Admin Panel Unreachable When No WAN is Active (AXT1800 – Slate AX)

Routers
1

Hi everyone,

I'm using a GL.iNet AXT1800 (Slate AX) as a travel router, and I encountered a strange but repeatable issue that I'd like to report and understand better.

Setup Summary:
At home, I configured the Slate AX to use my smartphone’s Wi-Fi hotspot as the WAN source. Everything worked great: other devices connected to the router and got Internet through the phone’s hotspot.

Then I took the router with me to my vacation apartment in the mountains.

Problem Scenario:
Once there:

  1. I powered on the router (no WAN configured yet).

  2. I connected my smartphone to the router’s Wi-Fi LAN as usual.

  3. I tried to access the admin panel at 192.168.8.1, but the browser timed out.

  4. I tried the same from my wife’s phone (also connected to the router’s Wi-Fi): same result — no access to the admin interface.

At this point, I was stuck: I couldn’t reconfigure the router because the admin panel was unreachable.

What fixed it:
I had an idea: I re-enabled the Wi-Fi hotspot on my own phone, the same SSID the router was previously connected to as WAN.

The router connected to it automatically (confirmed by the LED turning solid).

Immediately after that, my wife’s phone (still connected to the router's Wi-Fi LAN) was able to access the admin panel at 192.168.8.1.

I then reconfigured the WAN to connect to the apartment’s local Wi-Fi and everything worked fine again.

My concern:
It seems that the admin panel becomes unreachable when no WAN is active, even though I'm connected to the router’s LAN Wi-Fi.

Question:

Is this expected behavior?

Is there a setting I need to enable to keep the WebUI accessible at all times from LAN clients (even when no WAN is up)?

Is this a bug or a limitation in the current firmware?

Workaround:
Next time, I’ll bring a short Ethernet cable and connect directly to the router’s LAN port to access the admin panel if Wi-Fi access fails.

Still, I believe the router should always allow access to the local admin panel from clients on its LAN interface, regardless of WAN status.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

3

Hi,

What is the AXT1800 version number you are using? V4.xx？ Let me test it.
I tested it with the V4.8.0 beta version of the AXT1800 router and was able to access the management page normally via WiFi

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4

Are your phones android? On android you usually get a message when connecting to a SSID that doesn't have internet access, it states something like "no internet access, stay connected?" If you don't give an answer to the question then your phone could revert to using mobile data hence no access to the glinet gui.

When connecting to the SSID with no current WAN access, load up your phone browser and try navigate to a web URL, you might need to disable your mobile data to force the WiFi connection. When visiting a URL with no WAN you should then get the message about being no internet available, click on the stay connected option and I believe you can also remember the option too.

If you are not getting the message then just try forgetting the wireless network and connect again, you should eventually get the warning message.

Your phone may also have additional WiFi settings like in this post

My guess is it's related to this issue.

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5

Hi, thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I don't have access to the router now, but it's definitely 4.x.x

6

Hi, thank you very much. My phones are indeed Android and that could actually be the problem, I should have figured it out. When I go back to my vacation apartment for the weekend I will definitely try to reproduce the behaviour. I'll keep you posted, thanks again.

1 Like
8

@stefanoradice What was the outcome, any update?

9

Hi all, I'm finally back in my vacation apartment. @j2zero, you were right, and I should have thought of that. I couldn't connect because my phone was using mobile data. The reason why it was working at home is because I was using my Win laptop instead of an Android phone. Thanks a lot for your insight. @alen5193 thanks for your feedback too. My firmware is up to date, but in the end my problem had nothing to do with the router.

2 Likes