owrt-24.10.6 @WR902AC internal 5g mt76x0e wifi AP hangs up after filling the syslog with 'hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled'

Describe the bug

The devices standard integrated 5G wifi hangs up after some hours while having a permanent 5G client connection with very low data transfer from another WR902ACv4 Owrt router. The logs are mostly filled with the messages you can find below. It is not 100% clear from the messages which wifi is affected, but my 5G wifi in AP mode cannot be seen from outside anymore and all connections to the 2nd Owrt router are dead.
Only a "service restart hostapd" returns hostapd to 'normal' function, the AP gets visible, the 2nd router connects and the links get revived.

After building and updating the latest image (yesterday / 14.05.2026) using the 24.10.6 release of firmware selector:
(for reference: https://sysupgrade.openwrt.org/store/1c8a8f099e749f29e3e0bf10879664bab4d7a44700aadc9966e006e188c0d69d/openwrt-24.10.6-3e8bee2924d5-ramips-mt76x8-tplink_tl-wr902ac-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin)

These completely new messages (as shown below) that occur now look somehow similar to a behavior which is well known since years and show up as "hostapd: handle_probe_req: send failed" that may sometimes require even killing hostapd. But latest versions show most times a better self healing which, with this update, now returns to this worse continuous hangup.

Thu May 14 08:44:44 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:45 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:46 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:47 2026 daemon.err hostapd: Failed to set beacon parameters
Thu May 14 08:44:47 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:47 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:48 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:48 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:49 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:50 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:51 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:52 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:52 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:53 2026 daemon.err hostapd: Failed to set beacon parameters
Thu May 14 08:44:53 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:53 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:54 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:55 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:55 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:56 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:56 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:57 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:57 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:58 2026 daemon.err hostapd: nl80211: kernel reports: (extension) channel is disabled
Thu May 14 08:44:59 2026 daemon.err hostapd: Failed to set beacon parameters

OpenWrt version

r29141-81be8a8869

OpenWrt release

24.10.6

OpenWrt target/subtarget

ramips/mt76x8

Device

TP-Link TL-WR902AC v3

Image kind

Self-built image

Steps to reproduce

• As analogous part of the standard image's 5g wifi, I configured it for historic reasons as radio2 because radio1 (in my case) was reserved for mt76x0u (an external 2.4G usb long range wifi adapter).
• Attach another router e.g. with latest openwrt snapshot firmware as a permanent link to this 5G AP, each with bandwidth of 80MHz and a data rate around 292.5 Mbit/s, 80 MHz, VHT-MCS 7, VHT-NSS 1 / 351 Mbit/s, 80 MHz, VHT-MCS 8, VHT-NSS 1
• Maybe, if required configure the routing such as both routers can be reached from each other.
• Start gnu screen to have scrollable (re)access to the logfile using e.g. a different AP like the maybe not affected 2G4 wifi interface just in case one or the other AP is hanging up.
• Use the access to the client router e.g. to stream a video and detect the time when the link goes down.

/etc/config/wireless

config wifi-device 'radio2'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0'
        option band '5g'
        option channel '36'
        option htmode 'VHT80'
        option cell_density '0'
        option country 'KE'
        option noscan '1'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio2'
        option device 'radio2'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ssid 'my5gHotSpot'
        option encryption 'psk2+ccmp'
        option key 'MyPassword'
        option network 'WLAN1'

/etc/config/network

config interface 'WLAN1'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipv6 '0'
        list dns_search 'localnet'
        list dns_search 'local'
        list dns_search 'lan'
        option delegate '0'
        option defaultroute '0'
        list ipaddr '192.168.5.1/24'
        list ipaddr '192.168.172.254'

Actual behaviour

After some time of the routers 5G interface the AP gets invisible and never (at least hours) returns back to normal function anymore. All previously established permanent client seem to be disconnected while the AP routers logs are filled with hostapd error messages. Only a restart of the 5G wifi device using access over a different, unaffected wifi interface can revive the 5G wifi to normal function.

Expected behaviour

Like with previous versions of hostapd, this error should be in worst case only temporarily, hostapd should heal itself and return to normal AP mode as soon as possible.

Additional info

Just a previous release version (~4 weeks older) included a hostapd version, that did not show this behavior but instead showed other errors (pls. see above) but instead was latest able to mostly recover itself.
Monitoring the logs be a self created error_handler script (was always needed but) should never be necessary to keep hostapd alive.

Diffconfig

This image is build on a standard release version using firmware-selector with the following packages:
base-files ca-bundle dnsmasq dropbear firewall4 fstools kmod-gpio-button-hotplug kmod-leds-gpio kmod-mt7603 kmod-nft-offload libc libgcc libustream-mbedtls logd mtd netifd nftables odhcp6c odhcpd-ipv6only opkg swconfig uci uclient-fetch urandom-seed urngd wpad-basic-mbedtls kmod-mt76x0e kmod-usb2 kmod-usb-ohci kmod-usb-ledtrig-usbport luci openssh-client kmod-mt76x0u screen htop luci-app-sshtunnel

Terms

• I am reporting an issue for OpenWrt, not an unsupported fork.

Start with the reported /etc/config/wireless and /etc/config/network settings, the hostapd log sequence, and the version change described for the previous release. Reproduce the failure on the TL-WR902AC v3 with the persistent 5 GHz link, then compare hostapd and driver behavior across releases. Done means identifying the regression and restoring reliable AP recovery without the manual service restart.