Can’t authenticate connection in router mode to 5GHz router, software says “getting” for a period before failing to connect.
Works ok in 2.4Ghz.
Hi,
Thank you for your feedback and for sharing this issue with us.
Based on your description, it seems that the issue only occurs when Opal tries to connect to the 5 GHz Wi-Fi network, while the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi connection works normally.
Could you please help confirm some additional information about the 5 GHz network you are trying to repeat?
- What is the 5 GHz Wi-Fi channel currently used by the upstream router? If possible, please temporarily set it to channel 36, 40, 44, or 48 and test again.
- Could you please check the security settings of the upstream 5 GHz Wi-Fi network? If possible, please temporarily set it to WPA2-Personal with AES encryption and test the connection again.
- Please remove the saved 5 GHz Wi-Fi profile from Opal’s Repeater settings, scan for the network again, and manually enter the password to reconnect.
Thank you again for your patience and cooperation.
Step 3 was carried out (removal and rescan) and I was still unable to connect. Steps 1 and 2 are not available to me , it is a fixed router on a site I have no control over which is why I am having to run the Opal in repeater mode to create a flexible network. It connects no problem with the previous firmware version to the 5Ghz network.
I had what appears to be exactly this same issue. I recently purchased a GL-SFT1200 Opal to use as a wireless bridge from my ASUS RT-BE88U router to an AV receiver that needed an ethernet connection. The GL-SFT1200 shipped with firmware (from memory) something around version 4.3.7 and connected to the existing 5GHz wifi network without a problem, and I quickly had the wireless bridge up and functioning. The web Admin Panel informed me that firmware 4.8.3 was available so I downloaded that, installed it and rebooted.
However, after rebooting with firmware 4.8.3 I couldn’t get the Opal to reconnect to my existing 5GHz wifi and it said ‘getting’ for an extended period before eventually putting up a failure to connect message.
My ASUS RT-BE88U 5GHz wifi has ‘WiFi7 mode’ enabled, with WPA2/WPA3-Personal authentication and AES+GCMP256 encryption. I thought initially it might be the AES+GCMP256 encryption that was the problem, but changing that to AES didn’t fix the problem and the Opal would still not connect.
I next tried disabling WiFi7 mode and that fixed the problem and the Opal connected again.
As a test, after the Opal had established a connection to the RT-BE88U 5GHz wifi, I then re-enabled WiFi7 mode and the Opal remained connected. However, subsequent rebooting the Opal reverted to the same problem of it not being able to connect to the 5GHz wifi.
So, the problem looks like the issue might well be related to 802.11be initial association/handshaking, rather than an inability of the Opal to operate with a WiFi7 network once connected.
I then downgraded the Opal firmware to 4.3.25 and the problem completely disappeared and it once again connected without a problem to the RT-BE88U with WiFi7 mode enabled, with WPA2/WPA3-Personal authentication and AES+GCMP256 encryption.
I suspect something in the SFT1200's version 4.8.3 firmware wireless stack — a wpa_supplicant/driver update, a regression, or a change in how it negotiates SAE/PMF — could be causing the SFT1200 to trip over that negotiation process.
Hopefully this is something that can now be checked and debugged in the v 4.8.x firmware.