Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 18:03 Post subject: WiFi radio failures in r8500 with V3.0 44715 std 11/03/20
The three radios will not connect after removing the OEM firmware and installing 44715 std. While there is a SSID broadcast, attempts to connect are unsuccessful.
I have tried with wireless security disabled, as well as with a suitable passcode.
On the client side (Android phone) I see three apparent negotiations (connected), and the handshake is not completed.
On the device, I have a pink LED for power, the internet and the hardwire connection to a switch are flashing white. All three radio lights are white, and on solid.
The status shows transmit and receive errors, and essentially no traffic through the radio, and it shows the radios all on. Again, the release is 44715 std. The flash was uneventful, and all other aspects of the router under DD-WRT appear to work OK, with the exception of the speed test.
There have been a few threads regarding how to deal with the R8500 wifi not working properly over the last few months. I'm going to assume that you are suffering from the same issue that many of us have had.
One other option you can also think about doing, which you will have to decide for yourself if you want to run a firmware that is over a year old, is to search the internet for a Kong build of dd-wrt from June / July 2019. Those run great but are no longer developed so you don't get the latest patches anymore.
Well, you can try restore factory defaults in GUI to see if any behaviors change.
I did, with a difference...now there is no advertising of the SSID.
The status page says it is transmitting, without errors, which is different. Before it was erroring on transmit, and I could see the transmitter. Now the transmitter is not visible with another radio.
Did we read the threads that FDM80 linked, or are we just doing trial and error here?
I don't know about we, but I did. One which had a solution was a bad link, with the post apparently not available.
To update, I have a second r8500, which I tested the radio with the OEM FW installed. All three radios worked for substantial use.
Then I again installed dd-wrt, this time the 3/4/21 build. The radio performance under dd-wrt was the same. I did set to have the factory defaults reset.
I then tried a build from 6/11/2019, and it failed to work as well.
I'm not sure if it is accurate to say the CFE is trashed. As an example, if you load an older build of dd-wrt I believe the wifi works fine. Same with Kong's builds. The wifi works just fine with those. For whatever reason, the newer builds don't seem to play nice unless you go through the steps to mess with the CFE.
To me, the quickest route to using dd-wrt and having the router work as you would expect is to flash a Kong build.
P.S. The one link I posted that didn't seem to work for whatever reason fixed itself and works again as of a few minutes ago. Not sure why it wasn't working earlier.
Last edited by FDM80 on Sat Mar 06, 2021 15:36; edited 2 times in total
