Beta Asuswrt-Merlin 388.1 Beta is available for select models

[RMerlin]

So for now I'll keep BW Monitor and AIProtection enabled and wait for a fix to come down the pipeline as having that layer of security is important to me.

I'm discussing a possible workaround with Asus, I'm hoping to get a test firmware for you later this week to test.

Does this indicate a bigger problem?

I don't know. All I know is that when the firewall is restarted, the DNS redirections for WG clients aren't properly reapplied in beta 1. This is what was fixed for beta 2, all DNS redirections get reapplied every time the firewall is restarted.

Any chance you know about it maybe?

There's been similar reports for years regarding networkmap. Outside of my control.

WifiRadar pages don't appear to be updated to handle displaying the 6ghz band correctly. Is this a known issue?

WiFi Radar is developed by Broadcom (that's why it has such a weird web interface), and for some reason they never updated it since the initial release a few years ago. Any update there would have to be done by them, and they don't seem to care about it. I suspect it's provided more as a sample application than an actual "official" feature of the SDK.

I might eventually give up on it if they don't do something about it, and switch back to my original scanner interface.

This issue was introduced for me in 388.1_beta1. (I did not try the Alpha)

I remember some users were complaining about being unable to reach anywhere close to 10 Gbps throughput back in the 386 days, so I suspect that acceleration implementation is new to 388.

 

[RMerlin]

@Lax @blackfireball5

Please try this test build which should disable the code portion that causes the crashes.

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To test, first make sure to disable any Trend Micro feature that might be enabled (AiProtection, Bandwidth Monitor, etc...)

Next, enable only AiProtection. Then see if the router stays stable.

 

[hash70]

I installed the beta on my 2x-ax86u but had to then flash bck to official as my second rt-ax86u in aimesh wasn't recognised

 

[blackfireball5]

Please try this test build which should disable the code portion that causes the crashes.

This looks to have resolved the bootlooping. AIProtection enabled without Bandwidth Monitor. No crashing.

 

[blackfireball5]

@RMerlin I ran this command:

cat /proc/net/biqos

And it returned 1. Which means it is bypassed.

Should it be?

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin I ran this command:

cat /proc/net/biqos

And it returned 1. Which means it is bypassed.

Should it be?

Yes. The crash was occurring when it wasn't being bypassed. The temporary fix from Asus will now always bypass it.

Thanks for confirming the test results.

 

[Slapdaddy]

Yes. The crash was occurring when it wasn't being bypassed. The temporary fix from Asus will now always bypass it.

Thanks for confirming the test results.

So the temporary fix is for the bwdpi engine not to use hardware acceleration thereby causing the ports to not achieve their full speed? I take it this code was an addition to the 388 gpl that was not in 386? I'd rather that than continuous bootlooping, but did the Asus engineers mention anything about a permanent fix allowing the bwdpi engine to use the flow cache? Still getting 2300 Mbps even when bypassed is still pretty solid performance though.

 

[gryphonmyers]

Hello I just installed 388.1_beta1_rog on my GT-AX6000 last night. Seems to be working well overall (I went straight to merlin so don't know how it compares to stock).

I have noticed one issue: if I attempt to add manual IP assignments on the Advanced_DHCP_Content.asp page, after entering the info and clicking apply, it says it is loading for a sec, then afterwards my IP assignment disappears. Despite trying all sorts of different configurations, I can't get it to persist any changes to this field. This is with "Enable Manual Assignment" directly above set to "yes."

Is there a chance this is an issue with the beta and I should install the non-beta version to see this feature working?

 

[skeal]

Hello I just installed 388.1_beta1_rog on my GT-AX6000 last night. Seems to be working well overall (I went straight to merlin so don't know how it compares to stock).

I have noticed one issue: if I attempt to add manual IP assignments on the Advanced_DHCP_Content.asp page, after entering the info and clicking apply, it says it is loading for a sec, then afterwards my IP assignment disappears. Despite trying all sorts of different configurations, I can't get it to persist any changes to this field. This is with "Enable Manual Assignment" directly above set to "yes."

Is there a chance this is an issue with the beta and I should install the non-beta version to see this feature working?

Have you tried a reset to defaults and then hand configure the settings from screenshots? This works well. You can keep a copy of your JFFS to import, it contains manual DHCP IP settings backup. It rarely causes problems.

 

[hancox]

So the temporary fix is for the bwdpi engine not to use hardware acceleration thereby causing the ports to not achieve their full speed? I take it this code was an addition to the 388 gpl that was not in 386? I'd rather that than continuous bootlooping, but did the Asus engineers mention anything about a permanent fix allowing the bwdpi engine to use the flow cache? Still getting 2300 Mbps even when bypassed is still pretty solid performance though.

What is it with Asus and flow cache these days? QoS on the AX86U's has been broken, possibly since inception, and the only fix is to disable fc.

@Kingp1n seems to be hinting at improvement on the 388.1 GPL version, so who knows?

 

[hancox]

I installed the beta on my 2x-ax86u but had to then flash bck to official as my second rt-ax86u in aimesh wasn't recognised

Try stock FW on the node. Fixed this for me.

 

[Aarlin303]

Works great for me on GT-AXE11000. Thanks Merlin!

 

[Eric Lieb]

Running this on a AX86S and working well excpet I dont see it automatically scanning WIFI when I set wifi channel to auto.

Seeing this error

Nov 9 09:27:05 RT-AX86S-5820 networkmap: Error locking /var/lock//usr/networkmap/nmp_conv_type.js.lock: 2 No such file or directory
Nov 9 09:27:05 RT-AX86S-5820 networkmap: Error unlocking -1: 9 Bad file descriptor
Nov 9 09:27:05 RT-AX86S-5820 networkmap: Error locking /var/lock//usr/networkmap/nmp_vendor_type.js.lock: 2 No such file or directory
Nov 9 09:27:05 RT-AX86S-5820 networkmap: Error unlocking -1: 9 Bad file descriptor
Nov 9 09:27:05 RT-AX86S-5820 networkmap: Error locking /var/lock//usr/networkmap/nmp_bwdpi_type.js.lock: 2 No such file or directory
Nov 9 09:27:05 RT-AX86S-5820 networkmap: Error unlocking -1: 9 Bad file descriptor

 

[RMerlin]

did the Asus engineers mention anything about a permanent fix allowing the bwdpi engine to use the flow cache?

They do have a newer engine in hands but haven't had time to fully test it yet. Not sure if it will fully re-enable the acceleration capabilities or not.

 

[TheOldMan]

I was hesitant for a few days with upgrading my AX88U, but I took the plunge and everything seems good so far. I can finally put away my Pi devices and use WireGuard from the router. Thank you RMerlin!


Your client list is setting off my OCD lol

 

[Lax]

Yes. The crash was occurring when it wasn't being bypassed. The temporary fix from Asus will now always bypass it.

Thanks for confirming the test results.

I also confirmed that there is no more crash, unfortunately this new beta2 build has the legacy GUI look instead of the ROG theme. How can we get this back?
Thanks for your quick fix

 

[RMerlin]

How can we get this back?

The UI has to be decided at firmware compile time. This is just a test snapshot, so I didn't want to compile two separate firmware just to test a fix. You will have to wait for the beta 2 release that will provide both versions.

 

[Sonyrolfy]

WiFi Radar is developed by Broadcom (that's why it has such a weird web interface), and for some reason they never updated it since the initial release a few years ago. Any update there would have to be done by them, and they don't seem to care about it. I suspect it's provided more as a sample application than an actual "official" feature of the SDK.

I might eventually give up on it if they don't do something about it, and switch back to my original scanner interface.

Oh yes please do. I never saw your scanner interface but it must be good.

 

[RMerlin]

Oh yes please do. I never saw your scanner interface but it must be good.

Not really, it`s just the interface Asus uses when pairing a Repeater that I made available as a standalone page. So nothing fancy really.

 

[capncybo]

Not really, it`s just the interface Asus uses when pairing a Repeater that I made available as a standalone page. So nothing fancy really.

@RMerlin Always so humble...
IMO the Broadcom WiFi interface looks so darn outta-place & is totally inconsistent with most of the Web-GUI.
But even worse... it's not very intuitive to use.
Feel free to replace it