An end to tinkering?

[TheLyppardMan]

I had some problems today with my Android phone's Wi-Fi connection and I tried everything I could think of but couldn't resolve it. What happened was this: I was getting some error messages about the connection when trying to use the Ookla app. Instead of the usual green, good to go screen, I kept getting a red screen, with a warning that the speed test might not work. It did work, but the speeds were somewhat slower. I should mention that I had changed my main DNS server from Quad9 to Cloudflare just before this problem started. My phone was an exception to this, which I had configured using DNS Director to make it use AdGuard. The only way I could clear the problem was to use DNS Director to set the phone to use "router". Just deleting the DNS Director entry didn't solve the problem. So then I tried more drastic measures. I did a factory reset and tried again, but it still wouldn't work, so I tried uploading a saved configuration file from yesterday, followed by running BACKUPMON in restore mode and selecting yesterday's backup. This still didn't solve the problem, so in the end, I decided to try the latest official firmware for my router (3.0.0.6.102_33308) and after a further factory reset, I set about configuring everything from scratch. To my surprise, this solved the problem and the speeds (as reported by the Ookla app) had also increased quite significantly. So I think I'm going to stick with the ASUS firmware from now on and stop all this tinkering! The only minor problem I have now is that some of the icons for the network devices don't work (that was also happening before I made the firmware switch). For instance, the Gateway icon shows as being available for selection, but if I select it, the place where the icon should go appears blank.

 

[adrenalize]

Maybe you need to clear your browser cache/refresh after the various resets and firmware changes.

Good luck with not tinkering! How long before you get itchy feet?

 

[Tech9]

So I think I'm going to stick with the ASUS firmware from now on and stop all this tinkering!

This is great idea!

 

[jerry6]

maybe you are just tinkering a bit to much ? I keep things simple and cannot remember having any serious problems , except when I ran stock Asus FW

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Maybe you need to clear your browser cache/refresh after the various resets and firmware changes.

Good luck with not tinkering! How long before you get itchy feet?

I've just tried your suggestion, but it hasn't made any difference (to the missing icons that is).

 

[Morris]

Maybe you need to clear your browser cache/refresh after the various resets and firmware changes.

Good luck with not tinkering! How long before you get itchy feet?

I stopped using the add on packages and for similar reasons and have had a much better experience since doing so.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

View attachment 58999

Is anyone using an RT-AX88U Pro having this problem where some of the icons just show a blank white space if selected or is it just me?

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Very strange, but using the mobile app I have been able to change the icon to the one I wanted:

But that hasn't answered the question as to why I couldn't change it from within the browsers (Chrome & Edge) installed on either of my laptops. Has anyone any theories?

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Some other weird things happened just after I posted the above message. The generic icon from my other gateway device changed to the printer icon and the interenet disconnected for a few seconds. Perhaps I should undertake another factory reset and set everything up again from scratch? I'm uploading the entries from the system log at around the time all this was going on, to see if anyone can spot anything unusual (I haven't got a clue what most system log entries mean).

 

[Tech9]

Perhaps I should undertake another factory reset and set everything up again from scratch?

Please. And tell your wife to change the admin password and hide it from you.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Or, you can just PM all your passwords to @Tech9... he said he'll keep them all in his password manager for me! Safe and sound!

 

[Justinh]

(Don't forget to open the WAN admin port.)

 

[Tech9]

Or, you can just PM all your passwords to @Tech9...

I like the idea. Password release fees:

Asuswrt stock basic setup - £20
Asuswrt stock advanced setup - £40
Asuswrt-Merlin basic setup - £40
Asuswrt-Merlin with Custom Scripts - £60 + £20 per script

Regular service 24h - included
Urgent service 2h - £20 extra
Urgent service 2h plus technical advice - £100 extra
Urgent service 2h plus SNB Forum thread - £100 fine without password release

Ready to start the service in 10min, Credit Cards accepted, payment in advance.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

I like the idea. Password release fees:

Asuswrt stock basic setup - £20
Asuswrt stock advanced setup - £40
Asuswrt-Merlin basic setup - £40
Asuswrt-Merlin with Custom Scripts - £60 + £20 per script

Regular service 24h - included
Urgent service 2h - £20 extra
Urgent service 2h plus technical advice - £100 extra
Urgent service 2h plus SNB Forum thread - £100 fine without password release

Ready to start the service in 10min, Credit Cards accepted, payment in advance.

Uhm, what if I just need your opinion? On an off-topic post?

 

[Tech9]

Uhm, what if I just need your opinion?

Off-topic indeed, but I can give you an opinion on what I see on your computer even before you ask. It happened before and for free. You're a special case. I would like to see faster development of XXXMON for example. Browsing the code like caveman right now with primitive search tools. It's difficult to get to the hardware core modules.

 

[Dedel66]

Is anyone using an RT-AX88U Pro having this problem where some of the icons just show a blank white space if selected or is it just me?

I use my own images in *.png format. But the standard images provided also work without any problems.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Or, you can just PM all your passwords to @Tech9... he said he'll keep them all in his password manager for me! Safe and sound!

Nah. I think I'll give my passwords to all my neighbours. Then if I get any more problems we can all share our technical knowledge to try and find a solution.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

Well it seems that I needed to go for a clean reinstall to bring back stability, although I have no idea why things went a bit weird before. Also, seeing all the things you have to agree to with the latest ASUS firmware (3.0.0.6.102.33308), I decided that Merlin was probably my better option after all. So this is what I did:

• Full factory reset from the GUI.
• WPS reset.
• Installed latest Merlin release firmware.
• Another full factory reset from the GUI.
• Another WPS reset.

After this, I configured the router to meet my needs, including:

• Setting the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi to 20 MHz, auto channel selection (but not channels 12 & 13).
• Setting the 5 GHz Wi-Fi to 20/40/80 MHz, auto channel selection (but not DFS channels).
• Both SSID's the same name, to solve the intermittent problem with devices on different bands being unable to communicate.
• MAC Filter for 2.4 GHz set to "accept" for the three devices that can only use that band, to keep everything else on the 5 GHz band.
• Ai Protection on and all recommendations followed.
• Guest network for IoT devices.
• Wireguard VPN server, so I can stream media from my Synology Diskstation when away from home.
• WAN DNS Server set to use Cloudflare. No use of DNS Director this time.
• Scripts: Disc Checker, BACKUPMON and MerlinAU (with 7-day delay) after reformatting my USB flash drive to Ext 4.

So far, everything is working as expected, so hopefully it will stay that way, as long asI don't do any more tinkering!!

I'd better update my signature now to reflect the above changes.

 

[Tech9]

I'd better update my signature now to reflect the above changes.

This is going to be the longest Signature on SNB Forums.

Unfortunately , RMerlin is working on 3.0.0.6 based firmware and you may have to reset again on next firmware upgrade.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

This is going to be the longest Signature on SNB Forums.

Unfortunately , RMerlin is working on 3.0.0.6 based firmware and you may have to reset again on next firmware upgrade.

That's OK. It will be worth it in the end to ensure a stable setup. Will we be likely to get any notification that we'll need to do this (I'm thinking of users of MerlinAU like myself who may not be doing manual firmware checks) or should we just assume it will be necessary once MerlinAU notifies us that a new firmware has been detected?