Since upgrade to 25.1.3, WiFi AP clients struggle

[jpoet]

I upgraded to 25.1.3 on Friday. A couple of hours later I noticed that all of my devices connected via WiFi where having serious connectivity issues. It was taking several retries just to connect to the Access Point. Once connected, traffic is very, very slow, often so slow that the device would decided that it had no internet access.

What is strange is that all of my hard wired devices are working perfectly. I have two Asus routers running in AP mode and any WiFi device connected to either experience the problem. I don't normally use the built-in switches on those Asus routers, but if I connect something to them wired, then the wired device works fine. So, again, this is only affecting WiFi devices.

If I switch from AP mode to "router" mode on either of the Asus routers, then WiFi devices work fine. It is only when I have the OPNsense router is providing DHCP that the problem occurs???  I use static DHCP assignments for 90% of my devices.

Once a WiFi devices is able to connect the AP, I can ping stuff, but the latency is extreme. Running a speed test on a WiFi connected device gets 400mb/s with the Asus in "router" mode, but only 1 mb/s with the Asus in "AP" mode.

I noticed the thread "How do I debug this? clients connected through AP can't ping router", but decided to create a new thread, since my WiFi devices can ping -- just very slowly. Because of that thread I tried clearing the ARP cache, but that made no difference.

I am a long time OPNsense user, but I am far from an expert. It works and I typically just leave it alone. In the past I have had to restart the DHCP service and/or the Unbound DNS service every so often, but doing that did not solve this issue.

I am going to get a different brand WiFi router/AP to try today, but the problem seems to be OPNsense. I would appreciate any tips on how to diagnose the issue.

TIA

[newsense]

What happens if you manually set the network information on a device using DHCP ?

[jpoet]

What happens if you manually set the network information on a device using DHCP ?

Unfortunately, that makes no difference.

The new GliNet Router exhibits the exact same problem. That pretty much proves that the OPNsense router is the problem. I wish there was an easy way to downgrade OPNsense.

[newsense]

While we're specializing in reading crystal balls, try disabling IPv6 on the WAN interface and in System - Interfaces - Settings.


If IPv6 is not an answer, we'll need more info about your network setup, and also see what you can find relevant in System - Log Files ---after reenabling IPv6.

Reboot the FW after the IPv6 changes.

[jpoet]

newsense, thank you for trying to help. I already had ipv6 disabled. I didn't see your message before I downgraded...

I saved my current configuration and then did a fresh install of 25.1. After restoring the configuration file, everything is back to working perfectly.

So, the upgrade to 25.1.3 caused the problem. I suppose something may have gotten corrupted during the upgrade process?

I am going to leave it for a couple of days at 25.1, then I will try upgrading to the latest version again and see what happens.

[newsense]

Corruption is highly unlikely.

If everything is working for you on 25.1 and stops on 25.1.3 it should be properly diagnosed and addressed, however you haven't provided any details abour your setup and waiting on 25.1 won't solve anything.

Having IPv6 off certainly clears up quite a few troubleshoothing scenarios, but other than that there are no reports of a remotely similar issue in 25.1.1-25.1.3 that I know of, so don't expect magical fixes as they're not coming.


Other than the description of your network setup that is the most important now, do you know if this issue was present in 25.1.1/25.1.2 ?

[jpoet]

I upgraded to 25.1.3 again last night. My WiFi devices still work after this upgrade. I have no idea why they had a problem after upgrading the first time.