NWA210AX authentication issue fixed by a reboot

Nate
Nate Posts: 8
First Anniversary First Comment
edited August 2022 in WirelessLAN
Hi, I've got a pretty simple setup on my NWA210AX running firmware V6.10(ABTD.8) and I experienced an issue I fixed by rebooting the AP, which likely means there's a bug in the firmware. What's the best way to report it?

Details - One of my clients running an Intel Wireless-AC 9260 card:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/99445/intel-wireless-ac-9260.html

could suddenly no longer authenticate to the 5Ghz band of the single SSID I have set up. The uptime of the AP had been a few weeks, and I didn't have any problems until today. The other dozen or so clients already connected didn't have any issues, and I didn't try disconnecting/reconnecting them. Initially I thought it might be just the Intel Wireless-AC 9260 client only, so I updated the drivers, reset networking, rebooting several times, etc. with no changes to the problem. The logs on the NWA210AX would just say "Station: 24:ee:9a:5f:5c:53 has blocked by prev-Auth Failed on Channel: 48..." every time the Intel Wireless-AC 9260 client tried to connect on 5Ghz. If I set the band preference in the advanced driver settings on the client to 2.4Ghz it would authenticate no problem right away. With the client set to Auto or 5Ghz authentication would fail. Once I rebooted the NWA210AX, no problems authenticating on 5Ghz, so definitely looks like an NWA210AX firmware issue.

All Replies

  • Zyxel_Freda
    Zyxel_Freda Posts: 397  Zyxel Employee
    First Anniversary Friend Collector First Answer First Comment
    Hi @Nate ,
    Would you help to collect the diagnostic info in Maintenance on NWA210AX web GUI for us before you reboot the AP when the issue is occurred, and please PM it to me. 
    However, when the station was blocked by prev-Auth failed, it usually comes with the other log "blocked by Hostapd 3", and it means there's problem to do 4 way handshake between AP and the client. So, if the log is like that, we recommend to do one more check: to delete the SSID profile on the client and re-connect to the AP by entering the password again. 
    I'll help to check more detail of the connection issue after getting the diagnostic info and please do not hesitate to let me know if there's any problem to collect it.
    Thanks.
  • Nate
    Nate Posts: 8
    First Anniversary First Comment
    I did not see any "blocked by Hostapd 3" in the logs. While I haven't seen the prev-Auth Failed problem with the Wireless-AC 9260 client I have been consistently seeing it with my Samsung SL-M2830DW Laser Printer running the latest firmware (V3.00.01.14 JUN-23-2020). It doesn't happen right away with the Samsung printer, it takes a while for it being on before it happens. I can get the printer to reconnect by powering the printer off and then on again. I will send you the diagnostics, which includes what happens when I power off and power on the printer. The MAC address of the Samsung printer is 30:cd:a7:b2:93:74.
  • Zyxel_Freda
    Zyxel_Freda Posts: 397  Zyxel Employee
    First Anniversary Friend Collector First Answer First Comment
    Hi @Nate,
    Thanks for providing the diagnostic to us. After checking the logs, the station is failed to reassociated with reason 2 which means that the previous authentication no longer valid. As the log shows that the AP already sent the 1st message of the 4 way handshake to the station but didn't received 2nd message of 4 way handshake from the station, so they disconnected.
    We have an experience about disconnecting because the station failed to change the group key of WPA2-PSK, so you may try to use "open" security to check if the the station will not disconnect since the "open" security doesn't need to change the key.
    Thanks.