Problem with Slate ATX to route to internet

ArnoG · 2024-03-07T04:30:54.648Z

Hey folks,

I’m setting up a Slate ATX as a “repeater” for home/public WLANs
I’m having trouble even getting the router to pass traffic to the internet. I might be missing something obvious.

Connected to home internet, confirmed working properly, over WLAN. In the admin panel, the Internet config is blue and shows all good. It got an IP, have DNS config, etc… It also shows as firmware up to date, so I am guessing it was able to get out and check.

The issue now is that anything I connect to the Slate WLAN cannot access the internet. Devices get IP addresses via DHCP, DNS config, and are able to resolve DNS names/etc… However pings, or anything from the devices time out. Traveroute dies at the Slate

Are there any settings that I have missed? All docs I could find seem to show the Slate being plug and play.

Thanks !

steep01 · 2024-03-07T15:47:10.129Z

Hi @ArnoG, welcome! I just put a Slate AXT-1800 in extender mode. My laptop is connected to its wifi when I’m writing this reply, so it should work just fine. First I checked or adjusted the AXT LAN subnet so that it is different than the other WLAN, and then put it in extender mode. What version of the firmware is installed?

ArnoG · 2024-03-10T00:29:02.701Z

Thanks for reading/attempting to resolve. I found the issue, and will post details here in case it can help someone.

TL;DR: The core of my issue was an older firmware (4.2.3 which came default on the router), and the option to ignore DFS BSS turned on by default. After I fixed the issue, and got a new/latest firmware, it looks that this option is not there anymore.

As far as the details … I have a WiFi extender, brodcasting the same BSS as my primary. So depending on where the device is, it picks up anything closeby. It looks like my primary access point had DFS turned on, and not my extender.
The option on the Slate to “ignore DFS BSS” being turned on, my primary AP was being skipped, and only the extender was picked up.
The Slate was then all looking happy on the extender, Internet being reported green and no warning messages (which was wrong !). Now, for some reason, my extender was not passing traffic beyond the local WLAN, so the Slate could see anything local, but nothing else. As there was no error on the Admin UI for Internet, I didn’t catch that. Also the Admin UI reported that firmware was green/up to date !

After tracking down all this, and disabling ignoring DFS, the Slate then connected to my primary AP, and suddenly everything was happy. A new firmware got applied.

So here. I think the “Firmware is up to date” can’t be taken as reliable … and the Admin UI not reporting warnings on Internet also can’t be taken as validation that everything is fine.