Re: Network stops passing traffic randomly

[Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>]

On 5/28/20 8:13 PM, smartwires@gmail.com wrote:
> Steve, I am also using ap with a QCA9558 SOC and Also using ath10k-firmware-qca988x . I have also considered using adhoc.

I think I discovered something yesterday that explains everything, and 
it's very reproducible.  The mesh mode in the QCA firmware works 
reliably in the lab and in the field, but only when there are 3 or fewer 
nodes.  If I add one more node, the mesh will completely fail, either 
immediately or within a few hours.  If the nodes are strung out in a 
daisy chain, failure is usually, but not always, delayed for a while, 
and the links break in a piecemeal fashion, one at a time.  If the nodes 
are close enough to each other, total failure occurs quite quickly.  I 
surmise that the 802.11s implementation in the QCA driver was not tested 
with more than 3 nodes, or perhaps it wasn't designed to support more 
than 3 nodes.  Sigh.

Sven, I think this epiphany obviates the need for your test (which I 
still haven't figured out how to execute in the field), but I'll return 
to that effort if you think I should.

So in the end, unless I replace the hardware throughout the neighborhood 
with far more expensive hardware, I must find a way to use Ben's driver, 
or to have no mesh network with more than 3 nodes in it.