[OpenWrt-Devel] WiFi client mode leaves router inaccessible if upstream network goes down

[Nick Malyon]

Hi all,

I tried to open the following bug report but Trac's spam filter wouldn't let me, so I thought I'd raise it on the mailing list to see what you think...

I have a TP-Link TL-MR3020 v1.9 with Chaos Calmer 15.05.01. I'm using it to provide a WiFi access point to my phone/tablet while I travel, and it's acting as a WiFi client for the various hostels I visit.

If you configure it as a wifi client with a wwan interface using the LuCI scan/join wizard, and then you configure a wifi access point on the same radio, the router works as expected and when you connect to the router's AP, you get Internet via the client connection.

However, if you move out of range of the network the router is a client of, or if it goes down, when you power off the OpenWrt router and power back on, the access point won't come up.

The AP will only come up if the client network you configured is also working; so you have no way to connect to the router over wifi, and no way to reconfigure the router, if that client network is down or out of range.

This is a particular problem for a travel router because it will often move it out of range of the original upstream network, and you may only have a wifi-capable device with which to reconfigure it.

The Ethernet port on the router does remain active, so I can tell it does actually boot. It's just the radio that doesn't come up. I managed to get back in range of a network once, and the router worked as expected.

It doesn't matter whether the AP or client connection are configured first or second on the radio interface, and, unticking "bring up on boot" for the wwan interface has no effect on the behaviour.

Steps to reproduce: Connect the router to a wifi network as a client using the Join wizard. Add a wifi master-mode access point on the same radio interface. Verify you can access the Internet by joining the router's new master AP. Reboot the router with the original network it was a client of turned off. Notice the router's AP you configured never comes up.

Expected behaviour: The master access point of the router should always come up, regardless of the availability of the client network.

If anyone has a workaround that would be great — currently I managed to get back in range of a network to make it accessible again, and now I run from batteries and delete the wifi client configuration every night before the jungle power goes out.

If this is indeed a bug, if you could please raise it in Trac for me — sorry, I get a "rejected due to possible spam" error, maybe because of my location.

Many thanks!
- Nick
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