I have an Archer C4000 TP-Link router that I purchased in May 2021. When I decided to purchase a new router, I did a considerable amount of research on different brands. I was familiar with TP-Link as one of the few brands that sold USB WIFI adapters that are Linux-friendly. That experience, coupled with generally favorable reviews, lead me to purchawse the C4000, depsite a larger price point than some competitrtos.

The first negative encounter was the revelation that TP-Link routers generally don't support resolution of internal IP addresses to host names. I overlooked this clear feature deficiency in comparison to competitive routers like Asus, and I bit the bullet and set up a dnsmasq server on one of my hosts.

The second, and more severe, deficiency I'm now working through is very unstable and unreliable WIFI signal in the 2.4Ghz spectrum. The instability comes in two different forms: sometimes client devices are unable to connect to the TP-Link router in 2.4Ghz, other times, device connect fine, but cannot request out through the router to the Internet on the 2.4Ghz connection,

When I first looked into the issues with 2.4Ghz in my Archer, I read quite a fiew support suggestions to "tweak th 2.4Gz broadcast settings" in the TP-Link router dashboard. After tweaking/tuning every conceivable config permutation, including various WPA settings, various packet encryption types, various combinations of channels and broadcast bandwidth, I've come to realize that this device simply fails at serving a reliable, stable Internet connection vai the 2.4Ghz spectrum.

I've also investigated upgrading the firmware for my C4000, but my device already has 1.0.3 Build 20191026 rel.13901(5553) (from 3 years ago) that is apparently the latest firmware version of this product, so that seems like a dead end.

If you do a web search for "TP Link 2.4Ghz no Internet connection", you'll find that this is not just limited to the Archer C4000 product.
 

It impacts various differnt devices/models:

Archer C3150

EAP225-Outdoor

Archer C6

just to name a few.

Given that this defect seems to touch on a large cross section of TP-Link dual band routers (presumably that have dissimilar hardware?), and this issue has been reported for several years now, my question is:

What is TP-Link doing or has done to rectify this severe defect?

Yes, I understand 5Ghz is a more performant spectrum than 2.4Ghz, but the lower frequency channels are inherently better at traveling through signal barriers, walls, floors, doors, etc. This has become painfully clear to me in setting up a Ring doorbell system, and realizing that 2.4Ghz has a much stronger signal strength outside our home compared to 5Ghz. The Ring doorbells, though, have a hard time of signal acquisition and retention on 5Ghz, and the better 2.4Ghz signal strength is, unfortunately, useless to me, because the C4000 can't reliably connect and servie clients at that frequency. My experience, coupled with many other who've writeen on this forum,

I am very dissapointed with this defect. My former Asus router had a much smoother and reliable signal at 2.4Ghz, and I am considering switching back to the Asus router, as then I don't need to muck around with DNS service of my own internal hosts, but more importantly, the 2.4Ghz signal it broadcasts is reliable.

I would like to hear from TP-Link support on whether or not this issue is what appears to be a brand-wide deficieny, or if it's a hardware issue with my specific C4000 router, or there is another explanation?

TIA.