FS#2537 - Ath9k on Archer C7 v2: disassociated due to inactivity

[openwrt-bot]

zorxd:

Hello

Every few weeks I have to restart the 2.4 GHz radio or reboot my Archer C7 v2 router otherwise no client can connect to it.
All stations end up being "deauthenticated due to inactivity" and can't reconnect.

Tested on OpenWRT 18.06.4. It is quite hard to reproduce for me as it doesn't happen frequently.

Forum post: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/ath9k-on-archer-c7-v2-disassociated-due-to-inactivity/13328

[openwrt-bot]

bjorns86:

this is a pretty irritating bug, and the reproduction of it is something i have not either been able to do on cue.

on my Archer C7 v2 it happens very random, some times it "hangs" the 2.4 GHz radio once a week, sometimes it only takes a few days, and the longest running working is more then a month, by that time i was sure the issue was gone (right after flash of 18.06.2) but then it slowly started to randomly drop connection to the radio.

worth noting the 5 GHz radio never does this so its a contained issue to the 2.4 GHz. probably driver related?

i have tested it with: 17 (Lede) and 18.06 all point versions tested with same issue, and the time it takes are never the same, so it feels random.

i have thought of deploying a counter measure to run a scripted interface restart of the 2.4 GHz every week. i know its wrong to work around the problem and not fixing it but this issue seems to live on forever.

[openwrt-bot]

bjorns86:

tested on 19.07.1 and it still happens about once a week or so.

just flashed 19.07.2 and will see if it continues, otherwise i'll create a cron script that restarts 2.4gz wifi so i don't have to do it manually.

[openwrt-bot]

zorxd:

we should make a script which restart the 2.4 GHz radio periodically, only if there is no association

[openwrt-bot]

bjorns86:

ofcourse it would not restart if we got associated clients on the interface..
no need to restart a working interface..

[openwrt-bot]

bjorns86:

is there any interest for the script?

mocked up a quick test, and can put it up on github after i clean it up, if its needed by anyone else..

pretty simple, enable cron, run it every 15 minutes and check if any wifi interface missing connected clients, then it just restarts wifi. missing the only restart only 2.4GHz interface right now, but thats cause this was more a internal test dummy for now..

[openwrt-bot]

zorxd:

Yes, I would be interested
Thanks

[openwrt-bot]

bjorns86:

there you go.

it mitigates the issue on my end at least,
if it can help others until the bug is fixed..

[openwrt-bot]

AlbanBedel:

I see a similar problem with TL-WR1043ND v2 which also use QCA9558. We are running a medium sized network with many clients coming and going all the time and this bug seems to happen every couple of days.

This bug is still present with 19.07.

[openwrt-bot]

coelner:

I confirm this too.

[rpodric]

It kind of would be nice if someone actually posted whatever script @bjorns86 is talking about above, since this is still very much an issue right up into v21. But I have no idea why a) it's not linked in this thread and b) where else it might be.

[gavol]

It just happened to me today for the first time (OpenWrt 21.02.3 r16554-1d4dea6d4f / LuCI openwrt-21.02 branch git-22.083.69138-0a0ce2a on Qualcomm Atheros QCA9558 ver 1 rev 0).

[pockethook]

I'm experiencing this now (OpenWrt 23.05.2 r23630-842932a63d / LuCI openwrt-23.05 branch git-23.306.39416-c86c256 on Qualcomm Atheros QCA9558 ver 1 rev 0).

[Handrail9]

I am also having this issue on a Netgear Nighthawk XR500

[0nelight]

I have this issue with all my 3 MikroTik RB952Ui-5ac2nD (hAP ac lite; also having Qualcomm Chipset) too running OpenWrt 24.10.0 r28427-6df0e3d02.
This bug is really a hard nut. SSID is still visible, but data transfer of any kind is not possible anymore. I don't know how to debug this. I don't like fixing things by trying all kind of "possible solutions" - would like to get to the heart of it.

Update:
I switched back to Mikrotik RouterOS because after spending a lot of hours debugging this problem I am giving up. I am not a wifi stack developer and I don't think this is solvable by anyone not doing this everyday for months. I am prettty sure the last version of openwrt where this issue didn't arise was openwrt 19. I will continue to use Openwrt as my firewall 🥰, but not on my mikrotik wifi aps. thanks everyone that contributes to openwrt 😊