I replaced my ageing 2860 with a 2865 on the latest firmware and copied the configuration over.

The 2865 kept randomly dropping Wifi every hour or so for a short time. Nothing I changed stopped this.

Back on the 2860 now and no issues.

Any idea?

When you say you copied the configuration over, do you mean via backup from the 2860 and import to 2865? If so, I suggest a factory reset of the ‘65 and manual input of the config.

I like Draytek routers a lot but I couldn't get on with any of their WiFi products, having similar experience. I now use the non-wireless routers and look elsewhere for WiFi.

J1mbo wrote:
I like Draytek routers a lot but I couldn't get on with any of their WiFi products, having similar experience. I now use the non-wireless routers and look elsewhere for WiFi.

I partnered my wired Vigor 2765 with a Unifi UAP-AC-PRO WAP and the combination works very satisfactorily. This is my first Draytek router but I had read enough on the web to steer clear of their Wi-Fi products.

The 2865 kept randomly dropping Wifi every hour or so for a short time. Nothing I changed stopped this.

Back on the 2860 now and no issues.

Maybe there's a difference in the Wi-Fi channel setup? If either of those routers is using 5GHz channels 52 to 140, every hour they do have to disconnect clients to perform a DFS check and make sure they're still allowed to use the frequency.

The VigorAP 1060C's zero-wait DFS that's possible with the scanning radio, is the first DrayTek to not disconnect clients when using DFS channels.

If both routers were set to "Auto" channel, perhaps the 2860 picked channels 36-48 while the 2865 picked a DFS channel block.
With that said though, I am seeing something odd on my iPhone with the 2865ac's wireless, where it'll be connected but not be able to send/receive. Probably not related to your issue and is because of something I'm testing, but wireless is big extra layer of complexity for networks.

I'm sorry but some people seem to be having issues with WiFi for it not to be an isolated issue on Draytek routers. It's either firmware or hardware. I had a lot of problems with my 2762ac and its 2.4G and 5G wireless. Draytek Support claimed the issue was to do with my environment.

I live in an Edwardian villa, where there are very few WiFi networks around (mostly retired folk around here without any sophisticated WiFi gear - only their BT routers etc.) and when I plug in my Plusnet and Fritzbox routers, and Devolo 1200 access points, I have no problems at all with 2.4G and 5G WiFi, even when the Fritzbox and Devolo use DFS channels.

This tells me something is not right with Draytek's WiFi. One of the symptoms was what you're describing: being logged in but not sending/receiving (on my Android, too). Another one was complete slowdown of sending/receiving data (like to less than 1Mbps), where only changing channels would improve the situation (but not always).

The other thing to mention is that I'm not aware of Draytek routers doing an hourly DFS check. This would be crazy and unusable in any situation. If they do that, maybe that's the reason for this lack of usability. What I'm aware of is that every 24 hours they scan for radar, suspending access to WiFi for 10s or 10min, depending on the DFS band used.

Presumably my Fritzbox does the same, but if I can be honest, I've not experienced any inconvenience, unlike with Draytek (in the logs on my Fritzbox, though, I get that it's detected radar and changed channels). With Draytek, this scanning every 24 hours was very noticeable.

Looking at the logs of my Fritzbox again, I can say it looks like scanning is not done once every 24 hours, but in a different way: as soon as radar is detected, channels are automatically switched. Here is an extract:

27.02.22
08:54:53
RADAR was detected on channel 100 (frequency 5.500 GHz); channel switched automatically because of higher-priority user.
24.02.22
01:55:20
RADAR was detected on channel 116 (frequency 5.580 GHz); channel switched automatically because of higher-priority user.
21.02.22
06:45:25
RADAR was detected on channel 116 (frequency 5.580 GHz); channel switched automatically because of higher-priority user.
20.02.22
15:25:16
RADAR was detected on channel 116 (frequency 5.580 GHz); channel switched automatically because of higher-priority user.
20.02.22
09:15:14
RADAR was detected on channel 116 (frequency 5.580 GHz); channel switched automatically because of higher-priority user.
20.02.22
02:55:19
RADAR was detected on channel 116 (frequency 5.580 GHz); channel switched automatically because of higher-priority user.
15.02.22
09:05:16
RADAR was detected on channel 116 (frequency 5.580 GHz); channel switched automatically because of higher-priority user.