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[drshock]

I bought this WAP as a gift last week so my parents business customers could have WiFi   They are located in the USA and have TWC business class 30/5 wired service.
 
The DAP-1665 is hardware rev A1 and came with firmware 1.11.  There is no newer firmware at the USA D-link site.   I did not change the factory default configuration other than to add their desired SSID names, enable NTP server, and to limit coverage to 802.11n/802.11ac only.   The DAP-1665 is connected to a Cisco RVS4000 business class gigE wired router.  They have no issues with their wired clients and no other wireless equipment installed.

WiFi coverage is full bars across their building location as it is a small 45x50 location.  The WAP works great on both radio bands, until there are more than 8 customer client devices connected total across both bands.  Then the unit reboots itself every few minutes until the number of connected clients drops back down.   When this happens I have viewed the status web page and see a mix of 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz clients connected so its never one radio that is overloaded. Also I have noticed that the unit is noticeably hot to the touch under such load as well.   And yes, I did remove the clear shipping plastic the factory applied over the ventilation holes.
 
We have watched this behavior over the course of several busy days and across a wide variety of customer owned clients including Apple iDevices, Android devices, and various laptops.   So we can be sure it is not an isolated incident with a particular client device.

They are in a very small rural highway location.   There are no other buildings nearby  for at least 20 acres, no other WiFi routers or such showing up.  The DAP-1665 is alone and has the WiFi spectrum to itself, other than if some customer has a personal hotspot enabled which I cannot check or verify.

The main reason I purchased the DAP-1665 over say the DAP-1525 was to have a business class WAP rather than a consumer grade one.   But it appears to not be able to handle more than a few devices.    I have tried a factory reset, no improvement.    I have tried moving it near a fan in the building for more airflow, no improvement.

What can be tried to improve the situation and support just say 12-14 patron devices?

[drshock]

Some additional info that may help, I turned on the "Debug information" feature in the logging.   I've noticed that before the reboots the logs are full of a message like:

Invalid response packet from host <IP addresses>

I was able today to determine the one client IP generating all of these messages in one reboot incident today belonged to a customer with a Windows 10 based netbook computer (HP Stream 11).   I only briefly chatted with them but I'll keep looking to see if Windows 10 is something in common with other clients when this happens.

[FurryNutz]

Try changing to single mode N, WPA2/AES only and test.
Does the DAP continue to reboot if the offending device is not connected to the DAP?

[drshock]

I switched to WPA2/AES only on both bands.  Still recycles when we get enough customers inside the store.
 
Since these customer devices come and go, I cannot do much debug or analysis of them.   I am trying to watch the logs and note any patterns when I happen to stop by their store.  This WAP does not support syslog so you can only check the logs on the actual unit.

There is a new error message I have not noticed before today being logged

"Error State of Beamforming"

I had previously given them a DAP-1522 set for 2.4Ghz but several customers complained WiFi was too slow.  So it was replaced with the DAP-1665 so that the 5Ghz customers would be happy and we could handle some additional customers connecting.

Unfortunately the DAP-1665 is only able to handle about half as many users as the DAP-1522 before it recycles itself.   I can try to enable just one band as a test today, but this would not be an acceptable solution for our situation.

How many client connections should the DAP-1665 be able to support connected to a 30Mpbs/5Mpbs WAN backend capacity?

[FurryNutz]

Most wireless devices can only handle maybe about 20 depending on whats going on on each device. Each device can take up several if not many connections when streaming, browsing and such. One device makes one connection to the DAP however there are more connections made when using browsers and apps. Bandwidth.

Test with Single mode G and WPA/TPIK only and see...

How many devices are connected usually that you can tell?

[drshock]

I'll try this test when I swing by their shop again.   I've been there and seen this rebooting myself, the logs show a max of 11 clients.   Mixed maybe 60/40 2.4/5Ghz bands.

The beamforming error  in the log is new though, and is repeating about every 10 minutes while it's up.

[FurryNutz]

 "Mixed maybe 60/40" clients? If so, then ya, that's going to be beyond what most DAPs can handle, even wireless routers.

[drshock]

Mixed spread of radio bands maybe 60% are using 2.4Ghz and 40% are using 5Ghz.  But only a dozen customers, its a small shop.

[FurryNutz]

Ah ok...
Any chance you can install a 2nd AP and run it as a 2.4Ghz only AP and set the 1655 as a 5Bhz AP and see what happens? I'm still wondering about having 12 users online at the same time that the bandwidth total is being max'd out.

Also, is the DAP hot to the touch or seem warmer during high traffic times?

[drshock]

OK, had a chance to burn a few more sessions at the parents shop from my own job!    Heres what I've learned that may help D-Link with these issues.

1) The error message in the log I reported earlier, "Invalid response packet from host <ip addr>", is only triggered by Windows 10 clients and my research indicates is due to a change Microsoft made in handling mDNS responses.   You can google "Windows 10 avahi invalid response" for the details, but the net is embedded linux solutions that employ the avahi mDNS service will be affected by this Microsoft change.  D-Link it would seem is using avahi and linux on the DAP-1665 and should apply the patch for this.

2) I could not get the  "Error state of beamforming" unless there was an 802.11ac client connected.  It is very intermittent, but I did find out the source code the error comes from and it appears only in a single section of the entire source tree, it is from the Realtek chipset C source code and from this snippet: 

} else {
         // Entry has been created. If entry is initialing or progressing then errors occur.
         if (pBeamformEntry->beamforming_entry_state != BEAMFORMING_ENTRY_STATE_INITIALIZED &&
            pBeamformEntry->beamforming_entry_state != BEAMFORMING_ENTRY_STATE_PROGRESSED) {
            DBG_871X("Error State of Beamforming");
            return _FALSE;
         } else {
            pBeamformEntry->beamforming_entry_state = BEAMFORMING_ENTRY_STATE_INITIALIZEING;
         }
      }

3) I found a stable non-rebooting configuration by introducing the DAP-1522 back into the environment.  Using the DAP-1522 configured for 802.11n 2.4Ghz only, and the DAP-1665 configured for 802.11n 2.4Ghz only + Mixed 802.11n/802.11ac 5Ghz with all set to WPA2/AES only is now stable.   The DAP-1665 is centrally located in the store, the DAP-1522 is placed towards the back of the store.  The DAP-1665 has been configured with a user limit of 10, the DAP-1522 does not have this user limit feature (and apparently does not need it as I saw it handle 18 connections by itself with no stability issues).  The DAP-1522 is running firmware 1.42 and the DAP-1665 is running 1.13.
 
So while this configuration "works", I find it unacceptable that a business class WAP cannot handle more than 10/11 devices in mixed 2.4/5Ghz bands simultaneously in a stable fashion.   Having performance issues I could understand, but not rebooting/crashing.   This seems like a firmware bug but you cannot capture what happened in enough detail to open a ticket as the syslog support has been removed from this models firmware UI and the local log information is thus lost.

4) Another new bug I've reproduced is with the logs screen of the firmware.   Since I've been working with it so intimately    What the problem is as the log quickly grows (these Windows 10 caused invalid packets come in every few seconds) you regularly notice that the log pages are wrong.  I can easily get situations like viewing "Page 4 of 2" or "Page 3 of 1" as I either click the refresh button or move between this screen and the "Wireless" or "Statistics" screens.

5) Btw, another bug is a translation bug.  If you enter the wrong capcha you get this message "ERROR: The Graphical password is error", if you have the wrong password you get "ERROR: The password is error".  Poor US English translation.

[FurryNutz]

I've passed this on toe D-Link for review. Please be patient.

[FurryNutz]

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=65031.0

[donvilla]

drshock, did you ever come right with this? I'm experiencing a very similar situation.

[FurryNutz]

Link>Welcome!

• Link>What Firmware version is currently loaded? Found on the DAPs web page under status.
• What region are you located?

How are you using the DAP? Main host AP or in conjunction with another AP?
What Mfr and model is the main host router?
What wireless modes are you using?
What are you exactly seeing? Please be more descriptive...
How many clients are connected when you notice this issue?

• Any 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz cordless house phones or WiFi APs near by that maybe causing interferences?
• Any other WiFi routers in the area that maybe causing interferences? Link> Use a WiFi Scanner to find out. How many?

drshock, did you ever come right with this? I'm experiencing a very similar situation.

[donvilla]

Hi, and thank you.
I eventually managed to sort it out.
Loaded firmware v1.00 on all access points and the issues appears to be resolved.