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WAX220 WIFI Disconnects on Apple devices
Please help, this has been doing my nut in. WAX220 WIFI AP for some reason keeps disconnecting Apple Iphones for a minute frequently and causes calls on facetime to freeze and become unsuitable t...
Agreed about the AX Protocol. I just placed a 5GHz Extender on my network. It only supports up to AC. The Apple devices that were failing to connect directly to the WAX220 have no issue when connecting through the Extender. I'm assuming some sort of handshaking fail that isn't allowing the Apple devices to negotiate down to AC on failure of an AX Connection.
I spoke with Netgear Level 4 Support. They're now aware of this thread, and hopefully the engineers will have a Firmware fix out shortly.
s.
After reading through all of your replies, I have done some adjustments on my side as well:
- Kept Band steering ON
- Enabled both bands 2.4GHz & 5GHz on all 4 SSIDs
- Disabled "11ax mode (for 2.4GHz only)" (OFF)
So far I have ~11h stability (based on interrupted duration of my VPN session) on my:
- Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch, 2021 (Apple M1 Max / 32GB mem / macOS Sonoma 14.4)
However, this system has also been updated from macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 to 14.4 few hours before doing all of the above tuning on WAX220 AP. The only thing related to this device that I see now in AP logs for last 11h since I cleared logs is this line periodically printed:
Wed Mar 13 08:22:52 2024 user.info devProbe: /usr/bin/devCheck> ubus send dev_probe_link '{"mac_addr": "BC:D0:74:0E:FA:B3", "link_state": "checkoffline", "if_index": "0"}'While I hope that this fixes the issue for now, I need more time testing the current setup for a few days. I will report back again.
Thank you all for following up on this thread and hope to see more feedback and hopefully Netgear engineering involvement with this issue.
Sussy May I ask, how were you able to reach support? Are you actively paying for support for this device? I was never paying for support, but I managed to talk to them in March 2023, but last few times I tried to go through the support call & chat, they would give me this case number to follow up with and call back, and when I do that, nobody picks up.
How did you manage to contact support?
I just called. I was a CTO for an F500 company for a bit. We used a lot of Netgear Enterprise products. I suppose my account may be flagged for priority based on that past association.
Glad you were able to narrow the issue down further. Unfortunately, I had to pull this AP from service yesterday. Besides the Apple device issue, my team experienced failures all day with severe bandwidth throttling. When 2 or more people were utilizing this AP, Video calls were dropping or falling back to audio-only. External speed tests revealed that each member was only receiving appox 2-4 Mbps symmetrical. I confirmed that while this was occurring, the AP was actively on a 1Gbps backplane that had a clean 500Mbps symmetrical external connection, and no radio interference from other 5Ghz sources. Absolutely no reason for the bottleneck, other than poor product design.
I popped an older WNDAP360 onto the same POE network cable, and all was good again. It's disappointing that Netgear has this device billed as a business-grade AP. It certainly isn't. And when a decade-old device that reached EOL years ago outperforms a brand new product, Netgear really needs to re-evaluate their QA and Product Release process.
Good luck with WAX220!
s.
i notice it’s possible to disable 11ax on the 2.4ghz radio but not the 5ghz radio. Does anyone know why? (Not experienced with WiFi protocols)
Sussy I notice you mention you pulled the wax220 because of poor throughput on the 5ghz radio. Did you try 2.4ghz only with 11ax disabled? Or would that not have given you enough aggregate bandwidth for the number of connected devices?
Guessing your EOL WNDAP360 wasn’t using 11ax? so wonder if wax220 and 11ax on the 5ghz radio, was causing your issue too
In my home environment, I’m running 2x wax220 with 2.4ghz radio enabled with 11ax disabled. The 5ghz radio is disabled. In this configuration, my WiFi network is solid. The fact that I’ve bought modern equipment and then had to disable the modern features to gain stability is not lost on me!
After these adjustments are connections still solid? I am also struggling with this issue where IOS devices are constantly disconnecting from wifi and switching to cellular. For me I dont know if its this AP or IOS 17 which is riddled with WIFI issues but seeing what people are posting, the two aren't playing nice.
Nothing absolutely helped in the end when it comes to WAX220 configuration.
The device is malfunctioning. It is the WAP and not your iPhone clients.
I've had WAX220 removed from service and replaced with another device since the last post.
All of the issues are gone. My devices which had most issues with disconnecting are now connected without any interrupts. Everything flows and I am hitting ~860Mbps - 1.1Gbps over WiFi for both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands , due to only 1 drywall barrier between office and WAP in the garage with distance of <10m between client devices and WAP.
Thank you for the reply. Its getting rather annoying to be using it like this in hopes of a F/W update to address it. I am too now looking for a replacement.
- With 11.ax disabled and only using the 2.4ghz radio, my apple devices stay connected. Not sure if it is an apple issue or retrear. With this configuration, my WiFi network is solid.
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