Who here uses their wireless AP as the DHCP for their network, or only in AP mode?

I've gone from my TP-Link AX3000 and now to a Netgear RAX450. I use pfSense for routing and firewall on my network, but firewall is very open after my ongoing issues. 2.4ghz worked fine with my TP-Link for multiple months, then randomly my 2.4 band has gone dead or extremely inconsistent - this was first probably 3-6 months ago for me. Again the drops are mostly noticeable by Smart Devices going unresponsive or not connected. Moving to the RAX450 gave me bliss for exactly 1 night when all my 2.4 devices reconnected strongly and reliably. Then it all dropped off again and is acting the same as my previous AX3000.

I've always used both APs in AP mode only; no DHCP or extra services running from the TP-Link or Netgear devices. 
 

I'm somewhat in agreement with a comment higher up stating there seems to be something greater going on that is taking out the 2.4ghz band. I've resorted to running an older Aruba business AP as a dedicated 2.4ghz band, with no 5ghz running from that AP. Aruba has some extra settings to allow mDNS / multicast expanded settings which help for some of my devices, but I still have sporadic disconnects and some devices that refuse to connect. Odd that Aruba can send a 2.4 band and my iPhone can connect, for example, but on both my TP-Link AX3000 and Netgear RAX450 with their 2.4ghz band enabled, my Lenovo laptop and iPhone both refuse to connect to the 2.4ghz band - either saying Cannot connect, network not available, incorrect password - trust me, the password is correct. 5ghz works fine from everything always. 
 

I've since moved the majority of my smart home lights from Lifx to Philips Hue to get things off WiFi and to keep me from pulling all my hair out - Hue stays accessible through it all due to Zigbee. I hoped the fewer devices on 2.4ghz would have some improvement, but there was literally no change. 

  @rpitera 

your comment is the one I was referencing in my post #65. 
very similar situation but different APs and seemingly different setups overall. 2.4ghz not working across various WiFi access points. 
 

Did you ever find any type of solution for your case?

I'm having the same issue with my Archer C5400. Any beta firmware I can use to patch it? Its really annoying to restart the router on a daily basis.

Received an RE650 today. Setup went smooth per the quick instructions. Tried to hook up one of my Ring security cameras (2.4Ghz capable only). The 2.4Ghz network appeared to be connected: lights on the extender: ON, 2.4Ghz network visible from my computer / phone / tp-link tether app / Ring app. Every time I tried to have the Ring camera connect, it would fail. After multiple tries, I decided to see if I could connect my phone to the 2.4Ghz network (it was already successful on 5Ghz and the 5Ghz signal was much improved on the other side of the house and every device connected to 5Ghz without a problem).

Well, the phone would see the 2.4Ghz network and connect to it but it wouldn't connect to the internet. Same result with my laptop. This led me down a rabbit hole of messing with the extender as well as my router settings (router is ATT Uverse / Arris NVG599). 

To make a short story a bit longer, my router has 2 networks: HOME (which provides a 2.5Ghz AND a 5Ghz signal. Most of my devices will automatically connect to the strongest signal. Same password for both 2.4G & 5G).

Then there's a GUEST network (has a different password and I let guests use that one as well as some "less secure" devices like smart TV's and the Alexa's) This network is capable of 2.4Ghz ONLY.

After beating my head against the wall for the better part of the day, I decided to remove the 2.4Ghz HOME network from the RE650 and add the GUEST network in the 2.4Ghz settings section of the tp-link Tether app. Then I renamed the networks so I could easily distinguish between the 2.4 & 5 GHz. 

I connected my phone to the 2.4Ghz network on the extender and it worked! Went through the Ring app to try and add my camera again....and yes...after 2 dozen attempts throughout the day, it connected easily. I originally bought the extender to improve signal at the front of my house as the Ring camera is in the farthest corner of my house away from my main router and I experienced signal and connection loss regularly. Signal strength is now way better (and my phone works much better in my garage and front of the house as well).

Hopefully this setup remains stable.

As to why I the extender correctly extends the 2.4G signal when connected to the 2.4G only GUEST network and not from the HOME 2.4/5Ghz router is above my pay grade.

TLDR; Extender works fine on 2.4Ghz when connected to a 2.4Ghz ONLY signal coming from the router rather than the network that auto switches between 2.4 & 5Ghz

same issue here,
but also running 3 ring cameras from 2.4ghz, they seem consistently accessible but any other 2.4ghz devices seem to drop randomly and using wifi analyzer from my phone the 2.4ghz band will drop and reappear...

re505x will drop and show 0mbps on the 2.4ghz band also

  @r4zorxt 

I have an Archer VR300 AC1200 Wireless/ VDSL/ADSL Modem Router V1.20 that had this very intermittently on 2.4GHz but since this past weekend it is continually. I have restarting and resetting but the modem isn't working on 2.4GHz. All devices can see the SSID but it comes back as "unable to connect". The 5GHz works fine however I some devices that only work on 2.4GHz so this isn't the answer. It has the firmware version 1.50 0.8.0 v009c.0 Build220407 RC.75994n. Hardware Version Archer VR300 v1.00000000

I can log in using Tether and it showns 2.4GHz is activated.

I purchased this modem in Feb 2022 from Harris Technology Australia so it should be covered under warranty. 

Any ideas apart form warranty claim?

Thanks

  @joee 

Sorry for the delay in replying.  I *did* find a solution and it was replacing my TP-Link router with a Linksys - Hydra Pro 6 AX5400 Dual-Band. 

The new router has Wifi 6E and I'm not sure if it's the 6E or that the Linksys is just a better router, but since the day I installed it I have not had a single period of downtime on either the 2.4 or 5 GHz side.  It's been such a blessing to just have a network that works and is up all the time without interruption.  Well worth the money.

I have a couple of TP Link Archer routers, an A10 and an A6. The A6 never has issues, the A10 drops it's 2.4 ghz wifi every few hours. Something I found that fixes it, at least for a while, is to turn off local logging. I found this a while back. You can go and delete the logs and it will start working again. I think it's not doing circular logging correctly and so it's filling up the temp storage location which kills the 2.4 ghz wifi for some reason. Turning it off prevents this. I'm still going to replace it though because it has other issues as well, like dropping all connections for a few seconds every few minutes, and that's with it in router and AP modes, not just one or the other.  Anyway, I hope this at least helps someone with this issue. Good luck.