AR750s Keeps disconnecting

Technical Support for Routers
1

Hi, I bought a AR750s a couple of weeks ago and am starting to get very frustrated with it. I work on a ship where there is a captive portal and I use this to avoid having to sign in with all my devices as well as the OpenVPN function. However the connection to the main ship wifi network keep dropping out and reconnecting all the time, there is good signal and my phone stays connected easily to the main network so shouldnt be a problem with that, just this router seems to have issues.

I am using the latest stable firmware, I have not tried the beta 3.013 yet.

Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening? below is the log from the interface (i have edited out MAC addresses), it shows “wlan link is down” and “wlan-sta link is down” quite a few times.

Log is here: https://pastebin.com/yV3y6bc0

Thanks in advance for any help!

3 Likes
2

Just want to confirm that it is EAP that requires you to input username and password?

In the log you are connected via 2.4G wifi. Do they provide 5G wifi access point?

3

I am not sure, sometimes i get a corporate portal to log in with and other times i get a Cisco branded one that looks to be straight from the Access point. Both times the captive portal goes to http://2.2.2.2 if that helps.

There is no alternate SSID for a 5GHz access point, all over they have the same SSID, whether different access points use 2.4 or 5GHz i am not sure.

I upgraded to 3.013 last night and still have the same problem, it just keeps disconnecting and reconnecting, sometimes the hotspot from the router itself cuts out for 20 seconds or so and my devices get disconnected from that too. I can provide more logs if it would help?

Thanks again

4

Maybe this will help you. I have had similar problems. They were solved by deleting the gl_health file. No reconnection anymore.

5

Thanks for the help but surely that should not be the answer for the average user? The need to delete a file is a bit out of the norm for a typical user right? you should be able to connect to a network through the GUI and it stay connected. I had a small TP-Link travel router before this one that had no trouble with these same networks, it would stay connected no trouble, I only upgraded for the extra functionality that the AR750s has. For nearly ÂŁ70 i am a bit disappointed really, almost to the point of returning this one, maybe it is just faulty?

Are there any other ideas or anything that i can try to fix this?

1 Like
6

Refer to Tip & Feature Request re regular WiFi dropping - #11 by jas8522

7

The LAN side wifi dropping out is just a small problem in comparison to the WAN side. It is almost unusable, the connection to the network it is trying to repeat drops many times an hour. If i am working on a VPN then i get disconnected from that too etc. Or watching Netflix or something it will buffer frequently as it looses connection. If i connect directly to the network with my laptop it has no trouble and stays connected all day so why is the AR750s having such a hard time to stay connected?

Check this log: https://pastebin.com/rmdBwqa6

you can see “wlan-sta link is down” 18 times in a couple of hours, from what i can work out that the connection to the network that it is repeating dropping out. In the Luci interface the network that i am connecting to has a 98-100% signal strength. I have been using the 5GHz for the local LAN and that has not dropped as much as when i used the 2.4GHz.

Do i have a faulty unit? or is this a bug?

8

The Slate does seem to have connection issues, as when I “upgraded” my AR300M with an AR750S (like for like settings) it couldn’t hold a WISP connection (2.4 Ghz) whereas the AR300M was faultless.

Solutions:

  1. Upgrade to the latest testing firmware
  2. Go into ISP router and fiddle with the wireless settings:
    Check the WMM / QoS settings
    Change 2.4 Ghz 11n bandwidth from 20/40 or 20 > 40 MHz

The above seemed to work for me.

Other “tweaks” to consider:

Change wireless channel
Change encryption
Change guard Interval
Change encryption mode

Or, you can simply use 5 Ghz to connect to ISP router, which seems a lot more stable (this is not really a fix!)

Obviously, these tweaks can’t be made by people on the road connecting to captive portals or free wifi, so the firmware really needs a permanent fix (wireless driver problem, settings issue?) - there must be something different in the 750S firmware that the 300M doesn’t have.

9

Thanks for the tips but unfortunately i dont have access to change the settings on the access points. I think i am going to return it as it just doesn’t work for me, and this last day it has taken to rebooting itself every 30 minutes, i think it must be faulty.

I was looking at the AR300M initially before the AR750s took my eye so maybe i will try one of those as you mention they are faultless, it has everything i need, USB port, 2xRJ45 and openVPN support so perhaps that will work better for me

10

Can you try firmware v3.013-0220 from GL.iNet download center

Then turn off auto scan and re-connect and try again.

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11

I know this is not a release version but any chance you could tell us what tweaks you are making regarding wifi issues?

G

12

Just added disable repeater manager in the repeater settings.

13

Hi,

I tried the new firmware. Even worse than before. I guess this was to try and fix the issue with the router wifi dropping out when it disconnects from the access point that it was repeating, This worked to a certain degree but when it disconnected from the public wifi it would not automatically reconnect, so i had to go into the admin to reconnect each time. This is not very good when it disconnects every 5-10 minutes.

In addition to that, the 5GHz local network just cut out, the light on the front went off and it didnt come back on. In the interface it showed as on but there was no network being broadcast. There were some errors in the log too. The 2.4GHz was still on.

These are the logs that i managed to get from it in the short time i tested it (maybe 30 minutes over my lunch break)

https://pastebin.com/kkFFaqMw

https://pastebin.com/UzgrPHQh

Again the main problem is the router constantly disconnecting from the Access Point that it is trying to repeat. This is incredibly annoying and makes the device useless to me if it is unable to hold a connection.

14

I would suggest trying flashing one more time without saving the settings and then report back,

As I said before, I replaced my AR300M with a AR750S and it did not work “out of the box” (ie. as a like for like replacement).
I had to fiddle with my ISP router to fix connection problems, so it does seem there are some wifi problems in the firmware somewhere, maybe the wifi driver or something?

15

I am having the same problem with the ar-750S. It continually seems to drop the wireless signal repeatedly and reconnect.

16

Hello guys,

Unfortunately, I am having the same problems, as jongriff explained, we bought this Router to fix a problem, not to fix it. I travel a lot in different African countries where the whole hotel has one wifi router and it depends on the room you have, you may get wifi or not, so I got this to use it as a repeater of some sort, the VPN option is also good (in some countries, like UAE).

Now, I am staying in an Ibis, the wifi is good, just wanted to use my router and log in once thought their stupid portal, then use it on all my devices.

The THING KEEPS DROPPING WIFI UNTIL I WAS GOING TO DISTROY MY PERSONAL PHONE! I wasn’t sure it was the router, then I started using the hotel WIFI and there were no drops.

I am extremely irritated by this thing, I IMPORTED THE DAMN THING FOR ONE REASON FROM THE US, IS TO USE IT AS A ROUTER AND IT FAILED AT THAT!

Not to mention the sloppy performance using it as a media streaming router…

I bought it after reading all the nice comments on Amazon and also some YouTubers recommended it so many times as a perfect travel companion (GL-iNet AR750S-Ext: An amazing travel router you need - YouTube).

It’s a bad travel companion and this thing need to be fixed and tested properly. Glinet can’t advertise this as a travel router if they dont check its reliability well, when we are traveling, specially for work, the last thing I need to care about is learning all the details of WRT and fiddling with a router, this was a really bad surprise.

Please guys, if anyone got this router to work properly, post a detailed noobproof step-by-step tutorial of how to fix it.

Thank you and sorry for my excessive capital letter use.

17

I have a question, when you repeat is it repeat on 2.4G WiFi or 5G? If you repeat on 2.4G and your phone connect on 5G, will it also disconnect? As I know, if you repeat on 2.4G and connect to 2.4G as well, it may cause problems.

One confirmed WiFi drop is because of repeater. We are fixing this right now. Other scenarios are not confirmed and can not determine the problem.

There are several cases reported but it is very hard to replicate this problem on our side. We did a lot of test though.

18

This was the most problematic set-up for me.

19

both set ups caused issues for me. 5G on the LAN side was better and the 5G LAN would not drop out as much as the 2.4G (When repeating 2.4G) but it would still drop out sometimes. The bigger problem was the WAN disconnecting from the AP, this would drop out every 8-10 minutes. The LAN maybe only every 45 or so

20

This is definitely the most common scenario for me that is problematic (using the router to access a hotel wifi and then sharing out to FireTV stick, iOS clients, etc.