Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.354.27 Beta 1

[bodean]

Is another beta in the works based on 354? Or are you going to wait for another official FW release before updating this?

 

[RMerlin]

Is another beta in the works based on 354? Or are you going to wait for another official FW release before updating this?

Waiting for a wireless driver update. No point in releasing another beta since there's almost nothing else to fix so far in this build.

 

[NightOwl326]

Is there a chance of a Merlin build of this firmware with an older driver to keep new features and xbox enhancement, and provide better stability on the RTN66u?

 

[RMerlin]

Is there a chance of a Merlin build of this firmware with an older driver to keep new features and xbox enhancement, and provide better stability on the RTN66u?

None at this time. The driver is based on a different SDK version, so it's not just the driver itself that might need downgrading, and potentially introduce even more bugs. That would be a waste of development time considering that it would only be a temporary measure - the road ahead lies in the new driver. That's why I'd rather wait for an updated driver.

 

[bodean]

Waiting for a wireless driver update. No point in releasing another beta since there's almost nothing else to fix so far in this build.

What is the wireless driver that is with this beta affecting? Mac products?

 

[RMerlin]

What is the wireless driver that is with this beta affecting? Mac products?

The main issue so far is that on the RT-N66U, the 5 GHz band won't connect properly (or not at all in some cases) with Intel-based interfaces while using 40 MHz channel width.

There are a few other random issues being reported, but those seem pretty much similar to issues I see reported for every single driver version, so I don't think they are all caused by NEW problems with this new wireless driver.

EDIT: Just to clarify that last paragraph. I'm not implying that there aren't any bug left in the driver or that people are imagining things. Just that, as far as wireless technology goes, it will never be even close to the stability of a wired connection, due to the large diversity of wireless interface controlers, external interferences, etc... If I were to wait for one single driver that worked 100% for 100% of users, then I would probably still waiting by 2020. So, the focus is rather on having something that works best for a majority of people rather than the perfect solution.

Sometimes, compatibility issues do happen between different controlers (see the XBox issue as an example). In these case, the only solution is to switch to a router using a different chipset (Ralink or Atheros based), or switching to a different wireless card.

 

[tyspeed42]

H/W Acceleration disabled?

Just was looking through the beta, working great for the most part. In Tools, saw that H/W acceleration was disabled? I have attached screen shot of it. It is complaining about a feature?

 

[RogerSC]

Just was looking through the beta, working great for the most part. In Tools, saw that H/W acceleration was disabled? I have attached screen shot of it. It is complaining about a feature?

Do you have IPv6 turned on? If so, this turns off HW acceleration. So does QOS and individual IP network usage statistics.

 

[tyspeed42]

I thought that was the issue also, but I have it disabled. Could it be caused by NAT being on?

 

[RMerlin]

I thought that was the issue also, but I have it disabled. Could it be caused by NAT being on?

That question seems to pop again every few weeks.

CTF will be automatically disabled by the router if you have one of these enabled:

- Per Device traffic monitoring
- QoS
- URL filtering
- Keyword filtering
- Repeater Mode is enabled
- HW Acceleration is disabled on the LAN -> Switch Control page
- IPv6 is enabled
- A USB modem is used (not sure if it's temporary or just while they fix some CTF-related issue)

 

[RogerSC]

That question seems to pop again every few weeks.

CTF will be automatically disabled by the router if you have one of these enabled:

- Per Device traffic monitoring
- QoS
- URL filtering
- Keyword filtering
- Repeater Mode is enabled
- HW Acceleration is disabled on the LAN -> Switch Control page
- IPv6 is enabled
- A USB modem is used (not sure if it's temporary or just while they fix some CTF-related issue)

You know what would be really really really nice (and answer a lot of user questions)? Having the "sysinfo" page that lists the state of HW Acceleration also list the router functions that are enabled that are currently preventing HW Acceleration from being enabled. Of course you'd only need to list these if HW Acceleration was currently disabled *smile*, but this seems to be a popular question that would no longer need to be asked.

I know that I'd really appreciate that. Just a thought.

 

[Igb]

I had to go back to version 270 in both of my routers, I think this is probably one of the "media center issues" that makes Asus not recommend the upgrade yet.

It's extrange, i have 2 routers, one in router mode and the other one connected to it in media center mode. The case is that the "client" gets randomly disconnected (it can be once or twice a day with heavy use, not to often) and fully reseted (is easy to notice this because i have the leds turned off in your firmware and every time my internet gets down i can see the router booting)

This happens even if only the "server" router is updated to the beta firmware.

I hope Asus releases an updated wireless driver to fix this as soon as possible, i found some of the new features quite useful.

Many thanks for your great job RMerlin... You are awesome.

 

[RMerlin]

You know what would be really really really nice (and answer a lot of user questions)? Having the "sysinfo" page that lists the state of HW Acceleration also list the router functions that are enabled that are currently preventing HW Acceleration from being enabled. Of course you'd only need to list these if HW Acceleration was currently disabled *smile*, but this seems to be a popular question that would no longer need to be asked.

I know that I'd really appreciate that. Just a thought.

The notice about an incompatible feature detected was a last-minute addition during development of a previous FW release. Adding more detailed explanation is something I had in mind for a future release, the only thing is it will be what I call "a high-maintenance feature". It means that with every new GPL release, I have to remember to go check which features are preventing CTF from being enabled, and update the Sysinfo page accordingly. That's something that will change from time to time - for example Asus added IPv6 to the list of incompatible features starting with 354, and I hadn't noticed it until someone reported it. So with 354.27, it wouldn't have helped, because I hadn't noticed the change.

So while doable, it does carry the risk of not always being fully accurate. That's what I'm still debating here.

 

[RogerSC]

I understand. It is all in the source code, and I'm guessing that it could be scattered around. Maybe there's a define or something that you could search on that is used in the code that to enables and disables this feature? Sometimes they set a variable for something like this, and you can search for all occurances of that variable, or something like that.

I realized when I mentioned this that it could be difficult if the source code isn't well organized, but there's often a way to do this sort of thing to see if it changes from release to release. Not having looked at the source code, it's obviously up to you to decide if this is do-able.

Thanks again for what you do.

 

[RMerlin]

I understand. It is all in the source code, and I'm guessing that it could be scattered around. Maybe there's a define or something that you could search on that is used in the code that to enables and disables this feature? Sometimes they set a variable for something like this, and you can search for all occurances of that variable, or something like that.

Yes, that's currently what I'm doing: just checking for that global flag to determine if it's enabled, disabled by the user, or disabled due to an incompatible feature. It's the part about having to re-check with every new version to see what modifies that global switch that requires more work.

 

[lucian]

just installed 27 beta 1, following observations so far:

1) i have an edimax in universal repeater mode, log in via 2.4 ghz to asus. the router doesn't show the edimax in the wireless log page, but i can access the edimax through devices connected on lan port from the asus. version 26 showed the edimax.

2) Manual assignment from dhcp leases only shows the device name from my lan devices (with static ip anyway). the wireless devices (which got ip from asus dhcp) only shown via mac address, no name. however - in the wireless log - the ip - mac and name is shown. this worked with 26.

3) i made a factory defaults, however - without jffs enabled - i am able to use old installed entware. doesnt it need jffs to get mounted?

 

[DrTeeth]

So while doable, it does carry the risk of not always being fully accurate. That's what I'm still debating here.

I would find it very useful indeed. I do not know how much would change per release once the initial work had been done; but just thought I would chime in with a '+1'.

Regards

DrT

 

[tyspeed42]

After enabling and disabling many settings, it turned out to be QOS, what killing the H/W acceleration. Is there going to be a fix for this later to have QOS and the H/W acceleration working?

Also the 2.4GHZ side of the wireless I find disconnecting alot. The 5GHZ band seems pretty strong as long as the signal doesn't degrade then I loose the wireless altogether, normally switches over to the 2.4GHZ but lately I have seen atleast on my Iphone5 the wireless gets dropped totally.

Other than those few things, its been working rock solid.

Thanks Merlin, hopes the few issues are able to get fixed.

 

[DrTeeth]

Whilst we are talking about hardware acceleration, does it actually produce noticeably better performance? It seems a shame that so many useful features, that themselves could possibly benefit from it, disable it.

UPDATE:- Found some info, written by our favourite firmware developer , "HW acceleration is mostly of use if you have a very high speed Internet connection (over 100 Mbits)". He also wrote that the module is closed source. I disabled the ONLY incompatible feature and H/W acceleration would not come on. I had to disable hardware acceleration in Advanced settings > LAN > switch control, hit 'apply'. re-enable, then hit 'apply' again.

DrT

 

[tyspeed42]

I agree, with the H/W acceleration enabled I find webpages load much better. Overall better performance. Hope this can be fixed in later builds.