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Thank you. I’ve done that. Fingers crossed.

[trust_in_wrt]

Thanks. Under Settings > Internet, the only field that is set is Protocol and it is set to DHCP client. Override MAC address is empty.

I just had another major reconnection outage. It occurred when I was testing using my iPhone as a hotspot. To do that, I had to turn off WiFi on the router on the 2.4 GHZ and 5 GHz bands. When I reenabled each band, it didn’t allow any traffic through. I power-cycled the cable modem, pcwrt router, PC dock, PC, etc. All LEDs on modem and PCWRT said there was internet, but my computers couldn’t connect by LAN or WiFi. Here is what ChatGPT said on analyzing some of the logs:

Key observations from your log:
1. WAN interface flapping (up/down repeatedly):
2. netifd: wan (…) udhcpc: started
3. udhcpc: sending discover
4. …
5. udhcpc: received SIGTERM
6. netifd: wan (…) Command failed: Permission denied
7. netifd: Interface ‘wan’ is now down
8. kern.info kernel: mt7530 … wan: Link is Down
o The WAN interface (wan) comes up (link detected, 1Gbps full duplex), but as soon as DHCP (udhcpc) tries to get an IP from your ISP, it gets terminated.
o This repeats in a loop: link up → DHCP discover → SIGTERM/Permission denied → link down.
9. LAN & WiFi are fine:
10. dnsmasq-dhcp … DHCPACK(eth-lan.10) 192.168.10.201 …
o Your LAN/WiFi clients are getting IP addresses from the router with no issue.
o So DHCP/DNS internally is working; the problem is only between router ↔ modem.
11. The critical error is:
12. netifd: wan (…) Command failed: Permission denied
o That’s unusual — it suggests either:
 A permissions/config error inside OpenWrt/pcWRT (netifd can’t control udhcpc correctly), or
 A firmware bug that kills the DHCP client process prematurely.
13. ISP DHCP not reached:
o I don’t see any successful DHCP offer from the ISP.
o Compare to when you plugged your laptop directly: it worked, so the ISP will issue an IP — but it may only allow one device at a time by MAC address.

I can send you a log separately if that would be helpful.

I plugged in my PC directly into the modem with Ethernet (bypassing pcwrt router) and the PC worked fine. I turned off the modem for a few hours. Then I powered up the modem, connected the router to the modem, and the PC to the router. All was okay.

Thoughts?

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I tested powering down the modem and router several times today including disconnecting all their data connection cables as well. Power-up restored connectivity so things seem okay now. Yes, I use a cable modem — Motorola SurfBoard model SB6141. Are there any settings that I should adjust?

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Thanks. No I never solved the problem. PCWRT Support was quick to help in the past, but somehow not on this post. I’ll look into see if there are any modem handshaking settings.

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It was stuck for weeks after last firmware update. I updated to latest firmware and rebooted. All is okay now. Thanks.

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Thank you for this guidance. I modified the /etc/config/wireless file and rebooted the router.

Now the Netspot app confirms that the router’s 2.4GHz band is running in only 802.11b mode.

The scale is connecting perfectly. 😊 😊 😊

In future, after firmware updates, will my custom setting survive or will I need to update the /etc/config/wireless file again?

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Thanks, but to clarify, the Fitbit device did not connect. The device still gave a “Wifi Err” message. I scanned the wifi spectrum using NetSpot and it reported that Newifi guest wifi network was operating in Channel 1 of the 2.4 GHz band with Mode ‘n’. My understanding is that 802.11n routers accept 802.11b connections and I provided this info to Fitbit Support, but their devices don’t seem to work that way. Here is their response:

…confirm that your network allows the option ‘b’. We’d like one screenshot of your settings showing the protocol/option ‘b’. ..the Aria scale syncs with protocol ‘b’ only. It won’t connect otherwise. If your router/network allows the options ‘n’ or other such as ‘g’ etc, the scale won’t connect…

Is there any page in the router settings where I can take a screenshot showing Fitbit Support that 802.11b is set? If not, is there a setting/command that I can enable only 802.11b on my guest wifi network? (I’m willing to run an iwconfig command, or similar, on the router via SSH. If necessary, I could run the command again after any router firmware updates.)

Thanks again.

[trust_in_wrt]

Thanks for your continued assistance. Fitbit Support asked me to use numbered channels for my 2.4 and 5.0 GHz bands so I set them as follows:

Changed 2.4 GHz settings:
– Channel: from ‘Auto’ to ‘1 (2.412 GHz)’
– Width: 20 MHz (no change)

Changed 5.0 GHz settings:
– Channel: from ‘Auto’ to ‘149…’
– Width: from 20 to 80 MHz

Once I connected to the router with SSH, I started “logread -f”. Below is the log when attempting to configure the Fitbit device. (Note that in the logs, I manually redacted the first 4 pairs of what appears to be a MAC address.)

On iPhone, I picked the Fitbit device’s captive portal wifi network.

Thu Jun 16 11:56:29 2022 kern.warn kernel: [2059644.719197] 2.4GHz AP ASSOC - receive DIS-ASSOC(seq-1550) request from [redacted]:ef:d9, reason=8

On iPhone, I picked the Newifi Guest wifi network, and entered password.

Thu Jun 16 12:00:26 2022 kern.warn kernel: [2059881.622034] ASSOC - Assign AID=11 to 2.4GHz AP [redacted]:ef:d9
Thu Jun 16 12:00:26 2022 kern.warn kernel: [2059881.628341] ASSOC - HT support STA. Update AP OperaionMode=3, fAnyStationIsLegacy=0, fAnyStation20Only=1, fAnyStationNonGF=1
Thu Jun 16 12:00:26 2022 daemon.info dnsmasq-dhcp[791]: DHCPREQUEST(br-guest) 10.159.157.55 [redacted]:ef:d9
Thu Jun 16 12:00:26 2022 daemon.info dnsmasq-dhcp[791]: DHCPACK(br-guest) 10.159.157.55 [redacted]:ef:d9

Any thoughts or observations?

Also, Fitbit Support wants me to send them a screen-shot of the router config page showing where the 802.11b protocol is explicitly enabled at 2.4 GHz. Is there a Newifi config screen or terminal command that will provide this?

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Yes, I tried configuring the wifi connection from different wireless devices including an iPhone and a Windows 11 laptop. Both were on the Newifi’s guest wifi network. Then Fitbit’s config software sets up a captive wifi portal on the scale, so I have to connect to that. Then I pick the desired Newifi’s guest wifi network and enter the password manually.

Is there a record of wifi login attempts and errors? That may help us.

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Thanks for the quick review @support. Much appreciated.

[trust_in_wrt]

I agree with @HDCerberus and kudos for doing all that work to figure out what was going on.

I’m not convinced that all routers and Operating Systems are clear on what they do with DNS fields. I’ve selected my own DNS settings in Windows and pcWRT. Using ‘nslookup google.com’ from the Windows Powershell CLI shows me that Windows is consistently picking the first DNS entry. Here’s an example where the result shows CloudFlare’s server and DNS address.

PS C:\Users\user> nslookup google.com
Server: one.one.one.one
Address: 1.1.1.1

Regardless, the advantage of an agile company like bigXi LLC is that they can be clear on their implementation with a single line of text near the DNS setting, that indicates their approach is to use load-balancing. I’ve also noticed that they sometimes use an information icon next to some fields which could be used instead of a line of text.

It would also be helpful to have a note when setting the DNS in pcWRT that the DNS settings in the ‘Settings>Internet’ page will be ignored if ‘Access Control’ is enabled. (I believe that is the case, but others can confirm.)

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