Asuswrt component causing network congestion / intermittent ping spikes?

Configuration
1

I noticed that my Asusrouter (AC88u running Merlin) had intermittent ping/latency spikes that would happen randomly, somwhere between every ~10min to every 60min.

The problem is entirely contained to the lan: A continuous ping test from a computer wired to the router would shoot up to maybe 15-20 seconds before coming down to a normal response time after the spike.

The router CPU is idle most of the time (including when the spikes occur), and my network is not complex or congested, I am talking about 4 users with 30-something clients, so the router should not be complaining at all.

I think I managed to isolate the issue: The temporary spike/freeze always coincided with a successful login from the homeassistant machine, as below:

Dec 11 08:03:26 dropbear[28060]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:41072
Dec 11 08:03:26 dropbear[28058]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:41068
Dec 11 08:03:26 dropbear[28059]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:41070
Dec 11 08:04:32 dropbear[28156]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:41620
Dec 11 08:04:32 dropbear[28158]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:41624
Dec 11 08:04:32 dropbear[28157]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:41622
Dec 11 08:14:53 dropbear[29622]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:48092
Dec 11 08:14:53 dropbear[29623]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:48094
Dec 11 08:14:53 dropbear[29621]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:48090
Dec 11 08:55:03 dropbear[3386]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:46174
Dec 11 09:34:21 dropbear[9424]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:43442
Dec 11 09:34:22 dropbear[9423]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:43440
Dec 11 09:34:22 dropbear[9422]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:43438
Dec 11 09:37:13 dropbear[9729]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:44902
Dec 11 09:37:13 dropbear[9728]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:44900
Dec 11 09:37:13 dropbear[9727]: Password auth succeeded for 'USER' from HASS_machine_IP:44898

In this example, the AC88u was temporarily unreachable at 08:03, 08:14, 08:55, 09:34 etc. In every single one of them, the problem lasted no more than 10-20 seconds before coming back to normal. Needless to say that the network becomes unusable until the spike is over.

Disabling the Asuswrt component in homeassistant solved the issue for me and I have not had the spikes since.

Is it possible that the Asuswrt component caused this, or should I start looking at a different factor?

When I try to login to the router using the same credentials that homeassistant used, the login does not upset the router at all … so what is it that the asuswrt component does differently for the AC88u to freak out like that? Thanks guys.

2

It might be that the asuswrt component by defaiult automatically configures both the device_tracker and a couple of system monitors at the same time when you configure just the asus component.

And the component documentation is ridiculously sparse about that fact. It only tells you that is the case when you go to the asus device tracker or system sensor pages. The main asus component never mentions anything about it unless you happen to notice the “related components” in the right sidebar and then click on those.

And even then there isn’t anything in those pages to tell you even what the sensors it is creating are or how to specifically configure the device tracker even tho it doesn’t actually follow the usual config scheme as the other device trackers listed there. You’re either left to guess or come on here and ask questions to figure it out.

IMO, all of those automatically configured things should have either an option to opt-out or need you to specifically opt-in before it sets them up automatically.

I don’t know what the frequency of the call to the router to update the sensor or device trackers is but I can see them causing extra system load.