Release Asuswrt-Merlin 386.4 is now available

[huubhuub]

are you sure channels have't changeed? Happend on 2.4Ghz when changing channels. it takes channel 1 first then move to right channel.

Yes im 100% sure... ive checked multiple times the channel is locked in the settings when the bug occurs... Also the other 5ghz wifi (AX86U and AC68U) still works... its just this one (AX68U) that has no SSID send out when the problem occurs (all 3 in AiMesh with 86 as main).

 

[ciss]

no issues to report for my AC86U, all works perfectly so far. Thanks!
However, the CPU temps seem a bit high, 78-79 celsius. Is this normal behaviour? CPU load is low (1-3%).

 

[Sanna1967]

78-79 celsius. Is this normal behaviour?

For that model , yes

 

[paulbates]

Guest network anomaly to note. I have an AX88 with this new version. I'm able to use a device on either 2.4 or 5 guest net to ping devices on the primary network.

• The ping returns the devices network name.
• I'm configuring the first column 2.4 and 5 under guest. Options on both are set to disable for intranet access. I also manually set that again.
• The reverse is not true, the device on the primary net can not see devices on either 2.4 or 5 guest net, as it should be.

I read the other comments on guest net here and that's not my simple set up... 1 router, no access points, nothing wired, not using AIMesh or a VPN


Can someone else verify this too?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

However, the CPU temps seem a bit high, 78-79 celsius. Is this normal behaviour? CPU load is low (1-3%).

AC86U here as well. Mine usually settled around the 60C mark... but have been able to keep it around the 45C-47C mark by cheating. I tied a sweet Noctua case fan to the back, pumping in sweet cool air 24x7. It's driven by USB power, so you can just plug it into the back of your router. Here's what I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DXLV5Z6/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[jsbeddow]

AC86U here as well. Mine usually settled around the 60C mark... but have been able to keep it around the 45C-47C mark by cheating. I tied a sweet Noctua case fan to the back, pumping in sweet cool air 24x7. It's driven by USB power, so you can just plug it into the back of your router. Here's what I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DXLV5Z6/?tag=snbforums-20

View attachment 38626

Please don't turn this into yet another CPU temp/fan mod thread, as there are already several dedicated ones on those exact subjects. Luckily this thread will soon be locked in any case...

 

[ElmerFudd]

Guest network anomaly to note. I have an AX88 with this new version. I'm able to use a device on either 2.4 or 5 guest net to ping devices on the primary network.

• The ping returns the devices network name.
• I'm configuring the first column 2.4 and 5 under guest. Options on both are set to disable for intranet access. I also manually set that again.
• The reverse is not true, the device on the primary net can not see devices on either 2.4 or 5 guest net, as it should be.

I read the other comments on guest net here and that's not my simple set up... 1 router, no access points, nothing wired, not using AIMesh or a VPN


Can someone else verify this too?

guest network isolation works well for me using Yazfi. Load it under amtm, config easy under gui. It allows you to set different up subnets for each guest network and as options for one-way or two-way intranet. I use it both with 2-way disabled for one subnet and and one-way enabled for another.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Guest network anomaly to note. I have an AX88 with this new version. I'm able to use a device on either 2.4 or 5 guest net to ping devices on the primary network.

• The ping returns the devices network name.
• I'm configuring the first column 2.4 and 5 under guest. Options on both are set to disable for intranet access. I also manually set that again.
• The reverse is not true, the device on the primary net can not see devices on either 2.4 or 5 guest net, as it should be.

I read the other comments on guest net here and that's not my simple set up... 1 router, no access points, nothing wired, not using AIMesh or a VPN


Can someone else verify this too?

I don't find this with my RT-AX86U. Are you using guest network "slot" #1? If so try it with slot #2 or #3.

Did you do factory reset and fully manual setup after you installed Merlin's firmware (whichever version it was) for the first time?

 

[geekwithoutacause]

Flashed my ac68u router (acces point in aimesh router in ap mode) and 1 ai mesh node to 386.4_0 from 386.3_2.
Flashing went normal but now my wireless performance is very very bad.
Do I need to do a factory reset? It was working great before.

 

[Bernhard Held]

386.4 doesn't process custom files for dnsmasq any more on my RT-AC88U. I changed forth and back to 386.3_2 and 386.4_0, and I toggled "Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs". It works in the old version but not in the new one. These lines are simply missing in the syslog of 386.4_0:
> custom_config: Using custom /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf config file.
> custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/dnsmasq.postconf (args: /etc/dnsmasq.conf)

Any idea what changed in 368.4?

 

[Bent_wrench]

Upgraded my AX58U to 386.4. Having the same issue with TP-Link 2.4 GHz devices as some others have reported. I got out my old Linksys Re7000 extender and set it up, connected those devices, and they are working again. Still having issues with my Nest Outdoor Cams on the 5 GHz channel, they keep randomly dropping off. They were stable on 386.2, and I my roll back if I can't figure it out.

If anyone has had luck getting Nest cams working reliably with 386.4, let me know!

 

[SheikhSheikha]

Upgraded my AX58U to 386.4. Having the same issue with TP-Link 2.4 GHz devices as some others have reported. I got out my old Linksys Re7000 extender and set it up, connected those devices, and they are working again. Still having issues with my Nest Outdoor Cams on the 5 GHz channel, they keep randomly dropping off. They were stable on 386.2, and I my roll back if I can't figure it out.

If anyone has had luck getting Nest cams working reliably with 386.4, let me know!

Yes no problem. You only need to reset the connection of the Nest devices (it is strongly advizable to do that everytime with new firmware on your router).

 

[Ddman]

I saw SSL issues reported, which I noticed. However, I have not seen the following issue reported which I experienced when upgrading (dirty) from 386.3_2:

On 386.3_2, without changing defaults, I was able to ssh from LAN to guest network.

After upgrade to 386.4, the behavior seems to have changed to each system on the guest network being isolated and I can no longer be access a device on the guest network from the LAN.

I downgraded to 386.3_2, and the issue resolved.

Also experiencing issues with trying to write to USB hard drive, but seem unrelated to the upgrade (and potentially an issue with the drive itself).

 

[joegreat]

386.4 doesn't process custom files for dnsmasq any more on my RT-AC88U. I changed forth and back to 386.3_2 and 386.4_0, and I toggled "Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs". It works in the old version but not in the new one. These lines are simply missing in the syslog of 386.4_0:
> custom_config: Using custom /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf config file.
> custom_script: Running /jffs/scripts/dnsmasq.postconf (args: /etc/dnsmasq.conf)

I use dnsmasq.conf.add and dnsmasq.postconf without problems - both add/change things in /etc/dnsmasq.conf as they should on my AX88U.

Did you use the correct name of dnsmasq.conf.add in /jffs/configs? And make sure dnsmasq.postconf in /jffs/scripts is executable (as it's a script).

chief@RT-AX88U:/jffs/scripts# ll dnsmasq.postconf
-rwxrwxrwx    1 admin    root           141 Feb 13  2021 dnsmasq.postconf*

chief@RT-AX88U:/jffs/configs# ll dnsmasq.conf.add
-rw-rw-rw-    1 admin    root           358 Jan  2 17:22 dnsmasq.conf.add

 

[northumberland]

Couple of notable issues on this version:
1. Constant drops on wi-fi 2.4ghz to one device (yealink t42s VoIP phone). Device will connect for a variable amount of time.

2. Two strange devices showing in network manager, both Amazon Alexa devices. On 5ghz and I'm using 192.168.2,1/255.255.254.0 for IP/subnet on the lan. yet the devices show as IP 192.168.102.x
Physically restarted router and I'm not using any VPN functions.

Any help? I'm feeling this is DHCP as well as WiFi driver, but perhaps only DHCP.

I've only just gotten them chance to investigate this, but it's not just a one off occurrence as I have monitored or throughout the week.

 

[ColinTaylor]

On 5ghz and I'm using 192.168.2,1/255.255.254.0 for IP/subnet on the lan. yet the devices show as IP 192.168.102.x

This is normal. 102.x is the dedicated subnet used by the first 5GHz guest network.

P.S. Try not to use 255.255.254.0 for your LAN subnet as it causes problem with the Network Map. Use 255.255.255.0.

 

[bennor]

Flashed my ac68u router (acces point in aimesh router in ap mode) and 1 ai mesh node to 386.4_0 from 386.3_2.
Flashing went normal but now my wireless performance is very very bad.
Do I need to do a factory reset? It was working great before.

Couldn't hurt to do a hard reset and manually reset/reenter the settings from scratch.

A family member's RT-AC68U (non aimesh) is a bit flaky with the 386.4 firmware even after a hard reset. Post 386.4, they're having issues with an Arris DSL modem routinely dropping the WAN connection, every 24 hours or so, for some reason and only way to get it back is reboot the Arris modem. Logs for both devices (Arris and router) don't show much out of the ordinary other than rc_service: httpd 341:notify_rc restart_wan_if 0 entries when the WAN on the router goes down. Main LAN WiFi and their YazFi Guest Wifi is also flaky with some clients momentarily loosing WiFi connection and reauthenticating. They are seeing occasional YazFi: Forcing YazFi Guest WiFi clients to reauthenticate messages too. They'll probably roll back to 386.3_2 to see if the issues resolve themselves.

 

[Terrabytes]

I have Merlin 386.4 on my primary router (RT-AX86U) with the latest Asus baseline releases on each of my AiMesh nodes (wired RT-AX86U, RT-AX88U, and RT-AX58U plus wireless RT-AX58U). I am experiencing excellent stability and throughput throughout my network with an isolated Guest 1 network pushed to all AiMesh nodes.

Interested to know what advantage is there in having Merlin on AIMesh router. The main router running Merlin should manage the AIMesh routers and they should not need Merlin. Of course the AIMesh router firmware needs to be relatively close versions to the Merlin. I guess have everything on the same firmware is one advantage.

 

[Kabouter Plop]

Im curious what kind of work and effort go's into making new merlin firmware, i wish i could install dd wrt but as most probably know that is not possible because of the wifi driver on the ax88u

 

[RMerlin]

Locking this thread as it has served its purpose.