I’m loosing my mind with a Hub4 and ASUS ATX8 mesh set up

[swallka74]

About 2 weeks ago, we lost broadband early one morning, it was planned maintenance in the road. Up until this point my Hub4 (modem mode) and ASUS 6600 devices have been running without any issues. 

When the broadband came back on, all the settings on the hub4 seems to have been reset (not by me) then I couldn’t get the ASUS to work in router mode with the modem. 

I’ve reset everything, and failed a number of times to reset the devices as they were previously. I need 2.4g separate for the smart tech in the house. 

In the end I resorted to a brilliant thread on SNDforums with the right procedure to set up Hub4 router in router mode with my mesh in AP mode. Believe me getting to this point took days of restarts and reboots. But thought id nailed it.

All was running fine, until 4 days after the whole mesh and hub4 was working perfectly across all 3 bands, then out of the blue, mostly, the 2.4ghz drops out. When devices try and reconnect the password is “incorrect” (obv its not).

A reboot of the ASUS router (seems to get this up and running again) but it drops out every day at least once. It’s completely unstable and because we use Alexa for all our smart tech and the nest(s) etc in the house all stops working randomly. 

The Hub4 is set up in router mode with wireless off. The ASUS is broadcasting the wifi fine and all the nodes seem to be connected with good strength. We also have LAN cat6 running into the Hub4 and these connections are very stable. It seems to be something between the hub4 and the AP ASU’S and I am stumped. 

Can anyone suggest anything? I’m about to re-try setting the hub4 back up in modem only mode as a last resort. 

Oh and when we removed the whole ASU’s mesh and used the hub4 to broadcast the wifi - it was fine. the problem is that we have bad dead spots and can’t use smart connect and blended 2.4/5 because of the smart tech. (Believe me if this was a solution - id take it even thought I’ve spend a small fortune on the ASUS mesh! 

Andy ideas gratefully received. 

[jbrennand]

Try this.

First reset the VM Hub

Make sure the 2 passwords on the Hub sticker are still there and legible first ! With the Hub still "switched on" throughout, press the reset pin in firmly with paper clip/SIM tray tool or similar "thin thing" and hold it firmly for at least 60 (a timed sixty) seconds, release the pin, leave for 5’ to stabilise - dont manually switch it off at any time. Passwords and SSID’s will reset to those on the sticker so log in and change them back to what they were/should be.

Then.. set it all up in modem mode as per this...

Switch on and set up your own router to have its WAN port set to be in.. Dynamic/Automatic IP or DHCP (& Nat) mode. Then, disconnect all cables from your router and switch it off and unplug it.

Then, put the VM Hub into modem mode ( https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-hub-modem-mode ) and wait for the base light to turn magenta/purple (on a Hub3 - but not on a Hub4!).

Once it’s in modem mode, the VM hub “MUST” then be powered off. Switch your router on and make sure it’s fully initialised (leave 5 min) and then put in the Cat6a ethernet cable from its WAN port to the VM hub (any port will do).

NOW… power up the VM hub and wait 5-10 minutes for the Hub to initialise and and you should then get a stable connection to the Asus and internet connectivity

See if that sorts it.

[swallka74]

Thanks John - is there any reason that the ASUS couldn’t work successfully as any AP?

I don’t understand why it would work and then fail after a few days. I’ve looked into the ASUS log and for some reason, only today (and back in May 2023 - there are some weird sys log errors. Wlceventd etc for authentication - perhaps on low RSSI connections so i have switched off roaming on the 2.4 channel and added it to a fixed channel rather than auto. 

[Tudor]

Almost certain what happened is you were moved to a different CMTS, probably due to reconfiguration. This means your own router’s MAC address is not stored. So you have to set up modem mode from scratch as detailed by John.

[swallka74]

Ahhh, ok that must exactly be what it happened — thanks for the explanation. 

So. - i think i might have figured out what was going wrong after the AP was set up correctly. I found the sys log in the ASUS GUI ( i wish id looked there before) and after a bit of googling looks like as an AP point, the 2.4 channel has been disconnecting the connections with low strength. 

They then can’t connect again. this was a setting in the channel under roaming. I have switched this off for all channels and set the 2.4 channel to a static channel of 2. 

So far now for 3 hours. We’ve not had any issues with devices disconnecting to the 2.4 channel (they seemed to be better on the 5-1 channel. 

If this doesn’t work, I’ll go back to John’s procedure to get back into modem mode from router mode no wireless. Let’s see how the next 24 hours pans out. Thanks both for your help,

[Tudor]

Modem mode is always better as it puts less stress on the underpowered CPU in the hub.

[legacy1]

---

@swallka74 wrote:

is there any reason that the ASUS couldn’t work successfully as any AP?

VM don't support this like most things

[Adduxi]

Please note the 2.4Ghz channels should only be set to 1, 6 or 11.  All others channels will overlap and cause problems. 

[swallka74]

So 48 hours after the changes that I made on the ASUS AP point and we seem to have a stable wifi service around all nodes. I didn’t update to Modem only mode but i did change out the cat 5e cable just in case that was causing an issue.

So the changes made were to put the SSID 2.4 on one channel and to remove roaming RSSI settings for both 5g and 2.4 channels.  which was booting off low level connections like remote IOT wifi bulbs etc. 

I’m not sure what 1 6 or 11 are the only channels that work for 2.4 though? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. @ has been running fine since my update on Sunday. 

If this does change. I ill update this channel as some of the advice given here doesn’t hold true - like the AP and Hub4 configuration which works ok so far! Will keep you posted.