AiMesh Topology shows an empty page on RT-AC86U

[Rares Oltean]

Like the title says, I'm trying to setup an Asus AiMesh with my RT-AC86U being the master but when I access the Topology tab I get an empty page.
First time I tried with the latest Merlin FW 386.11. Then I tried, 386.10, 386.7_2, 386.5_2... same thing.
I tried reset to factory settings with all of the above. No dice. I still get an empty page.

I'm fresh out of ideas.
Can anyone help?

 

[Rares Oltean]

I managed to solve it.
Flashed the plain vanilla Asus Firmware to the router and did a factory reset. Only after these two did the contents of the Topology page reappear.
Doing a factory reset on Merlin did not do the trick. Neither did any other combination of flashing and/or resetting.

 

[vlad.kotiar]

Oh, I have now the same Issue after upgade of my RT-AC86U on Merlin FW 386.12 from 386.5. I try now your solution and hope it will work. I wonder how many hours you have spent for the desicion.

 

[wiredwifinet]

I was having the same issue as Rares Oltean.

The AC68U was originally a T-mobile TM-AC1900.

I was already at the latest Asuswrt-Merlin firmware for the AC68U at this time: 386.12

I ended up performing a set of steps via command-line via SSH that made the AiMesh Topology screen show up, without having to flash another firmware.

I got the steps from https://moreless.medium.com/flash-tm-ac-1900-to-rt-ac68u-to-use-aimesh-80b84387358a

Commands:

cat /dev/mtd5 > /jffs/mtd5_backup.bin
scp /jffs/mtd5_backup.bin <<DESIRED_REMOTE_LOCATION>> # save the file just in case...
mkdir /tmp/asus_jffs
mount -t jffs2 /dev/mtdblock5 /tmp/asus_jffs
rm -rf /tmp/asus_jffs/*
sync && umount /tmp/asus_jffs
rm -rf /jffs/.sys/RT-AC68U
nvram unset fw_check && nvram commit && reboot


After reboot, I used a web browser to access the AiMesh page and the Topology screen showed up!

 

[wiredwifinet]

AC86U was still showing odmpid=ASUS, so I had to perform a few additional steps:

1. cat /dev/mtd0 > original_cfe.bin
2. Upload original_cfe.bin to https://cfeditor.feng.si/ to get new_cfe.bin (with 1.0.2.0 US AiMesh)
3. Upload new_cfe.bin
4. chmod u+x mtd-write
5. ./mtd-write new_cfe.bin boot


Credit for the steps: https://www.bayareatechpros.com/ac1900-to-ac68u/
This link has a download with the "mtd-write" binary if you need it.

Afterwards, I was able to setup the AC68U as an AiMesh node.

I think I realize that these steps are well documented in various posts (in this forum and elsewhere) already. I just missed some of the posts initially, so I ended up with a bit of trial-and-error.

The AiMesh node is using Merlin just fine, even though I read that converted TM-AC1900 are not officially supported.