I have 4 TP-LINK LB110 smart bulbs, one KL120, and a HS105 smart plug which have worked flawlessly until I upgraded my ASUS router AX88U firmware to
Version 3.0.0.4.386.45934 2021/11/16. However, after upgrading to 3.0.0.4.386.45934, all smart bulbs disconnect numerous times an hour with “wl0.1: STA MAC IEEE 802.11: disassociated“ and “wl0.1: MAC RADIUS: starting accounting session BCE13EF2E594CE5C” – “wl0.1: MAC WPA: pairwise key” in the system log. As a result, the smart bulbs frequently time out when trying to manage through the KASA app.
I have tried the following troubleshooting steps with no success other than using WIFI legacy mode or reverting to old router firmware where everything works stable.
1) Problem starting after upgrading router to 3.0.0.4.386.45934:
- Hard resetting bulbs to factory defaults and rejoining guest network.
- Disabled WIFI 6 on 2.4 GHZ radio, changed channel (thought maybe too many conflicts), reduced channel bandwidth to 20 MHZ, ensure WIFI security still WPA 2 for guest, disabled protected frame management, disabled universal beam forming, disabled airtime fairness, disabled WMM APSD.
- Tried lowering RTS threshold.
3) Did a hard reset on router and re-uploaded 3.0.0.4.386.45934 and still no luck.
4) Reverted back to old firmware and problems went away.
5) Tried upgrading firmware again with 2.4GHZ wiFI mode set to Legacy and the bulbs work stable. However, Legacy mode is not a solution.
6) Reverted back to old firmware and bulbs work great with 2.4 GHZ radio WIFI 6, channel width, protected frame management, universal beam forming, WMM APSD all set to enabled. .
Given the only WIFI clients that seem to be experiencing issues with 3.0.0.4.386.45934 are the bulbs, I was leaning towards an issue with the bulbs that did not get exposed until the latest firmware update. Note I also have two TP-LINK HS200 switches that did not experience any problems (I’m guessing they use different wireless chips). All the bulbs are using latest 1.8.11 firmware; any suggestions? Using old router firmware opens the house up to vulnerabilities so that is not a solution.
