3.0.0.4.270.26 Client status list not refreshing

[crazyea]

I can get it to work by clearing the nvram and powering the devices up one at a time, but then say I change a setting that causes reboot. After that its mucked up. Even if I leave for a couple of days or change the lease time to a lower number it gets stuck at 4, 6, 10 clients, etc. The activity spinner never stops.

I have 18 on my network. They never update. and then the per ip filtering doesnt show the hostnames, I cant get the hostnames into the parental control, unless I enter them manually, etc.

But all the devices show up with hostnames in the DHCP log and the regular log showing dhcp requests.


What is your method? Do you leave all of your devices on after a reboot or make sure they are all off? If you reboot with them on do they show in the list again?

 

[RMerlin]

What is your method? Do you leave all of your devices on after a reboot or make sure they are all off? If you reboot with them on do they show in the list again?

Just your typical usage. I reboot the router now and then for various reason, without restarting any of my devices. The laptop gets turned on when needed, the desktop stays on all day but off at night, HTPC gets turned on a few hours every night, etc...

What is most likely happening is one of your devices is causing the networkmap process to either crash or get stuck. That used to happen a few months ago with some specific devices that returned a bit of garbage in their NETBIOS name, leading to a buffer overflow. That particular issue has since been fixed, but there might be other specific cases happening.

 

[crazyea]

I have:

1 - dir-655 as an AP
3 - pc
1 - nexus 4
3 - iphones
1 - ipad
1 - itouch
3 - xbox 360
2 - nintendo 3ds
1 - samsung tv
1 - samsung blu ray
1 - dell 1815dn laser printer


- All are assigned static dhcp addresses. (for parental control, per ip traffic monitoring, etc)
- I do nick name some of the devices in the static dhcp area as they do not provide any hostnames otherwise.

 

[HawkInOz]

The names for all of my devices do not include any spaces or special characters, only upper/lower/numbers/dashes/underscores are used. As previously noted, it works just fine for about week or so, and then the whole thing freezes after I connect through the web interface and click on the Clients button to view which devices are currently connected. No new clients are being added, and no changes to the configuration are being implemented. Nothing in the logs is indicating a problem, and all my devices are in the DHCP list so that the IP addresses remain consistent. I do have a separate range of IP addresses in the pool so I can easily identify any unknown devices trying to get a lease (which is typically why I am occasionally logging in via the web interface at all, as well as to verify if all my devices are online that should be), but that hasn't happened. The devices have no problems connecting before or after the Client list freeze, but rebooting the router alone does not fix the problem when it occurs. Not sure what to do that is less drastic than a firmware reload.

 

[RMerlin]

Not sure what to do that is less drastic than a firmware reload.

Reflashing the firmware does absolutely nothing. Most likely it's the fact that the FW flash takes up to 5 minutes that helps with your issue - turning your router off for 5 minutes should have the exact same result.

 

[RMerlin]

I have:

1 - dir-655 as an AP
3 - pc
1 - nexus 4
3 - iphones
1 - ipad
1 - itouch
3 - xbox 360
2 - nintendo 3ds
1 - samsung tv
1 - samsung blu ray
1 - dell 1815dn laser printer


- All are assigned static dhcp addresses. (for parental control, per ip traffic monitoring, etc)
- I do nick name some of the devices in the static dhcp area as they do not provide any hostnames otherwise.

Networkmap works with Netbios names (the DHCP hostname display was something I only recently added, so if your problem goes a few months back, this is unrelated). Some devices don't properly handle Netbios queries, or return a Netbios name that is longer than the 15 chars allowed (the 16th char is reserved).

In that list, those that I would suspect (at a first glance):

- The Samsung devices
- The printer
- DLink AP

The rest is quite standard and commonly available devices, so I doubt they are related to your issues. Ideally it would be nice if you could easily reproduce the issue rather than having it only appear after a few days - unless you can tell that you only turn the Blu-Ray on every few days (see if there's any timing coincidence there with your issues perhaps?).

I would also make sure you have no duplicate names (I'm especially thinking about the XBox 360 and Nintendo 3ds - can their Netbios names be changed or at least randomized? Or can you reproduce your issue by turning two of them on at the same time, and trying a network refresh?)

Beyond that, the best I could do is build a networkmap version with debug output enabled, and show you how to run that modified version on top of the flashed one. That could at least help in determining on which device it gets stuck.

 

[crazyea]

Networkmap works with Netbios names (the DHCP hostname display was something I only recently added, so if your problem goes a few months back, this is unrelated). Some devices don't properly handle Netbios queries, or return a Netbios name that is longer than the 15 chars allowed (the 16th char is reserved).

In that list, those that I would suspect (at a first glance):

- The Samsung devices
- The printer
- DLink AP

The rest is quite standard and commonly available devices, so I doubt they are related to your issues. Ideally it would be nice if you could easily reproduce the issue rather than having it only appear after a few days - unless you can tell that you only turn the Blu-Ray on every few days (see if there's any timing coincidence there with your issues perhaps?).

I would also make sure you have no duplicate names (I'm especially thinking about the XBox 360 and Nintendo 3ds - can their Netbios names be changed or at least randomized? Or can you reproduce your issue by turning two of them on at the same time, and trying a network refresh?)

Beyond that, the best I could do is build a networkmap version with debug output enabled, and show you how to run that modified version on top of the flashed one. That could at least help in determining on which device it gets stuck.

It happens immediately upon the first reboot.

 

[RMerlin]

It happens immediately upon the first reboot.

So that means you have an easy test case. That is good.

Try with only a few devices on your network at a time to isolate any potential device that might be causing the issue.

 

[crazyea]

Does this have anything to do with it?

Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: read /etc/hosts - 3 addresses
Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: failed to load names from /etc/hosts.dnsmasq: No such file or directory
Dec 31 16:00:10 RT-N66U: start httpd
Dec 31 16:00:10 crond[522]: crond: crond (busybox 1.20.2) started, log level 8
Dec 31 16:00:10 notify_rc : start_nat_rules
Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: read /etc/hosts - 3 addresses
Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: failed to load names from /etc/hosts.dnsmasq: No such file or directory

 

[crazyea]

- xbox 360's have been given the hostnames of xbox-1, xbox-2, and xbox-3 within their own settings.

- The tv and bluray BOTH have the same hostname of Samsung DTV RCR internally.

- The dlink ap has a hostname of Xtreme N GIGABI (also an internal web page)

- The Dell printer has a hostname of DELL1815DN (also an internal webpage)

- The Nintendo 3DS's do not show a hostname, only *

- all of the apple devices are listed like this "nicks-iphone, or selinas-iphone, marcus-ipod, anitas-ipad, etc" None go over 14 characters.

- All of the pc's are listed like this "ea-pc, aa-pc, sa-pc, etc"

 

[RMerlin]

Does this have anything to do with it?

Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: read /etc/hosts - 3 addresses
Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: failed to load names from /etc/hosts.dnsmasq: No such file or directory
Dec 31 16:00:10 RT-N66U: start httpd
Dec 31 16:00:10 crond[522]: crond: crond (busybox 1.20.2) started, log level 8
Dec 31 16:00:10 notify_rc : start_nat_rules
Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: read /etc/hosts - 3 addresses
Dec 31 16:00:10 dnsmasq[519]: failed to load names from /etc/hosts.dnsmasq: No such file or directory

No, this is just a harmless issue that was fixed in the latest development code here.

 

[stoobydale]

I have had client list issues since owning this device. With the standard firmware and with Merlins. it drives me mad, yesterday I did the full reset thing, power off and on with the wps button in and it all worked fine for about 10 minutes. I could turn devices on and see them then off and see them go but then back to normal (nothing changing). Do you think that this is related to the parental controls not working? I am probably going to send this back next week for a refund.

 

[iatacs19]

I was having the issue with all the clients not showing up. But I figured out what the problem was in my case. I had 6 static IP assignments and 1 of those clients' name had a space in it. I removed the space and all the clients started to show up. So make sure you go back and double check all the clients' names, for both static and dynamic.