Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.38 is out

[freethinker]

The consensus at the moment is that the most recent (experimental) build (3.0.0.4_374.38_2-em) is the best. It is using the newest sdk6 driver, which seems to have the same or better performance of the last sdk5 driver. The -em build is likely going to be the standard build, but we won't know if performance will change in future firmwares due to the nature of the (likely unofficial) settings involved with the -em build. You can read more about it in the release notes.

Edit: To be on the safe side, your best bet would be to do a factory restore once you've loaded this version, and re-enter your settings. You can try without, but given the fact you may have had an sdk5 firmware on previously, you'll want to start fresh. And also delete any wireless profiles for the router on your computers.

Thanks.

So do I do a factory restore after I've loaded 3.0.0.4_374.38_2-em or before? And do I delete the wireless profiles before or after flashing with merlin's fw?

 

[Pericynthion]

factory reset after loading the firmware - so it initializes the settings/NVRAM based on that version.

Then delete the wireless profiles and re-join the clients to your shiny new wireless (that you recreated after the factory reset)

 

[kaiguy]

Thanks.

So do I do a factory restore after I've loaded 3.0.0.4_374.38_2-em or before? And do I delete the wireless profiles before or after flashing with merlin's fw?

Flash with Merlin's firmware. Then do a restore to factory defaults. Once you have the new firmware on there you can delete the wireless profiles and set them up again. Not doing that shouldn't prevent you from connecting, it will just potentially be slower/reduced range/reduced throughput until you do so.

 

[freethinker]

Since I setup my RT-N66U yesterday and only did the wireless profiles, WPA-2 security, and flashed the latest ASUS firmware should I still make a backup of my current settings before flashing Merlin's firmware?

 

[RMerlin]

I just tried ipv6 ( I have Comcast) and its not working with my AC66u and 38_2. Haven't tested ipv6 in long time but it worked before.

I see the following in my syslog, perhaps this is the issue

Jan 21 17:13:20 syslog: module nf_conntrack_ipv6 not found in modules.dep
Jan 21 17:13:20 rdnssd[1454]: Cannot find user "admin"

This is because nf_conntrack_ipv6 gets compiled into the kernel itself, while the firmware is trying to load it as a module. This is a harmless message, you can ignore it.

rdnssd was recently added by Asus. I bet they are hardcoding it to user "admin", which won't work if you had changed your user to something else. They did the same mistake last year with a few other services that weren't properly using the default admin username. I'll take a look at it.

 

[RMerlin]

I didn't see this mentioned before, so, fwiw: README-Merlin.txt does not have anything in the changelog documenting the change from 3.0.0.4.374.38_1 to 3.0.0.4.374.38_2 (downloaded the rt-ac66u version).

Where are you seeing this? The README in the zipfile here does contain the changelog for 38_2 and 38_1.

 

[RMerlin]

Ok, then it's probably hard coded to "admin" somewhere in rdnssd. I guess Asus never tested these changes with a different login

I'll see what I can do about this.

They did the same mistake with radvd last year, if I recall correctly Shouldn't be hard to fix... Feel free to send me a pull request if you decide to take care of this one.

 

[saintdev]

They did the same mistake with radvd last year, if I recall correctly Shouldn't be hard to fix... Feel free to send me a pull request if you decide to take care of this one.

Easy enough request sent.

 

[420kilobytes]

I still haven't figured out how to fix the DHCP/login issue. Tried a hard reset but the problem persists. I still have to switch a comp to manual IP and hardwire it to access the router's control panel. Trying to log into 192.168.1.1 over HTTP on any other machine, or even a hardwired but DHCP addressed machine, will not work.

Not sure what to look for or change at this point. This is the first version I've run into the issue on. And yes i am using 38_2.

Thanks in advance for any assistance or ideas.

 

[millercentral]

So your ipv6 issue appears to have nothing to do with the newest GPL if its been going on that long. I don't fiddle with ipv6 much as the neighbor table overflow errors bother me but it has always grabbed an ipv6 address right away until I tested it tonight with newer firmware. I'm going to take a look at Comcast forums to see if others are complaining

JFYI, here is where Merlin referenced the issues with Comcast IPv6 in the past:
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=89111

 

[Shayne]

Is it a requirement that after reboot the VPN client service state is set to off (when was on prior) and you need to turn it on and apply after each reboot?

Regards

 

[RMerlin]

Is it a requirement that after reboot the VPN client service state is set to off (when was on prior) and you need to turn it on and apply after each reboot?

Regards

For PPTP/L2TP, yes. This is the way Asus designed it. However I kept my start at boot code in the case of OpenVPN.

 

[kaiguy]

Since I setup my RT-N66U yesterday and only did the wireless profiles, WPA-2 security, and flashed the latest ASUS firmware should I still make a backup of my current settings before flashing Merlin's firmware?

No. Because then it makes a factory default worthless since it would restore your old configuration. Just flash it up, re-enter your settings, delete the wireless profiles on your PCs, and you'll be good to go.

 

[penguin22]

They did the same mistake with radvd last year, if I recall correctly Shouldn't be hard to fix... Feel free to send me a pull request if you decide to take care of this one.

I just created an account to let you know that you hit the nail on the head. I moved from 270.26b to 374.38.(1 then 2)-em and experienced the IPv6 issue with Comcast. Everything else is working great and my signal strength and throughput have both improved measurably from the older build.

My admin was renamed and IPv6 did not work no matter what I tried, which was confusing since others seemed to work without issue. I saw this and renamed back to admin and after a reboot IPv6 is now working without a problem.

Thanks for all the effort you put into this!

 

[JMP]

Web interface unreachable

Since I upgraded my RT-AC68U from 3.0.0.4.374.38_1 to 3.0.0.4.374.38_2 I can not access the web interface anymore. Everything else works, but when I go to https://192.168.1.1:8443 nothing happens.

I have not done a reset yet, because I'm afraid to lose all my settings and still not be able to access the web interface. Or will the firmware also be resetted to the factory version?

SSH/Telnet is disabled, so thats not an option.
What can I do, any ideas?

Thanks in advance!


UPDATE:
It works in Firefox. Strangely it still doesn't work in Chromium on two different computers (both Ubuntu)! Before the update it was ok on both computers. It DOES work in Chromium when HTTPS is disabled, so the problem seems to be the encryption in combination with Chromium...

 

[ScottW]

UPDATE:
It works in Firefox. Strangely it still doesn't work in Chromium on two different computers (both Ubuntu)! Before the update it was ok on both computers. It DOES work in Chromium when HTTPS is disabled, so the problem seems to be the encryption in combination with Chromium...

You've probably already done this, but... Clear the browsers' caches, and make sure time is set correctly on all devices.

 

[JMP]

Sorry, I found the problem, it was as simple as stupid :-\
I had another Tab open with this adress and the SSL Certifcate warning shown. In this case Chromium seems to simply block all connections to this adress until the warning in the first tab is closed.

Sorry for wasting your time, thank you for your answer anyway, ScottW!

 

[tpackage]

L&LD 374.38_1-em Report to RMerlin - Asus RT-N66U

Conclusions:

I mostly use the basic features of my routers and am interested in the highest stability and highest performance possible from them.

I tried the default 80mW settings (reported above) but find the 100mW settings much better. I also tried the suggested 120mW Tx setting for the 5GHz band - but that brought worse, not better results than both the 80mW and 100mW settings in my tests.

Thanks for this post, I found it very helpful. I had a dead spot on 5GHz in one room of our house but when I increased the mW from 80 to 100mW things improved.

It's a hassle to reset the router and reconfigure wireless clients to a new SSID so I have not tried that yet.

 

[RogerSC]

Since I setup my RT-N66U yesterday and only did the wireless profiles, WPA-2 security, and flashed the latest ASUS firmware should I still make a backup of my current settings before flashing Merlin's firmware?

It's not a bad idea to save a settings file in case you want to or have to go back to the old firmware version, then you don't have to re-enter your settings if you need to do that. But, yes, saved settings files should only be used on the version on which they're made as a matter of practice. And if you're having problems, when you solve them, or make a permanent settings change(s), make a new saved settings file for that version when you're sure things are working right.

 

[MonkY]

This newer SDK should also take care of the broken HW acceleration with PPPoE. Please give this a try as well if you are using a 200+ Mbps PPPoE connection.

Unfortunately the 200+ Mbps PPPoE connection is still broken. On my RT-AC66U and 1000Mbps i can only see arround 200Mbps (and that's it). Using my Asus RT-N56U i can get arround 800Mbps.

Do i need to do anything else for the HW acceleration to work with PPPoE?

Later Edit: Well, after flashing again and resetting everything to defaults, i can confirm the PPPoE HW is enabled. I have managed arround 720Mbps (strange to see an older and slower device like N56U beeing faster than the newer AC66U).