Im posting on here alot but not getting answers but is anyone else having dchp issues with rax120 had to attach a wifi extender to get my smartlife devices to connect as they wouldn't with just the rax120 even though ssid are split and connect to 2.4ghz also most of my other devices have had to been reserved ip address so they can connect as only a certain amount of devices will connect and others wont.Also having issues downloading on demand with sky tried igmp and nat open, disable port scan. Nothing works is anyone else having these issues.Also have tried .16 .136 firmwares done all the hole resets tried smart connect for wifi.

Hello thehypnootoad, If you recently purchased the device I would recommend contacting our support team as newly purchased devices are provided with 90 days of complimentary support. You may open a ticket by registering your device using the link below. https://www.netgear.com/support/contact.aspx Christian

For the RAX120, if you are having mainly WiFi issues since you mentioned that the extender fixes the issue,it is important to check if there is anything unique about the WiFi settings and features of RAX120 that may cause a compatibility issue with some devices. For exampe, in order to offer a 160MHz channel width, it will use DFS channels, annd if you have devices that are older and not fully compatible with DFS, then they will have connectivity issues, especially if you live within 10 miles of an airport, or near a flight path for landings within around 20 miles of the airport. Basically find your local airport, and and look at the main runways and check if your home is within that lane if you take into account the azimuth needed to utulize the runway for a landing. In those cases, you may encounter situations where the DFS scans will detect radar use and then switch channels which can cause issues for some devices. In those cases, if you frequently have issues, it may be best to lower the channel width to 80MHz (far greater compatibility, though speeds will be lower (around 1200Mbps real world throughput for 802.11ax clients), but it will allow you to utilize non-DFS channels and not run into radar issues. This may be most relevant to your issue, especially since you claimed in another thread that the Asus AX56U did not have these issues, and the main diference is it uses a max of 80MHz channel width rather than 160MHz. This means that it would not touch DFS channels by default. On the 2.4GHz band, check how many APs are in range, and if there are a huge number, consider trying to manually specify 1 channel instead of allowing it to automatically select a channel. Outside of that, there are more rare issues that you can troubleshoot for, e.g., disabling AX (re-enabling it if it does not solve the issue), as well as making sure that you are not using WPA3, or a mixed WPA2/WPA3 mode since most IOT devices will have trouble with that.

If the extender allows those devices to connect, then it will not be a DHCP issue since once an extender establishes a connection to your router, it automatically disables its DHCP, thus the router is still handling all DHCP requests. This leads me to believe it could be a WiFi issue, and especially one with the channel width, e.g., if you are using 160MHz channel width instead of 80MHz channel width, then even on channel 44, the router is using DFS which will cause issues with some IOT devices if they try to use the 5GHz band. If you have it set to channel 44, and the additional any of the additional channels used is 50 or above, then you are constrained by the DFS restrictions which will cause compatibility issues with some devices. At 160 MHz channel width, the router actually uses 8 channels in total; you do not have 8 non-DFS channels next to each other on the 5GHz band. On the 2.4GHz band the only settings that will impact compatibility in edge cases, assuming no channel issues, is functions such as OFDMA and MU-MIMO on the 2.4GHz band.

In a case like that, what would ultimately be needed to track down the issue without a ton of trial and error, will be to collect some debug logs. Not sure if the RAX120 has it or not, but if it does, then the 192.168.1.1/debug.htm page allows for collecting logs, though it can be difficult to get it safely reviewed on a public forum since the debug logs also contain the NVRAM config values, thus things like your WiFi password, Router serial number, DDNS settings (if you use a DDNS service), and PPPoE settings if you are on DSL, will be visible in the debug logs. Beyond that, when a client gets disconnected while logging is taking place, then info related to the disconnect will be recorded, then when the log file is saved, you can review the log files to see if a cause is visible somewhere in the logs. Usually this would be info that support should try and get if a compatibility issue is confirmed, thus allowing for their developers to quickly fix it and push out a fiirmware update.

In the case of the debug logs, basically all you need to do is click on the "Start Capture" button, and then reproduce the connection issue once or more times, and then save the debug log. After that, the goal will be to find a way to get netgear support to take a look at it, as due to the info it will contain, it is not very safe to share it on a public forum.

Rax120 | NETGEAR Communities

18 Replies

Christian_R
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Mar 16, 2021
Hello thehypnootoad,

If you recently purchased the device I would recommend contacting our support team as newly purchased devices are provided with 90 days of complimentary support. You may open a ticket by registering your device using the link below.

https://www.netgear.com/support/contact.aspx

Christian
- thehypnootoad
  Luminary
  Mar 17, 2021
  Hi Christian thanks for getting back to me. Unfortunately have already done a rma and the same issues started so took it round to a family's house to also see if these problems were there in which they were.
  It seems the support I get through to is only trained to be scripted and dont really know how to respond to whats going on. I think this needs investigating to a team that deals woth making firmware which I would be happy to test, or replacing the v1 for a v2 and seeing if these issues are resolved.
Razor512
Prodigy
Mar 17, 2021
For the RAX120, if you are having mainly WiFi issues since you mentioned that the extender fixes the issue,it is important to check if there is anything unique about the WiFi settings and features of RAX120 that may cause a compatibility issue with some devices. For exampe, in order to offer a 160MHz channel width, it will use DFS channels, annd if you have devices that are older and not fully compatible with DFS, then they will have connectivity issues, especially if you live within 10 miles of an airport, or near a flight path for landings within around 20 miles of the airport. Basically find your local airport, and and look at the main runways and check if your home is within that lane if you take into account the azimuth needed to utulize the runway for a landing.

In those cases, you may encounter situations where the DFS scans will detect radar use and then switch channels which can cause issues for some devices.

In those cases, if you frequently have issues, it may be best to lower the channel width to 80MHz (far greater compatibility, though speeds will be lower (around 1200Mbps real world throughput for 802.11ax clients), but it will allow you to utilize non-DFS channels and not run into radar issues. This may be most relevant to your issue, especially since you claimed in another thread that the Asus AX56U did not have these issues, and the main diference is it uses a max of 80MHz channel width rather than 160MHz. This means that it would not touch DFS channels by default.

On the 2.4GHz band, check how many APs are in range, and if there are a huge number, consider trying to manually specify 1 channel instead of allowing it to automatically select a channel.

Outside of that, there are more rare issues that you can troubleshoot for, e.g., disabling AX (re-enabling it if it does not solve the issue), as well as making sure that you are not using WPA3, or a mixed WPA2/WPA3 mode since most IOT devices will have trouble with that.
- thehypnootoad
  Luminary
  Mar 17, 2021
  Thank you for your help appreciate it :), But have already tried these trouble shooting steps even disable ax wifi I also have ax wifi extender and a ac extender to try allow the 2.4 devices to connect this allowed my smartlife devices to connect. 2.4 tried 11 6 and 1 and at the minute its 5ghz is 44. When the extenders are unplugged it Still has issues so can't be them.
  
  Have also tried wpa2 and 3 mixed just wpa2 same. I have been into secret menus and tried improve 2.4 network selected that.
  I generally believe its not wifi related but dchp related. Also dropped firmwares and upgraded with resets and even gone tftp route.
  Do you have a rax120 and have any issues
  - Razor512
    Prodigy
    Mar 17, 2021
    If the extender allows those devices to connect, then it will not be a DHCP issue since once an extender establishes a connection to your router, it automatically disables its DHCP, thus the router is still handling all DHCP requests.
    
    This leads me to believe it could be a WiFi issue, and especially one with the channel width, e.g., if you are using 160MHz channel width instead of 80MHz channel width, then even on channel 44, the router is using DFS which will cause issues with some IOT devices if they try to use the 5GHz band. If you have it set to channel 44, and the additional any of the additional channels used is 50 or above, then you are constrained by the DFS restrictions which will cause compatibility issues with some devices. At 160 MHz channel width, the router actually uses 8 channels in total; you do not have 8 non-DFS channels next to each other on the 5GHz band.
    
    On the 2.4GHz band the only settings that will impact compatibility in edge cases, assuming no channel issues, is functions such as OFDMA and MU-MIMO on the 2.4GHz band.

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