WiFi in phone keeps disconnecting

[Foxxon]

Dear reader, 

 

Im having the strangest thing happening to my phone WiFi, and I do not understand what is happening. 

Firstly I'll try to sketch what my network situation currently is: house, 3 floors. Base floor has modem/router. First floor has a Asus router that I have configured to an access point. 

 

Before this I had a different modem /router. That had bridge mode on it. Therefore my Asus router was in normal router mode. My phone WiFi worked fine. Because of work at home   and relative weak signal I managed to convince the ISP to send a new modem /router. I removed bridge mode and started using that WiFi downstairs. To remove complications I then enabled AP mode on my Asus router upstairs. Ever since then my Xiaomi phone has been acting up. 

 

I would connect to the AP and it stays connected for 5 seconds (full signal strength) and then disconnect (2.4 and 5ghz)..when it disconnects the said would also then dissappear from the WiFi menu as if they no longer existed. (after a while they come back) 

And sometimes I connect and they stay connected(very rare). For as long as I like. Till I go outside and have to reconnect again when I get back. Then it might refuse again. 

 

I've tested on an old phone that has yet to fail to connect to the AP. Works every time. 

 

Connecting to me new modem / router works a charm on my phone as well. 

 

Tried factory reset on AP twice. Reseting network settings on phone multiple times. Problem keeps coming back, just in this phone. After switching to AP mode. 

 

Help. I am not technical enough to understand what could be causing this... If you need more info I'd happily provide it. 

 

Thanks in advance, 

Daniel 

[Jinu]

- Are you using both ISP Router and the ASUS router as AP. If so then ensure that you have configured different SSID on both.

- Also ensure you are using different Wifi Channels on both the devices

- Ensure you are not reusing any old SSID on the ASUS router. Ensure both devices (ISP modem and ASUS router) have new SSID

- Loop through different channels on the Asus router and see if it makes any difference

- Update the Asus Router firmware to the latest version

 

 

[Foxxon]

2 hours ago, Jinu said:

- Are you using both ISP Router and the ASUS router as AP. If so then ensure that you have configured different SSID on both.

- Also ensure you are using different Wifi Channels on both the devices

- Ensure you are not reusing any old SSID on the ASUS router. Ensure both devices (ISP modem and ASUS router) have new SSID

- Loop through different channels on the Asus router and see if it makes any difference

- Update the Asus Router firmware to the latest version

 

Thanks for your reply. 

- isp router is in normal router mode. 

- router and ap are using new SSIDs (different) 

- they're set on different channels (I've tried both auto switching and static, both with the same connecting issue) 

- Firmware is updated to the latest version

 

Thanks again, but those solutions don't seem to do the trick for me. 

 

 

[Jinu]

- Is the ASUS router configured to transmit SSID or hide SSID . Disable the hide SSID option for testing purpose

- any MAC filtering or security features enabled on the ASUS router. Disable the MAC filtering temporarily for testing purpose

- Any password set on the ASUS router for WIFI Connect. Disable the Password temporarily for testing purpose

- Now on your Xiaomi phone, do a forget network for this SSID and reconfigure the SSID on the Phone

- Reset network/APN settings on your Xiaomi phone.  

- Connect another device/phone to the ASUS router over wifi and see if it connects.

 

Do each one of the steps above individually and check if it makes any difference. Since the first 3 are pertaining to security, dont leave them disabled for long. 

[Foxxon]

38 minutes ago, Jinu said:

- Is the ASUS router configured to transmit SSID or hide SSID . Disable the hide SSID option for testing purpose

- any MAC filtering or security features enabled on the ASUS router. Disable the MAC filtering temporarily for testing purpose

- Any password set on the ASUS router for WIFI Connect. Disable the Password temporarily for testing purpose

- Now on your Xiaomi phone, do a forget network for this SSID and reconfigure the SSID on the Phone

- Reset network/APN settings on your Xiaomi phone.  

- Connect another device/phone to the ASUS router over wifi and see if it connects.

 

Do each one of the steps above individually and check if it makes any difference. Since the first 3 are pertaining to security, dont leave them disabled for long. 

Thanks! I will be testing this now.. I'm going to throw in another thing that I have noticed (and notice atm during testing and logging into the Asus page).

Every now and then when I try to troubleshoot and see if I can find any logs, I try to connect to the AP Wifi and login to the Asus AP... It'll crash my internet on my PC and the logs read that it has probably just restarted. I've had this happen multiple times when i've tried to unsuccesfully connect my phone to the WiFi.

 

If that means anything to you then please let me know. I'll be testing your point for now, but it just happened again when I tried to login to the Asus AP on my PC.

 

For future reference (Asus RT AC66U, Firmware 3.0.0.4.382.51641 / Xoami Mi Mix 3 MIUI 11.0.4 (Android 10) / Other Phone tested that always worked on the AP WiFi Honor 8

Edit: Crash from log says this.. I have no clue what this stuff means.

May 28 08:41:17 LAN network changes (%s/%s --> %s/%s). : 192.168.178.38
May 28 08:41:17 rc_service: udhcpc_lan 373:notify_rc stop_samba
May 28 08:41:17 rc_service: udhcpc_lan 373:notify_rc start_samba
May 28 08:41:17 rc_service: waitting "stop_samba" via udhcpc_lan ...
May 28 08:41:17 Samba Server: smb daemon is stoped
May 28 08:41:19 rc_service: ntp 481:notify_rc restart_diskmon
May 28 08:41:19 disk_monitor: Finish
May 28 08:41:19 disk monitor: be idle
May 28 08:42:01 crond[381]: time disparity of 1085856 minutes detected

[Foxxon]

40 minutes ago, Jinu said:

- Is the ASUS router configured to transmit SSID or hide SSID . Disable the hide SSID option for testing purpose

- any MAC filtering or security features enabled on the ASUS router. Disable the MAC filtering temporarily for testing purpose

- Any password set on the ASUS router for WIFI Connect. Disable the Password temporarily for testing purpose

- Now on your Xiaomi phone, do a forget network for this SSID and reconfigure the SSID on the Phone

- Reset network/APN settings on your Xiaomi phone.  

- Connect another device/phone to the ASUS router over wifi and see if it connects.

 

Do each one of the steps above individually and check if it makes any difference. Since the first 3 are pertaining to security, dont leave them disabled for long. 

- Its transmitting SSID

- MAC filtering is disabled 

- I cannot set no password on the router page, it'll defeault to "0000000" if I leave the page blank

[Jinu]

When you access the admin page on ASUS do you use HTTPS or HTTP. You should set it on the ASUS router to HTTPS only. Disable HTTTP. 

Also is DHCP enabled on both the ISP router and the ASUS router. Ideally it should be enabled on one and the other should use a hardcoded IP. How is yours configured.

Also do this 

1. Switch off ASUS routter

2. Switch on ASUS Router

3. Connect to router using Xiaomi mobile

4. after the connection fails drop look at the logging on the router "Wireless Logging" tab and see if you see any errors there.

[Foxxon]

8 minutes ago, Jinu said:

When you access the admin page on ASUS do you use HTTPS or HTTP. You should set it on the ASUS router to HTTPS only. Disable HTTTP. 

Also is DHCP enabled on both the ISP router and the ASUS router. Ideally it should be enabled on one and the other should use a hardcoded IP. How is yours configured.

Also do this 

1. Switch off ASUS routter

2. Switch on ASUS Router

3. Connect to router using Xiaomi mobile

4. after the connection fails drop look at the logging on the router "Wireless Logging" tab and see if you see any errors there.

Asus is set to AP mode, which should automatically disable DHCP as far as im concerned.

I've been a bit silly and managed to test the No password thing - no different results

 

I've looked at the Wireless Logs before, but do not know what the look for when it comes to crashes.

(Tho I did just try it again, but the second I connected to the WiFi my internet crashed again, and the modem appears to have restarted itself)

I have attached the Wireless Log after the modem restarted itself.

Connecting on my Honor phone again and it doesn't crash anything and has instant access to the internet (and stays connected)

 

(What does HTTPs and HTTP change in my scenario, willing to test it. But I made a small mistake so I require another factory reset. Didn't get to export the certificate, so I can't seem to login to my AP anymore)

WirelessLog.rtf

[Jinu]

Looks like this is a known issue with ASUS RT AC66U. There is a problem with the Kernel which causes the crash when connected from some phones on Android. There are some workarounds provided. There is one simple one and one very drastic one.

 

1st Workaround  is to disable IPV6 on the Router. I suggest you try both disable option and passthrough option (simple, but does not work for all)

2nd Workaround is to change your firmware to compatible Tomato firmware.

Source1 

 

[Foxxon]

1 hour ago, Jinu said:

Looks like this is a known issue with ASUS RT AC66U. There is a problem with the Kernel which causes the crash when connected from some phones on Android. There are some workarounds provided. There is one simple one and one very drastic one.

 

1st Workaround  is to disable IPV6 on the Router. I suggest you try both disable option and passthrough option (simple, but does not work for all)

2nd Workaround is to change your firmware to compatible Tomato firmware.

Source1 

 

Thanks for the source, very interesting! 

 

Would be so kind to explain how sometimes my phone will connect (and stay connected, till Im out of range), whilst most of the times it'll fail to connect (and crash my router)?

What does IPV6 have to do with that?

 

EDIT: The question comes from my cunfusion. If its a IPV6 issue, shouldn't my phone never be able to connect to the router? Whilst in few (random) occasions it can now.

[Jinu]

It all depends on whats causing the null pointer exception in the kernel which in turn causes the Kernel to crash and the router to reboot Like i said above the IPV6 solution does not work for all, so it need not be the IPV6 feature itself thats causing the problem but some code in that module. Anyways we can tell why its failing till we dont see the code thats causing the crash. 

[Foxxon]

On 5/28/2020 at 12:59 PM, Jinu said:

It all depends on whats causing the null pointer exception in the kernel which in turn causes the Kernel to crash and the router to reboot Like i said above the IPV6 solution does not work for all, so it need not be the IPV6 feature itself thats causing the problem but some code in that module. Anyways we can tell why its failing till we dont see the code thats causing the crash. 

Ipv6 thing is not a setting I can access whilst the Asus router is in AP mode.

I've tried flashing it to Tomato and ran into some IP issues I didn't understand.

 

Small update. Back on normal Asus Firmware I noticed the WiFi works fine in normal Router mode. It only starts to malfunction as soon as I change it to AP mode. Does this mean anything to you?

[Jinu]

I think we need to go back to basics. So how is the ISP modem connected to the ASUS RT-AC66U. I am assuming that you have a cable running from the Ethernet port of the ISP modem to the WAN port of the ASUS RT-AC66U. Now in the ASUS WAN  setup page, you would have selected "Automatic Ip" or "Static IP". Is my assumption correct so far. Also since you are using this as an AP, you would have to give it an IP range that is different from the one used by your ISP modem.  Is my assumption correct ?

[Foxxon]

1 hour ago, Jinu said:

I think we need to go back to basics. So how is the ISP modem connected to the ASUS RT-AC66U. I am assuming that you have a cable running from the Ethernet port of the ISP modem to the WAN port of the ASUS RT-AC66U. Now in the ASUS WAN  setup page, you would have selected "Automatic Ip" or "Static IP". Is my assumption correct so far. Also since you are using this as an AP, you would have to give it an IP range that is different from the one used by your ISP modem.  Is my assumption correct ?

Thanks for responding.

 

ISP > Router / Modem combo Ethernet cable into WAN port Asus RT-AC66U

I did in fact select "get automatic IP" and it went from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.178.38 (if I want to login to ISP router/modem its 192.168.178.1)

 

I don't know where I can check the IP range? I don't think I had to select it when I put it into the automatic AP mode.

[Jinu]

In  Advanced Setting --> LAN --> LAN IP what have you put as the IP address of the ASUS RT-AC66U. 

 

Since Router mode is working fine for you. You should keep the ASUS RT-AC66U it in router mode. But you will have to make the following changes

1. On the ISP router modem setup/admin screen, ensure DHCP is enabled and the DHCP range (Start address and end address ) is kept as 192.168.178.10 and 192.168.178.100.

2.On the ASUS  RT-AC66U Advanced Setting --> LAN --> LAN IP page set LAN IP as 192.168.178.2

3. On the ASUS  RT-AC66U Advanced Setting --> LAN -->DHCP Server page, ensure DHCP server is enabled and the DHCP range (Start address and end address ) is kept as 192.168.178.101 and 192.168.178.200.

4. Ensure the SSID set on the ISP router and ASUS router are completely different.

[Foxxon]

6 minutes ago, Jinu said:

In  Advanced Setting --> LAN --> LAN IP what have you put as the IP address of the ASUS RT-AC66U. 

 

Since Router mode is working fine for you. You should keep the ASUS RT-AC66U it in router mode. But you will have to make the following changes

1. On the ISP router modem setup/admin screen, ensure DHCP is enabled and the DHCP range (Start address and end address ) is kept as 192.168.178.10 and 192.168.178.100.

2.On the ASUS  RT-AC66U Advanced Setting --> LAN --> LAN IP page set LAN IP as 192.168.178.2

3. On the ASUS  RT-AC66U Advanced Setting --> LAN -->DHCP Server page, ensure DHCP server is enabled and the DHCP range (Start address and end address ) is kept as 192.168.178.101 and 192.168.178.200.

4. Ensure the SSID set on the ISP router and ASUS router are completely different.

Ip adress for the Asus router is 192.168.178.38 (did that automatically with the AP function)

 

Regarding your further tips I greatly appreciate them, however I don't seem to be able to set an "end adress", only a start)

My DHCP settings for my ISP are: Start Local Adress (192.168.178.10)  / Amount of Devices (245 atm) and Lease Time.

[Jinu]

Move setting from AP to Router. Since AP is not functioning properly lets stick to Router functionality.

 

On you ISP modem  you set the starting address as 192.168.178.10 and set the amount of devices as 90, That will have the same effect.