Absolutely lost | Flint GL-AX1800

itsmason230 · August 24, 2026, 12:58pm

This is quite literally my last resort so I’m going to give it a shot and see if any of the people way smarter than me can figure this one out.

SO I’m on the AX1800 with the 5GHz, 2.4GHz and the 2.4GHz WiFi bands on. Both the main networks work completely fine, and up until a few days ago, the guest network was also working fine.

I was doing a project with my Raspberry Pi and I needed the clients to not be isolated on the guest network, and for someone not really familiar with VLANs in LuCI, the guest network has always completely worked fine for me.

So I load up LuCI, head to Network, then Wireless, and go to my guest network advanced settings and tick off “Isolate Clients.” Issue is that it then kicked almost all my devices offline besides a few random devices like my Google Home Hubs.

Odd but ok.. so then I turn it back on, restart, and boom… everything is back online.

So then I wait a few days and find a forum talking about the interface name string ‘Interface name |Override default interface name’, so I took the stuff out of there, turned Isolate Clients off, and it totally worked up until this morning. Once again, some of the devices show, most won’t connect at all no matter a restart or isolated clients being off or on.

Now I will say and someone will likely bring it up, that I am on V4.6.6 Release 1, because I personally can’t find a forum that states that any of the updates will fix my said issue, let alone know what’s the best version to update to, as I’d like to keep all the settings.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

xize11 · August 24, 2026, 3:34pm

From my understanding the interface override is only necessary if you create a new ssid, because GL-iNet does not use the normal OpenWrt but a vendor sdk (development kit) with a lower base version of OpenWrt with propetairy patches and drivers for wifi.

To make the OpenWrt base version know about these wifi phy interfaces is to use override, so if you edit a existing wifi network this should not be changed, it should be filled in already.

As for the isolation inside the wireless option:

This should be enough, but because you made a change the wifi get restarted this is expected behaviour, please note that this checkbox is for the full band.

I think in this case the override option does more harm than good in your configuration.

itsmason230 · August 24, 2026, 5:01pm

Yeah that would make sense. So it seems like the issue was the fact that the interfaces have LAN, WAN, etc., as well as a Guest network. The Guest network device was set to “Absent Interface: wlan0-1”.. which was of course, set to nothing. So I changed it to use the actual Wireless Network (Guest) interface and it worked.

Makes me wonder how it worked for so long / how things randomly started dropping out all at different times

xize11 · August 24, 2026, 5:42pm

Not sure if that is correct, it are the naming defined under /etc/config/wireless with the wifi-iface sections, if guest exists there then it is correct, if not it is non existent.

On normal OpenWrt I never use this override feature and it should work under normal conditions when the field is empty, but I do not know the defaults of this gl-inets generated config for wireless guests.

itsmason230 · August 31, 2026, 12:36pm

So it seems like my fix was just temporary, as sometime around 4 AM local this morning it dropped out again, but this time it's almost as if it reverted because it turned back to br-guest. That's of course not setup and is the LAN port, and it's no longer using the WiFi so it drops out. Should I just delete br-guest so it's forced to use the WiFi module?

will.qiu · September 1, 2026, 10:58am

Hi,

It is normal for the guest network to have a corresponding bridge interface named br-guest. The guest Wi-Fi interfaces are then bridged to br-guest.

You can compare your configuration with the example below to identify any incorrect settings:

# /etc/config/network
config interface 'guest'
        option force_link '1'
        option type 'bridge'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipaddr '192.168.9.1'
        option netmask '255.255.255.0'
        option ip6assign '60'
        option multicast_querier '1'
        option igmp_snooping '0'
        option isolate '0'
        option bridge_empty '1'
        option disabled '0'

# /etc/config/wireless
config wifi-iface 'guest5g'
        option device 'radio0'
        option network 'guest'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ifname 'wlan1-1'
        option encryption 'psk2'
        option key 'xxx'
        option ssid 'GL-AX1800-xxx-5G-Guest'
        option macaddr 'xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx'
        option guest '1'
        option disabled '0'
        option wds '1'
        option isolate '1'
        option hidden '0'

config wifi-iface 'guest2g'
        option device 'radio1'
        option network 'guest'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ifname 'wlan0-1'
        option encryption 'psk2'
        option key 'xxx'
        option ssid 'GL-AX1800-xxx-Guest'
        option macaddr 'xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx'
        option guest '1'
        option disabled '1'
        option wds '1'
        option isolate '1'
        option hidden '0'

If the issue persists, please post the output of the following commands:

cat /etc/config/wireless
cat /etc/config/network

Before posting, please redact all passwords or keys, MAC addresses, public IP addresses, and other sensitive information. Please leave the section names and interface or bridge names unchanged, as these will help us—or other community members—identify where the configuration may have gone wrong.

itsmason230 · September 2, 2026, 7:59am

Odd… so I’ve yet to change anything but I can already tell that a few things on my end are mixed and matched or just missing entirely.

For example my guest interface is configured with option device 'wlan1-1', while my enabled guest2g interface doesn’t have an option ifname specified at all. Meanwhile guest5g does specify wlan1-1 but it’s disabled as im not using that one.

This seems to line up with the “Absent Interface” issue I was seeing in LuCI. I originally changed the Guest interface’s device in LuCI to the actual Guest wireless network, which immediately brought the Guest network back online but I haven’t made any other changes yet.

Trying to determine whether this is actually a stale interface reference or whether this is normal behavior on Flint and LuCI is simply displaying it incorrectly..?

Added my /etc/config/wireless and /etc/config/network below


config wifi-device 'radio0'
option type 'mac80211'
option path 'platform/soc/c000000.wifi'
option band '5g'
option htmode 'HE80'
option country 'US'
option random_bssid '1'
option disabled '0'
option channel 'auto'
option channels '36,40,44,48,149,153,157,161'
option legacy_rates '0'
option hwmode '11a'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio0'
option device 'radio0'
option network 'lan'
option mode 'ap'
option encryption 'psk2'
option wds '1'
option isolate '0'
option ifname 'wlan1'
option ieee80211k '1'
option bss_transition '1'
option ssid 'Main'
option hidden '0'
option key 'Redacted'
option disabled '0'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config wifi-device 'radio1'
option type 'mac80211'
option path 'platform/soc/c000000.wifi+1'
option band '2g'
option country 'US'
option random_bssid '1'
option disabled '0'
option channel 'auto'
option htmode 'HE40'
option txpower '21'
option hwmode '11g'
option cell_density '0'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio1'
option device 'radio1'
option network 'lan'
option mode 'ap'
option encryption 'psk2'
option wds '1'
option isolate '0'
option ifname 'wlan0'
option ieee80211k '1'
option bss_transition '1'
option disabled '0'
option hidden '0'
option ssid 'Redacted' (2.4 GHz)
option key 'Redacted'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config wifi-iface 'guest5g'
option device 'radio0'
option network 'guest'
option mode 'ap'
option ifname 'wlan1-1'
option encryption 'psk2'
option key 'Redacted'
option ssid 'GL-AX1800-58d-5G-Guest'
option guest '1'
option disabled '1'
option wds '1'
option isolate '1'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config wifi-iface 'guest2g'
option device 'radio1'
option network 'guest'
option mode 'ap'
option encryption 'psk2'
option guest '1'
option wds '1'
option ssid 'Guest Network'
option key 'Redacted'
option disabled '0'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

and config/network

config interface 'loopback'
option device 'lo'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
option netmask '255.0.0.0'

config globals 'globals'
option ula_prefix 'Redacted'

config device
option name 'br-lan'
option type 'bridge'
list ports 'eth1'
list ports 'eth2'
list ports 'eth3'
list ports 'eth4'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config device
option name 'eth1'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config device
option name 'eth2'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config device
option name 'eth3'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config device
option name 'eth4'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config interface 'lan'
option device 'br-lan'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '192.168.8.1'
option netmask '255.255.255.0'
option ip6assign '60'
option isolate '0'

config device
option name 'eth0'
option macaddr 'Redacted'

config interface 'wan'
option device 'eth0'
option proto 'dhcp'
option force_link '0'
option ipv6 '0'
option classlessroute '0'
option metric '10'

config interface 'wan6'
option proto 'dhcpv6'
option device '@wan'
option disabled '1'

config switch
option name 'switch0'
option reset '0'
option enable_vlan '0'

config interface 'tethering6'
option device '@tethering'
option proto 'dhcpv6'
option disabled '1'

config interface 'wwan6'
option device '@wwan'
option proto 'dhcpv6'
option disabled '1'

config interface 'guest'
option type 'bridge'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '192.168.9.1'
option netmask '255.255.255.0'
option ip6assign '60'
option multicast_querier '1'
option igmp_snooping '0'
option isolate '0'
option bridge_empty '1'
option disabled '0'
option device 'wlan1-1'

config interface 'wwan'
option proto 'dhcp'
option classlessroute '0'
option metric '20'

config interface 'modem_1_1_2_6'
option proto 'dhcpv6'
option disabled '1'
option device '@modem_1_1_2'

config rule 'policy_direct_rt'
option lookup 'main'
option suppress_prefixlength '0'
option priority '1100'

config rule 'policy_default_rt_vpn'
option mark '0x8000/0xc000'
option lookup '8000'
option priority '1101'
option invert '1'

config rule6 'policy_direct_rt6'
option lookup 'main'
option suppress_prefixlength '0'
option priority '1100'

config rule6 'policy_default_rt_vpn6'
option mark '0x8000/0xc000'
option lookup '8000'
option priority '1101'
option invert '1'

config rule 'policy_default_rt_vpn_ts'
option lookup 'main'
option priority '1099'
option mark '0x80000/0xc0000'
option invert '0'

will.qiu · September 2, 2026, 9:30am

Thanks for sharing the configuration. I compared it with a working factory configuration and found the following mismatches:

The guest interface is bound to wlan1-1 , but that interface belongs to the disabled guest5g network.
The enabled guest2g section is missing option ifname 'wlan0-1' .
The guest interface is missing option force_link '1' .

Please run the following commands over SSH:

uci -q delete network.guest.device
uci set network.guest.force_link='1'
uci set wireless.guest2g.ifname='wlan0-1'
uci set wireless.guest2g.isolate='0'
uci commit network
uci commit wireless
reboot

After the reboot, please check whether a Guest Wi-Fi client receives a 192.168.9.x address and can access the internet. The isolate='0' setting keeps communication between Guest Wi-Fi clients enabled.