There is an issue reported by users of MikroTik hAP ax3 (there are also reports about hAP ax2 and cAP ax) where, after upgrade to RouterOS 7.15.0 the 5GHz wireless connection becomes unstable. Common symptoms include:
Random devices disconnects (every 10-15 minutes), accompanied by “SA Query timeout”, “connection lost” or "not responding" messages in log:
2024-12-20 12:45:37 memory wireless, info 78:2B:xx:xx:xx:xx@wifi1 disconnected, connection lost, signal strength -63
2024-12-20 12:45:38 memory wireless, info 78:2B:xx:xx:xx:xx@wifi1 connected, signal strength -57
2024-12-20 12:45:42 memory wireless, info 78:2B:xx:xx:xx:xx@wifi1 disconnected, SA Query timeout, signal strength -58
2024-12-20 12:45:50 memory wireless, info 78:2B:xx:xx:xx:xx@wifi1 connected, signal strength -57
According to user reports, affected devices include:
In summary, the problem does not seem to be limited to one brand or chipset — it appears across a range of client devices that rely on the 5GHz band when connected to MikroTik’s firmware 7.15 and later.
It seems that removing some of the devices from the network (i.e. Chromecast, Google Nest) causes problem to dissapear.
MikroTik support has received multiple requests regarding this issue (SUP-172402, SUP-157262, SUP-177122, SUP-178920, SUP-181003), but they have not provided any fix or publicly acknowledged the problem.
In version 7.17.0 they changed the error desciption in the logs. As per changelog: "wifi - re-word the "SA Query timeout" log message to "not responding";" making error description more vague and harder to search for.
The temporary solution that many users have found effective is to downgrade the firmware to version 7.14.3 / 7.15beta8, which used older version of Qualcomm wireless driver.
However, this workaround is not ideal, as it is missing recent security patches (e.g. CVE-2024-54772). It also misses on many new features and improvements (IPv6 FastPath, VXLAN offloading, new UI).
Another solution suggests changing setting security.connect-priority=0/1 (source: https://it.hohenleitner.eu/blog/wifi-wave2-sa-query-timeout/), but doing so exposes router network to client isolation bypasses (CVE-2022-47522), so it is not a viable option.
Issue is discussed on comunity forum: https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=208199
There is a copy on web.archive.org, since most of the times original link shows error "Sorry but the board is temporarily unavailable, please try again in a few minutes"
Another community forum topic: https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=213923
Another: https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=198736
There is also a reddit topic: https://old.reddit.com/r/mikrotik/comments/1dkjjg6/devices_randomly_disconnecting_from_5ghz_wifi_on/
And another one: https://old.reddit.com/r/mikrotik/comments/1gx0pdr/mikrotik_forums/
I have started a dedicated reddit thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/mikrotik/comments/1je7q4n/lets_coordinate_on_sa_query_timeout_aka_wifi/. Let's meet there and discuss what to do next!