---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Foulkes <jf@jonathanfoulkes.com>
To: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>
Cc: Make-Wifi-fast <make-wifi-fast@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Bcc:
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2020 16:58:32 -0400
Subject: Re: [Make-wifi-fast] Make - fast - wifi project plan review from 2014....
Dave, You are not the only one noticing widespread wifi issues, and I’m beginning to think something is amiss in the core 80211 or related code, as ever since 18.06 (and up to recently released 19.07.4) I’m observing issues with sensitivity to congestion, drastic decreases in throughput at distance, and on MT76, very frequent ‘drops’ of network connectivity, yet stations remain enrolled and show good signal levels. Sometimes if comes back in 10 seconds, other times minutes. And often, a restart is the only answer.

LEDE 17.x had very good Wifi on the Archer C7, then 18.x and 19.x are nowhere near as good, especially on 2.4.

Current 5.x Master looks better on Mt76, but still see some issues.

A shame, as when the units are operating, and one is reasonably within range of 5Ghz, the throughput and low-latencies are quite good.

Are there any guides on how to gather relevant stats to help document these issues so the devs can zero in on the problems?

Cheers,

Jonathan

You definitely aren't among the few. Its been a continuing issue I've been having as you describe. It gets mentioned occasionally on the OpenWrt forums... but never seems to get a critical mass of attention. I and others have started threads, that have faded out over time.

Now, it seeming that a general thought is developing that "C7's just arent good for 2.4ghz" hiding that they WERE, and now have an issue.

Anyway, even though I'm mostly a lurking layperson.. I have lots of collected logs over time, and have lots of observational data on this issue. Not much in the regular logs, though. A while back in history it was more the 5ghz radio dropping, but in the last several months to a year its been almot always the 2.4ghz radio, similar to what you are describing. I would like very much to know how to find out the necessary info so that the devs can get a handle on it.

Count me in...