Release Asuswrt-Merlin 386.1 is now available

[Makaveli]

I'm preparing to upgrade my router from 384.19 to 386.1 and I would like to know if I'm good to go for a nice and smooth and successful upgrade..
Model: RT-AC1900P
Current temps are: 2.4 GHz: 49°C - 5 GHz: 53°C - CPU: 77°C

Memory
Total 249.68 MB
Free 117.48 MB
Buffers 1.08 MB
Cache 11.98 MB
Swap 0.00 / 2048.00 MB
Internal Storage
NVRAM usage 52638 / 65536 bytes
JFFS 4.16 / 62.75 MB

Installed packages (made sure everything was up to date):

amtm 3.1.8 FW
Diversion v4.1.12
Skynet v7.2.3
scMerlin v2.1.0
Entware

Steps I've taken:
Save setting (left the box unchecked to share config for debugging)
Saved a backup of the JFFS partition.

My current ISP plan is 40 Mbps / 10 Mbps but I am getting 44 Mbps / 11 Mbps. I see some folks are saying that they are seeing a speed increase. Since I'm capped at 40/10 could I see much of an improvement?
View attachment 30192

This is all within the margin of error in any speed test. Some cable providers also over provision the connection. When I was on a 250/20 Cable package because my Cable ISP had speed boost on the connection I would see 330/20 on speedtest and downloads. But other than that don't expect speeds to be over what caps are set in your cable modem profile by the ISP.

 

[Suzib6sw]

For anyone with the same problem, it seems it was caused by Aimesh. I had always run my AX58U as an AP but decided to try out Aimesh 2.0. Switched it back to an AP and problem went away. Weird considering everybody else seems to have good results with Aimesh.

I have great results with AImesh on Rt-AX58U main and 2 RT-AX58U nodes BUT all the iphones and Samsung note 10+ are set now to phone mac (Samsung) and have Private Mac address (Iphones) turned off.

 

[Citius]

Excellent work once again from the Maestro. I was really hoping the released version would "cure" the only "error" message which my 2 RT-AX86U's have carried since beta5 ... when I returned from stock firmware.

Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: potentially unexpected fatal signal 11.
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: CPU: 1 PID: 3555 Comm: dcd Tainted: P           O    4.1.52 #2
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: Hardware name: Broadcom-v8A (DT)
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: task: ffffffc02e6c0100 ti: ffffffc02ae44000 task.ti: ffffffc02ae44000
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: PC is at 0xf6e4b39c
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: LR is at 0x1dd58
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: pc : [<00000000f6e4b39c>] lr : [<000000000001dd58>] pstate: 600f0010
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: sp : 00000000ffc13478
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: x12: 00000000000a2050
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: x11: 00000000f60ff024 x10: 00000000000a23c4
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: x9 : 00000000f60ff8c0 x8 : 00000000000a287c
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: x7 : 00000000f60ff8f8 x6 : 00000000000a2876
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 00000000f60ff8a4
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: x3 : 0000000000000000 x2 : 00000000ffc13454
Jan 31 15:40:09 kernel: x1 : 000000000007d652 x0 : 0000000000000000

It may well just be "noise" and doesn't seem to have any detrimental affect ... just offends my OCD !
If any of the experts out there know how to fix ... do let me know. {ThumbsUp}

Hi,
I know i don't have all the answers here but i can replicate this error easily and for me it has nothing to do with the Ai stuff. i have turned it all off since i started getting this issues very frequently.
For me it's the minute i install ovpn Client and reboot the Router.
The message says "fatal signal 11" and then it goes down and most of the time up again.
The VPN Client tunnels name is TUN 11. So the fatal signal 11 is (at least in my case) my VPN. Maybe some setting that is wrong. And i'm just guessing but it might have to do with Yazfi or at least how i use it.
Are you using VPN client? Are you using YazFi?

Yesterday it totally crashed on me so i had to troubleshoot a long time before i could get my router working again. and i wasn't going to just reset everything and begin again. I wanted to solve it.
My clients could use internet and could Resolve DNS but the router could not and all the scripts stopped working.
When i tried to update or reinstall them they couldn't connect to repository or just said "you have no internet"
So looking at logs and searching online, finaly i found it was related to ovpn, so i shut my VPN off and things got a little better.
Rebooted and it got worse again, could ping 8.8.8.8 from router but not www.google.com. then realized i had set the VPN Client to auto when boot. So i killed it.
I had turned off IPV6 both in the router and in the config for the ovpn client. My ISP did not like this for some reason.
So off with the VPN and on with IPV6, still some issues. Remembered that i set the VPN to follow DNS Exclusive, so i deleted Yazfi since it seemed to overwright a lot of settings in the system.
Removed Guest network totally and rebooted. Now i could use Scripts again and reinstalled Diversion and then Skynet.
But when searching for all the different problems there was many answers too, It's your Thumdrive, reset Router and insert a new one, or it's Ai Protection, turn it off and also QOS, and almost always, Reset.
I understand that this solves many peoples problems and it's faster than troubleshooting for several hours.
I then ran the Router a while without VPN or Guest network. It worked fine.

I've been using Merlins Firmware since 2016 and never got in to Scripts and stuff like that. I only used it with VPN Express to get different OVPN Client settings.
Now i recently bought a RT-AX86U and the first thing i did was to look for the SNB Merlin page for guidance and installed The 386.1 Beta Stage 1 to it and also dusted off my old AC68U and Sprinkled some Merlin glitter over that one to.
I Managed to set them up with AiMesh With a Backhaul port and everything worked fine. I heard a lot of people having problems, but following L&LDs guide it was an easy setup.
So then i started too look at Scripts and also realized that AiMesh in a small apartement was unneccesary so i removed the Mesh and resetted them booth again and put the AC68U in the closet again.
Now with the RT-AX86U i needed to get a stable good setup. It has been running very good untill:

Now i've done a factory reset and following L&LDs guides to totaly wipe it i started again on Beta 5 and then Dirty upgraded to the Release. Installed Diversion full with pixel serv, Skynet 2 GB Swap, Yazfi, spdMerlin, scMerlin.
I got a new ISP with VPn from Wireguard but by downloading the ovpn files from their VPN service Integrity VPN i got it working just fine with that.
I need to use this router booth for my work and for my home, and my kids.
So i wanted to separate Work on a guest network not on the same IP-Range at all. so i gave it a 10.xxx.xx.x adress following some guide with Yazfi. And i only have one choice for the VPN and it's Sweden or USA, and i don't want to run my stuff over USA, Phones get wrong firmware OTA and stuff like that. And my work can not run over USA. So i setup my home to use VPN by "Policy rules strict" and added all my clients to that. then i setup Yazfi to not use VPN.
Maybe i'm doing this wrong but it works. My work laptop gets another net and is on "Isolated AP" so no risk of mixing work with privacy.
Clients get VPN connection and seems to work fine.
But again i get this Fatal Signal 11 and dcd tainted.
If i turn of the VPN and also Yazfi and the guest network it runs fine.
Could the issue be with VPN?

 

[Morac]

@Morac is power (consistency) an issue in your area? I would consider a UPS first over what you linked (particularly if you have a USB drive with amtm attached).

Router is plugged into a UPS already.

 

[XIII]

You mean manually copying/pasting each name?

That’s a pain in my case because many devices in my Network Map are not online 24/7. I would need to turn them all on to be able to change their name.

I decided to restore (only) custom_clientlist from my NVRAM backup.

Solved!

 

[FlyByWire]

Hi there!

Updated from Merlin 384.9 to 386.1 today. Have two RT-AC86U in Network. One as Router, one as Access point. The AP updates fine. Could reconnect with same login. The Router updated as well, but I can not log in anymore. Name/Password are not working. Tried reboot, nothing. SSH is on, can't really remember pw there, but I guess it's correct and login not possible as well?!!

Anybody an idea without hard reset?



Thanks and regards,

FlyByWire

 

[DanNuke86]

I've never seen so many questions asked about things that have been asked & answered a hundred times before. Maybe the Upgrade Notes should include a link to the 60 page Beta thread (here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asuswrt-merlin-386-1-beta-stage-2-is-now-available.69116/ )and be made required reading before one is allowed to download the firmware. Makes your head spin...just

I've never seen so many questions asked about things that have been asked & answered a hundred times before. Maybe the Upgrade Notes should include a link to the 60 page Beta thread (here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asuswrt-merlin-386-1-beta-stage-2-is-now-available.69116/ )and be made required reading before one is allowed to download the firmware. Makes your head spin...just wow...

Was this in response to my message/questions? Seeing as you posted this immediately after mine..?

 

[L&LD]

@FlyByWire how long have you waited since flashing the router? It can take 60 minutes to 15 hours for the router GUI to become available again due to internal work it is doing and what you have plugged into it.

Best suggestion: be patient. I believe the network should still be working normally for you in the meantime.

 

[RHF]

Just dirty-upgraded RT-AC5300 from 384.19 to 386.1. All good, apart from having to wait up to 90 minutes or so after each reboot (!) for the UI. Examining the problem, I discovered that nt_center process was at 100% for a very long time. Finally it finishes, but after reboot it takes another 90 minutes. The fix was simple. I found a 260Mb /jffs/.sys/nc/nt_center.db which was being actively written to. After researching on this forum (i.e., here), I simply deleted the contents of /jffs/.sys/nc - and viola, no more waiting for UI after reboot. I hope someone finds it useful.

I have however noticed a different weird behaviour. @RMerlin not sure how interesting it is to you, but I've tagged you in case it is.

I have 1Gbps/50Mbps connection. When I use my laptop with an Ethernet cable connected to the RT-AC5300 router directly, I get close to 1Gbps speed. When I use the new 386.1 Ookla Speedtest or even spdMerlin Ookla Speedtest running on the router itself, I get approximately half the speed, and very consistent between the tests running on the router itself. Every test uses the same fixed Speedtest server. Yet, the Internet speed measured from the laptop connected to RT-AC5300 over LAN is close to 1Gbps, while Internet speed measured from RT-AC5300 itself is more like 480-500Mbps. Did anyone else experience that?

My only suspicion right now is that running Ookla Speedtest on the router itself uses its CPU too much, meaning that the remaining CPU cycles on the two cores are not sufficient to process traffic at the full 1Gbps. I've further noticed that installing and enabling Skynet further reduces the speed by 50% - but that's a separate matter that I can at least understand.

I'm experiencing a similar behavior with the speedtests. I have a symmetrical 300 / 300 Mbps connection. When I run speedtest.net from my laptop connected to the router via Ethernet cable I get the full bandwidth. When I run the test from the Ookla Speedtest or spdMerlin, I get about half the bandwidth. Running 836.1 on an RT-AC68U.

However, I have a different suspicion. The speedtests on the router (both spdMerlin and Adaptive QoS) take less time than the one on speedtest.net. My guess is the downloaded / uploaded data is smaller on the router and that doesn't allow the test to accelerate up to full download / upload speed.

 

[ATLga]

Was this in response to my message/questions? Seeing as you posted this immediately after mine..?

Do you see your name mentioned? RMerlin was quoted.

 

[dave14305]

However, I have a different suspicion. The speedtests on the router (both spdMerlin and Adaptive QoS) take less time than the one on speedtest.net. My guess is the downloaded / uploaded data is smaller on the router and that doesn't allow the test to accelerate up to full download / upload speed.

See the third bullet in post #1. It is a CPU limitation of the AC68U.

 

[L&LD]

@RHF, how did you get a hold of the 836.1 firmware already? Are you a time-traveler?

Kudos to RMerlin for supporting the RT-AC68U so far into the future, too!

 

[aex.perez]

Why Asus Instant Guard and IPSEC Server cant work?

At my iphone said "The VPN server did not respond".

View attachment 30181

Is it because of Skynet or any other script?

Works fine with Skynet, that's how I have it setup.

One thing I was playing around with that broke it, was using the DDNS host name, and domain (*.asuscomm.com) in the LAN section under hostname and domain. That caused the DDNS name to resolve to the local/private IP instead of the Public ISP IP. Tried to be too efficient but after trying for 20min I realized what I had done, backed it out and it began working again.

 

[FlyByWire]

@FlyByWire how long have you waited since flashing the router? It can take 60 minutes to 15 hours for the router GUI to become available again due to internal work it is doing and what you have plugged into it.

Best suggestion: be patient. I believe the network should still be working normally for you in the meantime.

Dammed, yes, I read that, but I thought if the gui is up, it's working. So Due to my two reboots might it still work again, or have I crashed the update??

Strange, the other RT-AC86U came back immediately....

 

[L&LD]

No, you haven't crashed the update. Just be patient.

That doesn't mean that other issues aren't present that may necessitate a full reset though. Fingers crossed for you that it won't be needed.

 

[FlyByWire]

Thank you, I'll report.

 

[CaptainSTX]

I'm experiencing a similar behavior with the speedtests. I have a symmetrical 300 / 300 Mbps connection. When I run speedtest.net from my laptop connected to the router via Ethernet cable I get the full bandwidth. When I run the test from the Ookla Speedtest or spdMerlin, I get about half the bandwidth. Running 836.1 on an RT-AC68U.

However, I have a different suspicion. The speedtests on the router (both spdMerlin and Adaptive QoS) take less time than the one on speedtest.net. My guess is the downloaded / uploaded data is smaller on the router and that doesn't allow the test to accelerate up to full download / upload speed.

If you are testing soon after updating the router maybe using its resources to rewrite the files and you may not get your full throughput.

If has been a day and you are still having this issue look at the load on the cores. If it is spiking a simple reboot may resolve the issue. It did in my case.

 

[sbsnb]

I have a symmetrical 300 / 300 Mbps connection. When I run speedtest.net from my laptop connected to the router via Ethernet cable I get the full bandwidth. When I run the test from the Ookla Speedtest or spdMerlin, I get about half the bandwidth. Running 836.1 on an RT-AC68U.

Not surprising. I have a 500/500 connection and the RT-AC88U is CPU limited enough that spdMerlin doesn't work on my router (can only get about 200/200). Clients get the full speed. The RT-AC68U has a much slower CPU than the RT-AC88U.

 

[tie88]

AC5300, update from 386.1_beta4 to 386.1. Nat acceleration "CTF" is no more working --> "Nat traffic is processed by cpu", the same with the beta5.
Now back again to 386.1_beta4 and CTF is working.

 

[Howard_inGA]

So, in Beta 5 I encountered this:
"My RT3200 will no longer maintain its assigned fixed address of http://192.168.1.169/. My 5300 won’t maintain its address of http://192.168.1.1/, and somehow assigns the 3200 that address? So, sign in at the .1 address (should be the 5300) logs into the GUI for the 3200?? If it works right and signs into the 5300, after a few minutes the 5300 is logged out and the sign in screen shows for the 3200. The DHCP pool addresses start at .2 and up."
I thought it had been fully addressed in the final 386.1, and indeed it seemed to have been so. That is until tonight. I attempted to log into the cable modem to check logs/connection data. Sign in went ok, but the web gui was off as to format and character emphasis of options (as it had been in Beta 5). When I attempted to select the needed pages in spite of the weird appearance, the internet connection was immediately lost by the AC5300 router, the GUI froze due to lack of router internet, and the 3200 and 5300 lost DHCP assignments. The 3200 captured the 5300 router default address??
The cable modem logs showed NO loss of connection through the whole evolution, AFTER reverting to 384.19 and accessing the cable modem GUI successfully and checking those logs. ONLY the router had lost OR turned off the wired connection to the cable modem??
As it stands, so long as I avoid the cable modem url (192.168.100.1), the router is pretty well flawless with 386.1 (note DHCP range from 192.168.1.2 - 254, with 1.1 reserved for the 5300 router)!!
I don't have a clue. Cable modem logs, 3200 logs, and (best I can tell) 5300 logs are not capturing what happened at all...

Today, after a night's sleep, I tried again. The failure when selecting the cable modem was tried. The router logs showed that the router rebooted, hence the loss of internet! I just didn't put the timing together last night. Too tired, I reckon.
All other functions are pretty normal in the new software, but the inability to access the cable modem at 192.168.100.1 is serious.
Other than that, the router is dropping the connection to the RT3200 bridge, which takes out the NAS. It isn't happening often, but after a period of not accessing the bridge, it looses the connection. Only thing I see in the logs is the Auth/Assoc/Deauth_ind/Disassoc dialogues.