I'm facing this issue with TP-Link Archer AX11000 in AP mode. No wifi clients showing.

@Carl 

 

Well to be honest we have been "Living with it". No patches or any notices that this will be fixed. I think one of your replies from the dev was something along those lines aswell, just stated in friendly way. 

Can you confirm if there is any intention of fixing this? 
 

I would consider this a security issue. I can't tell who's connecting to my business via Wifi which is a pretty big deal. 

@Carl 

 

It's about time to get this issue fixed already! Getting a list of all connected wireless devices so basic and a very necessary feature for the most of us, network administrators. I don't understand why TP-Link doesn't take this issue seriously. Will we have to replace our TP-Link devices for other brands that simply work as expected?... Please escalate this issue to the highest level - if we don't hear about it anymore or as we expect it, we'll know what is the only option left to us.

 

@Carl The list is empty when DHCP Server is set to Off in either Access Point mode or Router Mode. That is the bug (at least one of them) and has nothing to do with the devices sending ARPs.

 

I've explained it before and even opened this thread .

 

When DHCP Server is set to Off, after the next reboot the Archer C6 and other models won't inspect the ARP packets and hence won't generate the list. That's what your engineers need to know to fix it.

@Carl Thanks for your reply.

 

1) As far as we all know, this issue is not a regionally based issue; it happens due to what you explained in item #2. But if it is, it's an issue that affects routers with US version firmwares, and since it happens in a router I bought in USA, which I keep updated with its latest US version TP-Link firmware, it makes no sense to discuss this matter in a "global"/foreign forum where most people don't use the same product/firmware versions I use, just because I'm not a US resident...

 

2) My router is used in a residencial condo with a few users and around up to 15-20 wireless devices simultaniously - so, there's no business or large scale SMB use here. And it just happens I'm an information security professional and the network admin of my condo LAN & wireless networks.

 

3) My device is an Archer A9 v6.0 router running in router mode with its latest available US firmware (v. 200416). And it doesn't matter if DHCP is enabled or not.

 

And yes, I'm aware of the ARP thing and, as all of the other customers complaining about it, I just can't accept it as being an "expected behavior" by design. As @mocelet pointed out, this is a bug indeed (when associated to DHCP=OFF), as well as a bad implementation on how a router should discover which wireless devices are connected to it (well, at least in my large experience in this area I have never seen no other brand of router working like this, neither due to a bug, nor by design) - and in my case, even with DHCP enabled my router still can't show me a full list of currently connected wireless devices (which suggests there's no bug envolved in my case). Also, of course it is a security issue (as stated by @alien-link), for pretty obvious reasons.

 

So, I really would like that TP-Link developers/engineers consider a different approuch on how to implement this wireless discovery feature, because the ARP-based one is clearly not working as needed and expected by us. 

 

Best regards,

 

Rodrigo Faustini

Given a WiFi AP must authenticate it's clients and then only permit traffic from these already authenticated clients, there must exist a lists of WiFi clients in the software already otherwise the router/AP couldn't function properly.  It appears that a developer was asked to create a list of network clients for the tp-link web GUI (both LAN and WLAN) and didn't even bother to check with his or her peers in the organization to find out how the information on WLAN clients could be included properly.  Instead, they just used a ARP table hoping this was the right approach -- but it's not even in the right ballpark.

 

I sure hope someone at tp-link can fix this obvious glitch quite soon, strange that this behavior was developed, tested and shipped and no-one noticed that it was so poorly conceived.  Doesn't someone test the software so at least 2 qualifed people should have looked at this before it was sent out to the customers?

 

-Craig