Beta Asuswrt-Merlin 386.2 Beta is now available

[S.claus]

AX88U
PPPoE 200/100 with speeds set to 95%.
DSLReports A+ across the board
No lag/delay in VoIP, browsing, gaming, streaming while torrenting or downloading large files

 

[heysoundude]

The point of a beta test isn't to provide people with early toys. It's to gather debugging information, ahead of a final release.

Maybe it's time to implement a policy of inviting people to apply to beta test (and maybe have the scripting crowd be your alpha test crew). <shrug> couldn't hurt to build a more trusted and experienced bunch of people who can help bring you problems/issues to solve with specifically what they are who don't need their hands held, who in turn can be trusted sources for answers to questions when you release betas as final to the wild. I know I don't work effectively or to my best potential when there's a bunch of noise floating around my head. There are good people here who can take some of these loads off, if everyone is willing in that sort of relationship.
my $0.02

 

[kernol]

I tried to find the AsuWRT fw of AX86U and AC86U but could not find one close to 386.42xx but

AX86U latest released firmware and the only can download 486.41535 (beta is 386.41994)
AC86U latest released firmware and the only can download 486.41634 (beta is 386.41994)

By looking at the number, 42095 seems to be lateral version that even AsusWRT beta as well. not even 42095

Do you know what fw 386.42095 equivalent to AX86U & AC86U's?

One of the "hidden" advantages of adopting Merlinware is that you often get the latest Asus GPL code even though that particular version may not be released yet for your model [and sometimes the version numbers for different models never match on the Asus side].

This particular beta will [I'm guessing] be based on the Asus GPL released for the RT-AX88U ...

Another accolade for the Merlin maestro - we get to test a beta within a week of the Asus GPL release ... for a whole range of models .

 

[alex1236hk]

I tried to find the AsuWRT fw of AX86U and AC86U but could not find one close to 386.42xx but

AX86U latest released firmware and the only can download 486.41535 (beta is 386.41994)
AC86U latest released firmware and the only can download 486.41634 (beta is 386.41994)

By looking at the number, 42095 seems to be lateral version that even AsusWRT beta as well. not even 42095

Do you know what fw 386.42095 equivalent to AX86U & AC86U's?

42095 is unreleased yet in ASUSWRT for both 86u in the moment.
But Asus do actively provide updated GPL (even unreleased ) to Merlin for his development, sometimes ahead of Asus's own release.

 

[Matthew Patrick]

Maybe it's time to implement a policy of inviting people to apply to beta test (and maybe have the scripting crowd be your alpha test crew). <shrug> couldn't hurt to build a more trusted and experienced bunch of people who can help bring you problems/issues to solve with specifically what they are who don't need their hands held, who in turn can be trusted sources for answers to questions when you release betas as final to the wild. I know I don't work effectively or to my best potential when there's a bunch of noise floating around my head. There are good people here who can take some of these loads off, if everyone is willing in that sort of relationship.
my $0.02

agree and disagree. Yeah its nice to have people that can report everything the right way everytime. but , limiting users to use beta firmware is kinda not good imo. why? real example . on 386.1 and _2 (AC86U) i dont know why. my 2.4ghz radio is borked every few hours. the only thing that fixes it is restarting the radio. i've tried clean WPS reset install both times. and same thing... log doesnt show anything even on highest verbose setting. just some DHCP messages of it disconnecting and reconnecting.. then i went back to 384.19 and it all works fine...

now with this new GPL thats basically brand new, it seems to be fixed.. now i can use the latest firmware with latest security fixes without waiting for Stable Merlin or Asus... here's the thing, its not only because of i want to use the latest firmware, but its about security too. especially since 386 fixes some security issues.

if Merlin was to only publish beta to some users, i wont be able to check it out. and in turn, gonna expose myself to more security issues until Merlin's stable build came out or something like that.. so i think having an open beta is a good thing. even tho not all users usually report things the right way... since it can really help paint a picture on how a particular firmware is doing and well for bug fixes thats critical for some users..

 

[Matthew Patrick]

42095 is unreleased yet in ASUSWRT for both 86u in the moment.
But Asus do actively provide updated GPL (even unleased) to Merlin for his development, sometimes ahead of Asus's own release.

yeah seems like its a new one. my 2.4ghz radio being borked every few hours issue seems to be fixed. 17 hours connected now without any disconnection here on 382 alpha 2. will try beta 2 later this evening but i assume its gonna be the same ..

 

[przemo]

Hi @RMerlin could you please add the GPL version info on the Sysinfo page in your firmware?

 

[MvW]

RT-AC86U (Main) and RT-AC68U (AIMesh node), both succesfully upgraded to 386.2 beta 1.
Connection: Cable/Docsis 3.0 250/50 Mbit, bandwidth is measured during peak hours, and max up and downstream have been adjusted downwards by SpdMerlin. I haven't used any other QoS type on 386.2 beta 1 before switching on QoS with Cake selected.

Now, even though QoS is enabled and Cake is selected:

QoS still shows as disabled at the next page:

I see no evidence in the logfile that QoS is actually running. I've searched for 'cake' in Notepad++ in the logfile, which gives no results and when I search for 'qos' I only find lines like:

Mar 11 08:49:37 custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/service-event (args: restart qos)

It looks like QoS isn't running, or am I mistaking? How to verify if QoS is running with Cake as QoS Type?

One more question: does QoS Cake (once it runs) use the auto-adjusted BW-variables, as measured by SpdMerlin by @Jack Yaz?

 

[Vexira]

RT-AC86U (Main) and RT-AC68U (AIMesh node), both succesfully upgraded to 386.2 beta 1.
Connection: Cable/Docsis 3.0 250/50 Mbit, bandwidth is measured during peak hours, and max up and downstream have been adjusted downwards by SpdMerlin. I haven't used any other QoS type on 386.2 beta 1 before switching on QoS with Cake selected.

Now, even though QoS is enabled and Cake is selected:

View attachment 31837

QoS still shows as disabled at the next page:

View attachment 31838

I see no evidence in the logfile that QoS is actually running. I've searched for 'cake' in Notepad++ in the logfile, which gives no results and when I search for 'qos' I only find lines like:

Mar 11 08:49:37 custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/service-event (args: restart qos)

It looks like QoS isn't running, or am I mistaking? How to verify if QoS is running with Cake as QoS Type?

One more question: does QoS Cake (once it runs) use the auto-adjusted BW-variables, as measured by SpdMerlin by @Jack Yaz?

stats at the moment only work with adaptive due to a file format issue

 

[KingBravery]

RT-AC86U (Main) and RT-AC68U (AIMesh node), both succesfully upgraded to 386.2 beta 1.
Connection: Cable/Docsis 3.0 250/50 Mbit, bandwidth is measured during peak hours, and max up and downstream have been adjusted downwards by SpdMerlin. I haven't used any other QoS type on 386.2 beta 1 before switching on QoS with Cake selected.

Now, even though QoS is enabled and Cake is selected:

View attachment 31837

QoS still shows as disabled at the next page:

View attachment 31838

I see no evidence in the logfile that QoS is actually running. I've searched for 'cake' in Notepad++ in the logfile, which gives no results and when I search for 'qos' I only find lines like:

Mar 11 08:49:37 custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/service-event (args: restart qos)

It looks like QoS isn't running, or am I mistaking? How to verify if QoS is running with Cake as QoS Type?

One more question: does QoS Cake (once it runs) use the auto-adjusted BW-variables, as measured by SpdMerlin by @Jack Yaz?

This page only for Adaptive QOS by Trend Micro. You can verify cake running or not by looking at Tools -> HW Acceleration. If off, cake qos is currently running.

 

[MvW]

This page only for Adaptive QOS by Trend Micro. You can verify cake running or not by looking at Tools -> HW Acceleration. If off, cake qos is currently running.

Since it says: HW Accelaration - Runner: Disabled - Flow Cache: Disabled, I assume it's running then.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Marco

 

[brummygit]

Some strange things going on for me on this beta having seen probably the best ever performance on my network from Alpha 2 which was providing great WiFi connectivity and snappy performance with excellent bloat and latency from Cake on my 50/11 vDSL connection.

I first saw problems last night watching my on-demand TV service (SkyQ in UK) which downloads the content to the box rather than pure streaming. The programs start to play once a couple of % have downloaded, then it relies on the download being faster than it consumes. These downloads started to fail which is something I've never really seen before. It could of course be a Sky issue, but I couldn't find any other reports, and a full reboot of the equipment didn't help. The TV is all ethernet connected.

This morning one of my cameras - a Nest IQ Cam - was offline and has been suffering intermittent connectivity. This camera is usually very reliable and connects using 2.4Ghz WiFi.

My setup is slightly unusual that I am forced to use my ISP router and therefore I have my RT-AX88U behind in a double NAT setup. I'm wondering if the changes to Cake defaults have affected me as I've always used triple isolate in the past. I might try changing these.

To help the diagnosis of connectivity issues others have experienced, my RT-AX88U is configured for Static IP behind my ISP router (double NAT) with manually configured google DNS. I have no issues with internet connectivity.

 

[Slawek P]

Dirty upgrade from alpha2 to beta. No problems.

 

[askan7]

Wifi performance seems to have improved on this build. I'm getting better reception on pretty much every device. No issues soo far.

Cake still needs improvements. The idle jitter being higher is the main one.
Can anyone test this with https://www.meter.net/ping-test/?
I get higher jitter with cake on while there's no download/uploads going. I've made a video about it, it also happens in online multiplayer games, anything that sends a lot of small packets causes this. Also happened on 384.19 with cake script.

 

[goodwin_c]

Does the system log report anything regarding the WAN status when it drops?

How are you testing the Internet connection? Check by trying to ping an IP address like 8.8.8.8 to see if it's a DNS issue or really a connectivity issue.

The only WAN-related change in 386_42095 that I am aware of is now Asus configures static routes to the WAN DNS servers.

I'm always checking connectivity with ping to something that is 100% available (like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8), as DNS is not always reliable. So, during the issue - there was connection from router (did check from ssh session), but there was no connection from wired and wireless clients. Unfortunately, it was very late and it is my main home router - so I had to rollback it, and forgot to check logs before. If I'll have a chance - I will try to reproduce this issue on the weekend and collect as much as possible info.
P.S. And as few ppl before stated - I have also DoT enabled, don't know if that may affect traffic between Vlan 1 (lan) and Vlan 2 (wan)
P.P.S. Strange is that my sequence was next:
- dirty updated from stable release to Beta 1. After update I've found that there is no internet on client (not sure if there was no internet immediately, or that happened after some 5-15mins)
- rebooted router - and internet was working fine
- in 30-60 mins approximately - found that there is no internet again - made same check from client and from router, and again there was internet from router itself
- made a decision to rollback and go to bed :-D

 

[shabbs]

Do you have any Trend Micro features turned on? Because with my 1 Gb up/down connection, if Trend Micro is enabled, that builtin speeds tops out at 500-600 Mbps even though computer speed test are fine. With everything turned off, it has no issues reaching 900+ Mbps up/down,

No Trend Micro features.

 

[Matthew Patrick]

Anybody notices increasing size of /jffs? It's been 24 hours more or less on alpha 2 and now on beta. I did a jffs reset so this file was 0 byte.. the file I'm talking about is in /jffs/.sys/diag_db. It's now 3.1M in size , and it's only been about 24h and still increasing it seems like. Any reasons why? Never seen this file on 384.19 as far as I can remember.

I'm on AC86U anyways..

 

[immi803]

can someone suggest right values for Cake overhead FTTH GPON , Modem in bridge mode, PPPOE mode in ASUS AX88U ?

 

[roundaway]

agree and disagree. Yeah its nice to have people that can report everything the right way everytime. but , limiting users to use beta firmware is kinda not good imo. why? real example . on 386.1 and _2 (AC86U) i dont know why. my 2.4ghz radio is borked every few hours. the only thing that fixes it is restarting the radio. i've tried clean WPS reset install both times. and same thing... log doesnt show anything even on highest verbose setting. just some DHCP messages of it disconnecting and reconnecting.. then i went back to 384.19 and it all works fine...

now with this new GPL thats basically brand new, it seems to be fixed.. now i can use the latest firmware with latest security fixes without waiting for Stable Merlin or Asus... here's the thing, its not only because of i want to use the latest firmware, but its about security too. especially since 386 fixes some security issues.

if Merlin was to only publish beta to some users, i wont be able to check it out. and in turn, gonna expose myself to more security issues until Merlin's stable build came out or something like that.. so i think having an open beta is a good thing. even tho not all users usually report things the right way... since it can really help paint a picture on how a particular firmware is doing and well for bug fixes thats critical for some users..

Small suggestion. When alpha and betas are released include a template for reporting problems. Each user who wants to report a "problem" has to use the template.

Router model, previous firmware version, flashed firmware version, reset/erase nvram after flashing, describe problem, etc.

 

[brummygit]

Some strange things going on for me on this beta having seen probably the best ever performance on my network from Alpha 2 which was providing great WiFi connectivity and snappy performance with excellent bloat and latency from Cake on my 50/11 vDSL connection.

I first saw problems last night watching my on-demand TV service (SkyQ in UK) which downloads the content to the box rather than pure streaming. The programs start to play once a couple of % have downloaded, then it relies on the download being faster than it consumes. These downloads started to fail which is something I've never really seen before. It could of course be a Sky issue, but I couldn't find any other reports, and a full reboot of the equipment didn't help. The TV is all ethernet connected.

This morning one of my cameras - a Nest IQ Cam - was offline and has been suffering intermittent connectivity. This camera is usually very reliable and connects using 2.4Ghz WiFi.

My setup is slightly unusual that I am forced to use my ISP router and therefore I have my RT-AX88U behind in a double NAT setup. I'm wondering if the changes to Cake defaults have affected me as I've always used triple isolate in the past. I might try changing these.

To help the diagnosis of connectivity issues others have experienced, my RT-AX88U is configured for Static IP behind my ISP router (double NAT) with manually configured google DNS. I have no issues with internet connectivity.

A quick update - I had done a factory reset when I moved to Alpha 2 but things were getting worse today with my Ring Cameras dropping offline as well, therefore I've done a full factory reset again on this Beta. I had noticed that there were some commits related to the RT-AX86U WiFi drivers in the Beta code.

At the moment things seem to be back to the great performance I was getting from Alpha 2, so I'm going to give it 24 hours to see if any further problems occur.