Release Asuswrt-Merlin 386.14 is now available for AC models

[Tech9]

Does this version fix the slow speeds

Test and share the results perhaps? Media Bridge, no much configuration there.

 

[gpz1100]

Easier said than done. Said device is in a remote location.

 

[Serkan K.]

For the scroll bar not showing up issue here is a workaround: Use the developer tools > responsive design mode > change the vertical resolution to something high enough to display all of the page.

 

[banger]

My Traffic Analyzer Statistics seem to be working normally. Only enabled yesterday but I have a full day of stats. Will monitor on my RT-AC68U with 386.14 firmware.

 

[bscabl]

My Traffic Analyzer Statistics seem to be working normally. Only enabled yesterday but I have a full day of stats. Will monitor on my RT-AC68U with 386.14 firmware.

fix mine

 

[st3v3n]

I upgraded our personal RT-AC86 and GT-AC2900 from 386.13.2 to 386.14, it's the first time in years an upgrade on these units has gone a bit sideways; the result for the RT-AC86 wins the prize for wonkiest upgrade I've ever experienced, at least in the past 10 years. Both of these routers never have had an issue, all past upgrades were flawless, I don't run any extras, no scripts, no VPN server. After the release of this version, I monitored the forum before decided to install. I checked the file hash, restarted the AC86 then defaulted most of the settings, turned the wifi and VPN off before loading the upgrade and rebooting. Afterwards, it took 5 minutes before it tried but failed to restart. The router won't boot to GUI and won't respond to multiple rescue/recovery attempts with ample time between attempts. I haven't had to resort to this for quite a while, but L&LD's explicit nuclear reset sequence will be the next step.

Several years ago I ordered two RT-AC86s from Amazon during a sale, one for a customer and the other as a spare. There were multiple reports of faulty routers at the time and I return both of those as bad out of the box as they would not reboot or recover, though the replacements Amazon sent were fine. This particular '86 is not one from that time, and until now it has run without any issues, 12-15 hours per day for the past 3 years, powered from an APC UPS battery backup.

The GT-AC2900 is two years old and has only been in service for a year. It's run flawlessly on Merlin as all our routers run for many years. At least this unit has survived this upgrade, so far. There's no logic of reason for both of these units to offer a problem with the upgrade, as I applied the particular FW for each model listing. Not counting the 'Aura' lighting effects. they're AC86s since there's no ROG file in this FW build. This router also ran long during the update, but at least it restarted to the GUI. Since then unlike the '86, It's been running for over a day. The GUI response is sluggish, but the main issue is that it doesn't display data in areas where it should. As always, I reentered all data from scratch, this time it took 2-3 times before it would save properly. Wi-fi and VPN are now running normally but no data shows in the system log nor for the clients on the main/WAN network map area of the first page. By clicking on the 'View List' tab, the 'view all' list is empty; nothing is displayed in the 'Status' area. Clicking on the 'System Status' heading shows a left and right arrow under Status, then by clicking on the arrow then shows an 'Online, Wired and Wireless' heading. Clicking on the left arrow tab displays devices which are connected. Surprisingly, when I turned on all of the Trend Micro options, thought it took some time for the data to display, all of the functions seem to be working as they did prior to the upgrade. This gives me hope that I may be able to save this router, though I'm worried about the '86. I know they don't last forever but these have been babied by comparison to others.

If anyone has noticed any similar wonky behavior, for either the RT-AC86 or RT-AC2900 after this upgrade, and has been able to recover from it, it would be great to hear your experience and if/how you've recovered, as I'm stumped. Many thanks.

Addendum, 8/5/24
Today after system start up, went into the GUI of the 2900 for further study. Whatever caused the missing sections and data, everything that should be there, is now present, and hopefully stays that way. Cheers.

 

[Tech9]

Unfortunately, this firmware version on RT-AC68U variants is unusable for people who like to monitor their traffic data. Traffic spikes bug in Traffic Monitor kills Asuswrt-Merlin tool and Trend Micro bug in Traffic Analyzer kills Statistics tool. Now none of the two works properly.

 

[st3v3n]

Addendum, 8/5/24
Today after system start up, went into the GUI of the 2900 for further study. Whatever caused the missing sections and data, everything that should be there, is now present, and hopefully stays that way. Cheers.

This is second time I've had to resort to L&LD's nuclear procedure (thank you sir) and it works when everything else 'by the book' failed me. The '86 and '2900 both have new installations of v386.13.2, no hint of issues, whatever it was that caused them both to lock up with loading v386.14.The initial OEM login page was a bit fussy, slow, on both units before getting into the GUI, but after the complete install was finished, both router's opvn clients came up immediately after the final save and restart. Have been testing with 15 Ethernet/3-WiFi 56G devices shows only a 1% hit on bandwidth, 138 MB free. Trend Micro is running well on v2.414 and was last updated on 7/31/24. Room temp is 74F, and with an AC Infinity fan ventilating past the rear of the router, CPU temperature shows 141F. The attempt to flash v386.14, was different only in that I had quit 'dirty' flashes some years ago, and until now have use a 'modified dirty' procedure, defaulting the routing/device settings and vpn clients, but leaving the WAN and 'basic LAN' section intact. The difference, with a completely nuked/blank router, and saving each section before the final reboot apparently made the difference. Cheers.

 

[banger]

Here's a funny occurrence. My Master router is upstairs (AC68 V3) with two older AC68's downstairs in MESH. I have various Amazon Smart Speakers scattered throughout the house. The Dot upstairs and Echo upstairs are both connected over Wifi to one of the downstairs AC68 units according to the mesh page. The dot is next to the master AC68. Very strange.

 

[Tech9]

Not strange, happens quite often. Signal too strong, the dot sees further away AP as better choice.

 

[banger]

Cant access the router webpage or it is very slow after a couple days uptime. Any ideas other than a switch off and on? After many minutes of blank screen it returns to the sign in page, hmm.

19:42:07 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:42:07 rc_service: httpd 280:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:42:09 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 19:50:10 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:50:10 rc_service: httpd 27271:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:50:12 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 19:57:34 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:57:34 rc_service: httpd 28269:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:57:36 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 20:06:17 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 20:06:18 rc_service: httpd 29218:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 20:06:20 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80

Last thing in log before switch off and on. Is httpd the culprit?

 

[NoLight]

Cant access the router webpage or it is very slow after a couple days uptime. Any ideas other than a switch off and on? After many minutes of blank screen it returns to the sign in page, hmm.

19:42:07 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:42:07 rc_service: httpd 280:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:42:09 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 19:50:10 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:50:10 rc_service: httpd 27271:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:50:12 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 19:57:34 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:57:34 rc_service: httpd 28269:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:57:36 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 20:06:17 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 20:06:18 rc_service: httpd 29218:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 20:06:20 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80

Last thing in log before switch off and on. Is httpd the culprit?

I've had this issue since 386.10 or 11. The only thing that fixes it for me is to have it set to reboot daily.

 

[Shadow101]

Cant access the router webpage or it is very slow after a couple days uptime. Any ideas other than a switch off and on? After many minutes of blank screen it returns to the sign in page, hmm.

19:42:07 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:42:07 rc_service: httpd 280:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:42:09 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 19:50:10 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:50:10 rc_service: httpd 27271:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:50:12 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 19:57:34 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 19:57:34 rc_service: httpd 28269:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 19:57:36 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80
Aug 9 20:06:17 HTTPD: waitting 10 minitues and restart
Aug 9 20:06:18 rc_service: httpd 29218:notify_rc restart_httpd
Aug 9 20:06:20 RT-AC68U: start httpd:80

Last thing in log before switch off and on. Is httpd the culprit?

I would suggest first trying a different browser to see if it's not a browser issue , then try wiping cache and cookies of the browser , another thing to try is formatting the JFFS partition even if custom scripts are disabled and see if that makes a difference otherwise do a x2 system format of the router, also try disabling trend micro features like AI-protection , QOS , Traffic Analyser and rebooting to see if any affect takes place ,

I had the slow gui issue and the only fix I found was formatting the JFFS partiton and disabling trend micro features and doing a x2 router format , I currently don't have any issues with a slow gui and traffic analyser etc work just fine on Merlin 386.14 on my Ac86u

 

[NoLight]

I would suggest first trying a different browser to see if it's not a browser issue , then try wiping cache and cookies of the browser , another thing to try is formatting the JFFS partition even if custom scripts are disabled and see if that makes a difference otherwise do a x2 system format of the router, also try disabling trend micro features like AI-protection , QOS , Traffic Analyser and rebooting to see if any affect takes place ,

I had the slow gui issue and the only fix I found was formatting the JFFS partiton and disabling trend micro features and doing a x2 router format , I currently don't have any issues with a slow gui and traffic analyser etc work just fine on Merlin 386.14 on my Ac86u

This is an issue that only affects the RT-AC68U.

 

[banger]

Is httpd a blob or Merlin maintained?

 

[Tech9]

So httpd crashes on last few Asuswrt-Merlin releases? How often it crashes? I've run this release for about a day on RT-AC68U variant and there was no httpd issue. The GUI was running surprisingly smoothly, actually. There were other Trend Micro related issues and usual ASD/DCD crashes.

 

[banger]

No httpd crashes so far must be random

 

[Tech9]

I find 386.13 better, less issues.

In addition to Traffic Analyzer Statistic not working I found issues with the GUI as well. Someone can verify, if curious - activate per IP traffic monitoring*, add some more clients so the screen is not enough to show... no scroll bar, can't see the bottom of the page. Perhaps issue similar to script pages.

* - ARMv7 platform only, ARMv8 doesn't have this option available

 

[CaptnDanLKW]

I ran the v386_14 for about 10 days and had 2 issues which caused me to revert. Since reverting, 14 days and no issues.

I'm surprised no one else experienced at least one of them.

My company's Cisco AnyConnect VPN client will not connect to any endpoints. I would have to manually override with a specific DNS entry for a specific address. Only realized this after a week of issues and finally had the 'ah-ha' moment. I checked the NAT options, toggled them all just to make sure some default didn't change, or that they were showing active but not really loaded, didn't resolve.

Other issue was on my mesh node, my Oculus Quest 2 using steam link kept dropping with the ambiguous 'Error 450'.

Besides the Traffic Statistics not working... and the scrollbar issue.

IMHO, this 'one more GPL dump based on 386_52805' is not a good situation since the latest official version us based on 386_51925, which means there's no official version to report feedback to ASUS with. Three of the four issues are candidates to report back to ASUS - if we could.

I've gone back to 13_2 - the first time I remember reverting to anything in at least 5 year.

As always, YMMV

 

[jfim88]

I updated to .14 on my RT-AC68U (A1 Rev) a week ago

Noticed that viewing my ISP IPTV service (Movistar Spain using the built-in profile for Movistar Triple VLAN) sometimes the image is pixelated. They are fast, image doesn't cut, but never noticed that on previous versions.