Release Asuswrt-Merlin 386.7 is now available for all models

[bluzfanmr1]

RT-AC68U is the golden standard. I rarely had something not working on this model. Some may disagree, but it's the most successful Asus router and perhaps still the most popular in its many variants from RT-AC66U B1 to RT-AC1900P. The cheap RT-AC66U B1 is perhaps the best budget router.

In 2017 I paid $79 for the RT-AC66U B1 and I couldn’t agree more. It’s handled duties in a 3,500 square foot home and a 900 square foot condo without fail. I keep wishing for a reason to upgrade but the thing is bulletproof!

 

[OzarkEdge]

But... today I had the time to test Asuswrt 46061 and Asuswrt-Merlin 386.5_2 on AX86U

If you are still testing 46061 on AX86U, confirm that a client on guest1 WLANs has Internet access while using encrypted DNS (DoT) on the AX86U... I used Quad9 (9.9.9.9, 149.112.112.112, dns.quad9.net) and had an issue with no Internet access (TuneIn streaming).

OE

 

[Tech9]

If you are still testing 46061 on AX86U, confirm that a client on guest1 WLANs has Internet access while using encrypted DNS (DoT) on the AX86U...

I can do that, but my findings on 46061 will change nothing since 49447 is out. So far every firmware I test has some issues. It's a balancing act between your needs and what works. If you get better Wi-Fi on 46061, don't use Guest1 network. If you have AiMesh and you need Guest1, don't use 46061.

About Quad9 - it's on the slow side in my area, single server in Toronto and one far in US when DoT is used. I was getting timeouts from time to time. Not very reliable service, feels like overloaded servers in the area. They need to upgrade/add resources or people will move away at one point.

 

[Tech9]

I keep wishing for a reason to upgrade but the thing is bulletproof!

RT-AC68U variants also have software issues, like Traffic Monitor not working properly in 386 code base, but in general I find this platform more open, reliable and predictable than newer HND.

 

[Fuechslein]

Since installing 386.7 on my AX88U it keeps hammering my DNS with queries for "192.168.1.x" several dozen times a second. Tried a factory reset and reinstallation to no avail. Since installing it a few days ago, the router sent over 22 million queries!!!

Tried with dnsfilter on and off, with and without DoT but no matter what I do, it just keeps querying for "192.168.1.x". Anybody got any ideas whats going on?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Since installing 386.7 on my AX88U it keeps hammering my DNS with queries for "192.168.1.x" several dozen times a second. Tried a factory reset and reinstallation to no avail. Since installing it a few days ago, the router sent over 22 million queries!!!

View attachment 42341

Tried with dnsfilter on and off, with and without DoT but no matter what I do, it just keeps querying for "192.168.1.x". Anybody got any ideas whats going on?

Maybe you could SSH into your router and run the following command:

nvram show | grep -F "192.168.1.x"

If that doesn't reveal anything perhaps the query is coming from something on your LAN.

 

[cptnoblivious]

The memory use on my AX68U was over 90% after upgrade (and I gave it a few days) and it kept slowly creeping upwards. I went back to 386.5_2 and it's back below 70% used.

 

[ColinTaylor]

The memory use on my AX68U was over 90% after upgrade (and I gave it a few days) and it kept slowly creeping upwards. I went back to 386.5_2 and it's back below 70% used.

This behaviour is intentional (and not a bad thing). https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng/commit/fe03424d94ebad3d49800c466424dd54c4531b92

 

[Fuechslein]

Maybe you could SSH into your router and run the following command:

nvram show | grep -F "192.168.1.x"

If that doesn't reveal anything perhaps the query is coming from something on your LAN.

Thanks for the help. Could figure the issue. It was actually my raspberry pi that was going crazy, more specifically the program Pi-Somfy that kept sending those queries, for whatever reason. Disabled it and now its back to normal. Sorry for the false alarm.

 

[cptnoblivious]

This behaviour is intentional (and not a bad thing). https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng/commit/fe03424d94ebad3d49800c466424dd54c4531b92

I checked the link Colin, but I don't know what I'm looking at, or what the threshold is for the router actually letting go of memory before it's an issue (so I can monitor )

 

[Tech9]

I checked the link Colin, but I don't know what I'm looking at

The previous firmware was dropping caches when you login to GUI. Example in logs, Asuswrt-Merlin 386.5_2:

Jul  1 10:20:48 kernel: httpd (1555): drop_caches: 1

 

[ColinTaylor]

I checked the link Colin, but I don't know what I'm looking at, or what the threshold is for the router actually letting go of memory before it's an issue (so I can monitor )

Your router has half the memory of mine so I can't say definitively what figure you should see. But for my router the normal maximum usage is ~97%. The previous behaviour was sub-optimal for HND models as it flushed the cache unnecessarily each time someone logged into the GUI.

 

[vlord]

Take a look at this thread...

Sporadic GT-AXE11000 reboots due to kernel panic

I bought GT-AXE11000 last spring and at some moment looking at the uptime noticed it gets rebooted from time to time once 3-4 weeks. Nothing helpful were in native logs, so I did establish remote logging and was able to receive things like this each time it got rebooted...

www.snbforums.com

Thanks for the link out. I setup Lan-Secure Syslog Center for my Mac and got a similar kernel panic response. Since I bought this router, it reboots every 2-3 days. My RT-AC86U was rock solid.

2022-07-01 06:59:03    User.Error    RT-AX86S-C32D515-C kernel: bcm63xx_nand ff801800.nand: timeout waiting for command 0x1
2022-07-01 06:59:03    User.Error    RT-AX86S-C32D515-C kernel: bcm63xx_nand ff801800.nand: intfc status 700000e0
2022-07-01 06:59:03    User.Warning    RT-AX86S-C32D515-C kernel: BUG: failure at drivers/mtd/nand/brcmnand/brcmnand.c:1339/brcmnand_send_cmd()!
2022-07-01 06:59:03    User.Emergency    RT-AX86S-C32D515-C kernel: Kernel panic - not syncing: BUG!
2022-07-01 06:59:03    User.Warning    RT-AX86S-C32D515-C kernel: CPU: 1 PID: 1398 Comm: WebHistory Tainted: P           O    4.1.52 #2
2022-07-01 06:59:03    User.Warning    RT-AX86S-C32D515-C kernel: Hardware name: Broadcom-v8A (DT)

@RMerlin - Per this thread, could we get AVS disabled or BUG_ON changed to WARN_ON in the base build for the RT-AX86S and GT-AXE11000?

 

[Maloon]

RT-AX88U. With 386.7, many devices have disconnections. Back to 386.5_2, and all work fine again. New wifi drivers are not so good.

Edit:
Wifi clients are several Apple devices, and about 45 IoT devices.

 

[Maloon]

2x GT-AX6000 AiMesh wire connected. After update from 386.6, node is not detected and doesn't work. Disable Ethernet Backhaul, reconnect node, and enable Ethernet Backhaul again. All is working fine.

 

[EmeraldDeer]

I have the original hardware version of the RT-AX88U. I have not experienced any disconnects or other issues with WiFi on firmware 386.7. I have a Windows laptop, Apple devices and a few IoT devices.

 

[JAX1337]

After the latest update, my Web UI keeps breaking

Is there any other way to fix this than resetting or reflashing ?

I haven't, asked out the mac IDs, it's missing from UI

Earlier I used to get the sub menus, Now they are missing too

 

[scamper82]

I have the RT-AX88u never upgraded reset or upgraded since i got it and loaded 386.5_2

For a long time i was having issues with old fw where my IOT devices (mainly sonoff basics) would disconnect from wifi and would not reconnect unless the router was reset. (or as i found out later i could do a wifi reboot raised ere if interested (Previous Issue)

When i saw the new wifi info i thought i would go thought the upgrade process and reading about dirty upgrades ext i followed the process of

1. Factory reset router (Ticked box for initialize all setting)
2. set up basic functionality as prompted by router to get back into UI
3. rebooted
4. formatted JFFS at next boot ticked and rebooted (not sure if needed but router was saying it was full (not sure of exact message now) so thought as factory reset cant harm)
5. upgraded to 387.7
6. rebooted
7. manually set up router looking at different posts and disabled such settings like the beam forwarding ext that is advised
8. rebooted

Since upgrading to 386.7 I have not seen my wifi devices disconnecting from router (easy to see as i have them on a tablet dashboard and they go gray when disconnected so that's positive new,

MY NEW PROBLEM
since finishing messing with setting ext is been about 2 days, in that time i have noticed that even though the router has 2 days uptime the wifi keeps rebooting, loosing ability to connect to WIFI until all restarted.

I tired to look at the log files and there were lots of failed errors (not sure what im looking for really just hoping something looked right, and after googling im not realy much closer.
since the router been up a few days I have done another reboot and cleared the logs after the router restarted and is stable so will have a cleaner point to start debugging or provide info for more help.
Has anyone else seen this type of issue

 

[EmeraldDeer]

I have the RT-AX88u never upgraded reset or upgraded since i got it and loaded 386.5_2

For a long time i was having issues with old fw where my IOT devices (mainly sonoff basics) would disconnect from wifi and would not reconnect unless the router was reset. (or as i found out later i could do a wifi reboot raised ere if interested (Previous Issue)

When i saw the new wifi info i thought i would go thought the upgrade process and reading about dirty upgrades ext i followed the process of

1. Factory reset router (Ticked box for initialize all setting)
2. set up basic functionality as prompted by router to get back into UI
3. rebooted
4. formatted JFFS at next boot ticked and rebooted (not sure if needed but router was saying it was full (not sure of exact message now) so thought as factory reset cant harm)
5. upgraded to 387.7
6. rebooted
7. manually set up router looking at different posts and disabled such settings like the beam forwarding ext that is advised
8. rebooted

Since upgrading to 386.7 I have not seen my wifi devices disconnecting from router (easy to see as i have them on a tablet dashboard and they go gray when disconnected so that's positive new,

MY NEW PROBLEM
since finishing messing with setting ext is been about 2 days, in that time i have noticed that even though the router has 2 days uptime the wifi keeps rebooting, loosing ability to connect to WIFI until all restarted.

I tired to look at the log files and there were lots of failed errors (not sure what im looking for really just hoping something looked right, and after googling im not realy much closer.
since the router been up a few days I have done another reboot and cleared the logs after the router restarted and is stable so will have a cleaner point to start debugging or provide info for more help.
Has anyone else seen this type of issue

Someone correct me if I am wrong but the time to perform a factory reset of settings is right after changing firmware levels.

You want to start out with factory settings as defined by the current firmware level, not by the prior firmware level.

 

[jsbeddow]

Yes, it's always best to do the factory reset AFTER the new firmware upgrade, not prior to. Never understood the logic that would lead to doing it before the upgrade.