected at 5GHz but with low signal. If there was any proof that this thing gets messed up, having a node about 3 metres away and showing low signal is it!

It then disconnected again and now it’s back, and the guest network is back.

Lucky I was home, as everything fixed in less than 30 minutes, but if I was at work and this had happened when my wife was needing to work, she’d not be happy.

Asus needs to make this more resilient. Incidences like this, and the dropping to 2.4GHz, would make some people too wary to trust it at all.

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[Jonathan Morris]

The Radar issue should show in the log and it drops to 80MHz on 5G, not 2.4GHz. Frankly, I don’t know how or why it ever drops to 2.4GHz because there’s no specific setting to tell it to do so.

I read elsewhere that when it drops from 160 to 80MHz it might not go back (the Wi-Fi 6 spec suggests it will try again after about 30 minutes and regular intervals thereafter if there’s another detection), but I can live with that in comparison to going to 2.4GHz (which seems to then report a weak signal, as in theory if it was a good signal then it wouldn’t be such a problem).

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