Beta Asuswrt-Merlin 386.1 Beta (stage 2) is now available

[Wade Coxon]

For the 86U, yes and no. In a terminal I've enabled EEE but the terminal would hang. After closing the terminal and reconnecting, I can see EEE enabled, but it had no effect on temps. I've put it into a script on boot and the boot was massively irregular. So, my conclusion is DO NOT DO THIS.

I had a little more luck with it.
I experienced the same hang when the setting was first enabled, but that lasted about 10 seconds, and the terminal was then responsive again without needing to reconnect. My PC was directly connected to the router when I made that change.

My temps immediately dropped 4 degrees, and I haven't noticed any other ill-effects so far.
The setting was apparently enabled by default on 384.19 according to this:

Beta - Asuswrt-Merlin 386.1 Beta (stage 2) is now available

Confirmed here, too, on my AX88U. I'm glad a workaround could be found, since both of the two AX88U's I've updated are refusing to go back to b3 and I'm quite reluctant to reset them. Also resolved (Intel ethernet & Intel wireless) on my AX88U, with Beta4, after withdrawing from the Trend...

www.snbforums.com

 

[princi]

AX88U. Updated to beta4, just checked and saw all the fuss. Downloaded the Beta4b and flashed it without problems.
Using adaptive QOS but not TM's AiProtection.

Did you update to 4B through the GUI?

Personally, I have no desire to go backwards. I don’t seem to be affected by Beta4.

Will try to update to 4B through the GUI, when I get the chance

 

[JWoo]

Running 386.1 Beta 4 on my RT-AX58U for about 36 hours. Seems by far the best of the alpha or beta 386 releases. Wireless performance so far has been very stable. All the functions I use seem to work well

2.4Ghz N and AC
5Ghz AC and AX
guest networks 2.4 GHz and 5GHz
DNS over TLS
IPv6
SSH
router based SpeedTest

 

[Treadler]

Agreed. Out of the 3 versions of "Beta 4" for the RT-AX88U, Beta 4B is a keeper. Been testing it all night, no bugs or issues found yet,

+1

I haven’t managed to break/upset 4b. Great work!

 

[Torson]

2 days (3 hours short) with b4 on both routers (AX86 and AC66U_B1 as node). Very stable - here is what I'm using and successfully tested:

- AiMesh solid, no dropped connections on either side
- OpenVPN and IPSec servers fully functional
- 4 OpenVPN clients with x3mRouting humming along
- Let's Encrypt picked-up the cert right away
- speedtest on all the VPN clients and WAN as expected
- temperatures as expected
- Trend Micro on - QoS not in use
- the scripts are running alright - Unbound, Diversion, Skynet, x3mRouting

Looks and feels very solid - thank you @RMerlin.

Two questions:
1. @RMerlin - would it be possible to show (for reference) the VPN client number on the History field on the AdaptiveQoS -> Internet Speed tab?
2. the 'free' command in an SSH session on the AX86U returns:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        934060     895916      38144       2688     125484     304292
-/+ buffers/cache:     466140     467920
Swap:      2097148          0    2097148

Does the 'total of 934060' RAM sound correct?

 

[Matt Hettermann]

Also confirmed here: AX88U, Xfinity Gigabit Internet.

From a wired Win10 PC, running Ookla speedtest Win10 app:

Trend Micro disabled: ~950Mb down/~42Mb up
Any Trend Micro enabled: ~50Mb down/~42Mb up

Router CPU loads stay low in the trend micro enabled case, so not a CPU issue ...

Tried a factory reset & minimal config too, no help.

FYI - could not upgrade or downgrade from B4 normally due to security code. Was able to update from B4 to B4b with the Asus restoration tool.

B4b resolved my issues (slow speeds with TrendMicro enabled) from B4 on the one AX88U I had upgraded.

Upgraded 2 other AX88U's straight from B3 to B4b with no issues.

 

[MoonPie2000]

Is the 'Let's Encrypt' stuck on authorizing issue suppose to be fixed now or are we still waiting on a fix? My old (imported) cert expires soon and wanted to know if it is working so i can grab an updated cert.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

+1

I haven’t managed to break/upset 4b. Great work!

I'm very impressed by his turn around time for these issues.
Uptime and speeds have remained strong throughout since my initial flash of Beta4B. It's a solid fix.

My take away from this is I wish ASUS would do a bit more QA on their work and test it on their own devices internally a bit more before release.. But luckily we have Eric to help!
I am fairly new at actively commenting here; but have been a silent creeper on these forums for a long time, seems this little community Eric has built is a faster bug testing mechanism than whatever ASUS has internally; and I for one am happy to get to test these firmware releases @RMerlin develops.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

Is the 'Let's Encrypt' stuck on authorizing issue suppose to be fixed now or are we still waiting on a fix? My old (imported) cert expires soon and wanted to know if it is working so i can grab an updated cert.

It's fixed on Beta 4 At least on my AX88U.

 

[Smokey613]

I think I know the “correct” answer but if I go from 384.19 to the latest beta do I have to do a complete reset before or after the update?

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

I think I know the “correct” answer but if I go from 384.19 to the latest beta do I have to do a complete reset before or after the update?

You should be fine without a reset through a direct upgrade, but if something acts up first thing to try is a factory reset

 

[bradbort]

I believe the notes say reset advisable if moving from stock, but not as critical as when you upgrade from one of the alphas. Anyone else correct me if I'm wrong

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

I believe the notes say reset advisable if moving from stock, but not as critical as when you upgrade from one of the alphas. Anyone else correct me if I'm wrong

Upgrade notes:
- Direct upgrade from 384.18 or 384.19 should be fine, but be prepared to do a factory default reset if something does not work as expected.

I believe this would be the relevant notes from Eric's first post.

 

[bradbort]

I'm not seeing beta 4 or 4b on the beta downloads for the AX88U, just beta 3. Has it been removed again?

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

I'm not seeing beta 4 or 4b on the beta downloads for the AX88U, just beta 3. Has it been removed again?

It's under the test builds folder of his OneDrive.

Microsoft OneDrive

onedrive.live.com

 

[elcidme]

I am using RT-ax56U. In beta 4, the existing problems were solved, and it is impressive that it is more stable than the official firmware. There is only one problem, but I don't know if it's only an error. If you activate QOS's Bandwidth Limiter, a crash occurs, and the problem of restarting the device was from Beta 1, and the problem still occurs in Beta 4. I would like to know if this problem is occurring only for me or for other ax56u users.

 

[Smokey613]

I took the plunge snd updated both units to beta4b. The only issue is I am unable to login to the web admin. I think I remember someone said they had to wait a long time before they could log in.

UPDATE: I found the info in the changelog. So far, I am at 1 hour and 10 minutes, nt_center still using 80% cpu.

NOTE: Some users upgrading might have to go through some
database maintenance on first boot, which means the
router might be slower or have a non-responsive webui
for a while.
This can take anywhere from 5 minutes up to an hour,
depending on your model, just give it time to complete the process.

 

[KevTech]

The router test does not benefit from the NAT acceleration that LAN clients take advantage of, so your router tests are constrained by the router’s CPU, which isn’t capable of hitting 750 Mbps on its own.

I have 600/15 and it seems to work fine.

Or were you referring to just the 68U?

 

[RMerlin]

1. @RMerlin - would it be possible to show (for reference) the VPN client number on the History field on the AdaptiveQoS -> Internet Speed tab?

I can't change that database schema, sorry. That would break compatibility with Asus' code.

Does the 'total of 934060' RAM sound correct?

Free won't report memory that's reserved by the kernel, that's why it doesn't report a whole 1 MB.

Is the 'Let's Encrypt' stuck on authorizing issue suppose to be fixed

The fix should be part of 386_41535.

 

[modestyB]

Did try the beta 4 on AX88U before it was pulled. Only issue was that the router froze the third time when trying a speedtest from the router interface. The first two times it gave me max speed (500/20).

I am not sure if I had any other issues, but local ookla speedtests on wifi units might have been slow, but it was also lots of units using wifi in the house at that time.

Yesterday, after reading the thread, I downgraded without any issues back to beta 3.