Quest 3: 6GHz WiFi disabled when Country Code is AT (Austria)
Device: Meta Quest 3
OS Version: [v83.1032]
Region: Austria (AT)
Severity: High (Feature possibly broken for entire country)
Summary
The Quest 3 disables its 6GHz (WiFi 6E) radio specifically when the OS detects the Country Code AT. The hardware is fully functional and connects successfully to 6GHz networks when the device is in a temporary 00 (World) regulatory state. However, as soon as the OS detects an AT beacon and updates the Country Code, the 6GHz network immediately disappears from scan results and the connection drops.
This indicates that the internal Regulatory Database (regdb) or wpa_supplicant configuration for Austria is outdated or incorrectly flagged as "6GHz Disabled," despite Austria fully adopting EU decision (EU) 2021/1067 allowing LPI use in the 5945–6425 MHz band.
Technical Evidence & Reproduction:
- Working State (Country Code: 00):
- After a factory reset or specific reboot conditions, adb shell cmd wifi get-country-code returns 00.
- In this state, the Quest successfully detects and connects to my 6GHz AP (Asus RT-AXE7800) on PSC Channel 37 (6135 MHz) and Channel 85 (6375 MHz).
- Throughput is stable; wpa_supplicant logs show successful SAE authentication.
- Broken State (Country Code: AT):
- Once the device parses 802.11d beacons from neighboring routers, adb shell cmd wifi get-country-code updates to AT.
- Immediate Failure: The currently connected 6GHz session drops.
- Scanning Failure: adb shell cmd wifi start-scan followed by list-scan-results returns zero 6GHz networks.
- The radio effectively shuts down or filters out all 6GHz beacons.
Router Configuration Used (Verified compliant with ETSI EN 303 687):
- Model: Asus RT-AXE7800 (but also observed same behavior for TP Link Wifi 6E Router)
- 6GHz (WiFi 6E)
- Mode: LPI (Low Power Indoor)
- Security: WPA3-SAE
- Channel: 37 (6135 MHz) - Note: This is a PSC channel and well within the Austrian 6425 MHz limit.
- Bandwidth: 80 MHz, 160MHz
- Result: Works on iPhones and Windows laptops in Austria. Fails on Quest 3 only when AT is active.
Logcat Trace Analysis:
The issue is reproducible by observing the transition from the default regulatory domain (00) to the local domain (AT).
State 1: Country Code 00 (Working)
The device connects successfully to 6GHz. wpa_supplicant confirms SAE authentication and association.
SupplicantStaIfaceHalAidlImpl: connectToNetwork "MySSID"SAE wpa_supplicant: wlan0: Trying to associate with SSID 'MySSID' wpa_supplicant: wlan0: Associated with 08:bf:b8:xx:xx:xx
The Trigger Event (Detected in logs):
The system processes 802.11d beacons and updates the kernel regulatory domain.
info/wificond: Regulatory domain changed to country: AT on wiphy_index: 0
State 2: Country Code AT (Broken)
Immediately following the regulatory update, the 6GHz network becomes invisible to the scanner, despite using a valid PSC Channel (37) and LPI mode. The connection is dropped and cannot be re-established.
WifiClientModeImpl: Network not found event received: network: "MySSID" wpa_supplicant: assoc key_mgmt 0x0 [Defaults to Open because Beacon is ignored by driver]
Root Cause Conclusion:
The regulatory table for AT (Austria) on Quest 3 appears to have a regression that either:
A) Incorrectly blacklists the 6GHz band entirely, OR
B) Enforces "Standard Power" signal requirements on "Low Power Indoor" (LPI) connections, causing valid LPI beacons to be discarded.
Conclusion:
The Quest 3 OS is falsely enforcing a 6GHz blackout for the AT ISO code. Austria is an LPI-approved region. Please update the OS regulatory tables to allow 6GHz (5945–6425 MHz) operation when the Country Code is set to Austria.
