[Beta 384/NG] Asuswrt-Merlin 384.5 Beta is now available

[Steven Reid]

I dont think this has anything to do with Merlin FW, my guess is Microsoft recent updates (not necessery april update). I'm experiencing "weird" connections problems with Chrome Remote and I still run 380.70 on a AC88 router, three AC88 AP's and two AC66 AP's. Worked flawless for weeks and for almost a week ago CRD started to struggle.

You could be right since I did have a windows update right around where it started. I even updated to the Insiders edition to see if it would fix it, but nothing changed.

 

[MarkRH]

Alright. Beta 2 on my RT-AC68U w/ Windows 7 Pro 64bit. I just did a factory "restore" to try and debug things with the traffic monitor. I disabled NAT acceleration. I then uploaded a 75 MB file via FTP and then downloaded the same file. Here's what the last 24 hours shows:

No way did I upload or download 4 Gigs of data.

I transferred a 2 MB file up and down and then transferred that 75 MB up and down again. Now it shows:

13.99 KB/s 50.02 KB/s 138487.52 KB/s 4,220.86 MB

0.00 KB/s 97.20 KB/s 138306.60 KB/s 8,201.34 MB

The Wired tab shows:
0.72 KB/s 1.87 KB/s 1337.38 KB/s 157.85 MB
2.93 KB/s 2.33 KB/s 2593.47 KB/s 196.94 MB

Edit:
I installed ASUS 3.0.0.4.384_20648 and the Traffic Monitor works properly. I uploaded that 75 MB file and then downloaded it twice. On the Internet Connection Tab it now shows:

So...?

 

[stuffedtiger]

I got really excited when I found out you were releasing a fix for traditional QOS Merlin. I just updated from .4 to .5-beta-2 and flipped the switch. I really want to test the new system, but while I can tell which classes are getting used there doesn't seem to be any option or chart to see which addresses are being connected to. Is there a setting I need to enable to view this?

 

[elorimer]

I dont think this has anything to do with Merlin FW, my guess is Microsoft recent updates (not necessery april update). I'm experiencing "weird" connections problems with Chrome Remote and I still run 380.70 on a AC88 router, three AC88 AP's and two AC66 AP's. Worked flawless for weeks and for almost a week ago CRD started to struggle.

Having similar problems with Chrome RDP on two chromebooks connecting to a Win7Pro machine, principally screen freezes. I also think it is unrelated to the firmware. I switched to the Microsoft RDP on the Play Store and the problems went away. You might try that if your Chromebook supports the Play Store.

I think it is just a coincidence that I also updated to B2 (full reset). Also, not Win10.

 

[RMerlin]

So...?

Make sure you reboot after disabling NAT acceleration, otherwise it will still be active.

The traffic monitoring reads its data from the network interface, which is the same closed source code as on stock firmware.

 

[RMerlin]

I got really excited when I found out you were releasing a fix for traditional QOS Merlin. I just updated from .4 to .5-beta-2 and flipped the switch. I really want to test the new system, but while I can tell which classes are getting used there doesn't seem to be any option or chart to see which addresses are being connected to. Is there a setting I need to enable to view this?

You cannot monitor classification on a per connection basis, no. You can only see what amount of traffic goes through each classes.

 

[zadigre]

You could be right since I did have a windows update right around where it started. I even updated to the Insiders edition to see if it would fix it, but nothing changed.

I had some problems too with Chrome Remote Desktop...
I've switched to RealVNC now... and it's working fine. It's even better when controlling a Mac computer from Windows Desktop (key mapping is working properly). It's free for the Cloud version up to 5 computers for personal use. And I don't have any issue using with with Merlin's firmware.

 

[AndreiV]

Beta 2 has been running for a few days now on my AC3200 and all looks good.

 

[stambeccuccio]

I just wanted to report that signature's date doesn't update.

 

[Grisu]

Why doesn't mine 68U & 86U show any signature, had seen it sometimes in the past?

And what is this signature at all, had previous some very old date on 68U as I can remember and did not update though regulary firmware-updates.

 

[vesalius]

New AC86U on B2 is not automounting USB 3.0 flash drive on reboot. Unplug and replug and all works as expected. Had no real prior settings on the router as went straight from shipped stock to this Beta. All else is fine in my implementation.

 

[unsynaps]

Why doesn't mine 68U & 86U show any signature, had seen it sometimes in the past?

And what is this signature at all, had previous some very old date on 68U as I can remember and did not update though regulary firmware-updates.

View attachment 12939

It only shows up if you have QoS stuffs enabled.

 

[stambeccuccio]

It only shows up if you have QoS stuffs enabled.

No. It shows if you have AiProtection enabled. It is related to the AiProtection's version.

 

[Grisu]

No. It shows if you have AiProtection enabled. It is related to the AiProtection's version.

Thanks for answering, but I never had it enabled, neither Aiprotection nor QoS or anything else related to it, no Trendmicro not even Airtimefairness.
Though I know that I have seen it time ago on 68U as I've been courious that it never updated on mine despite on others who reported newer versions.
Maybe it was on DSL-AC68U I had before and not RT.
Or it disappears in AP-mode I use at the moment.

Nevermind ... dont miss anything!

 

[MarkRH]

Make sure you reboot after disabling NAT acceleration, otherwise it will still be active.

The traffic monitoring reads its data from the network interface, which is the same closed source code as on stock firmware.

Alright, I reinstalled the beta2 firmware and then clicked the Reboot button in the UI. HW Acceleration remained disabled the whole time. Using all the same settings I was using with the stock firmware.

After Reboot, the 24Hour Internet Connection (WAN) shows:

0.00 KB/s 0.03 KB/s 5.91 KB/s 2,414.08 KB
0.00 KB/s 0.00 KB/s 0.10 KB/s 10.26 KB

Transferred a 76 MB file up and then downloaded it twice via FTP. After doing this, 24hour Internet Connection (WAN) shows:

1826.39 KB/s 50.21 KB/s 139316.44 KB/s 4,236.77 MB
0.00 KB/s 48.26 KB/s 136445.72 KB/s 4,072.24 MB

Note: my ISP is 150(down)/10(up) Mbps. So either the Traffic Monitoring code isn't actually the same between the stock firmware ( RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4_384_20648-g21e3702.trx ) and yours or the code communicating with it is doing something different or interpreting data wrong.

I doubt this would impact it, but I did notice the following concerning the USB stick where I store the traffic data. Would this impact it any? It seems to read and write the data on there fine.

May 10 14:10:12 kernel: tfat info: FAT32 volume name 'KINGSTON', version 0.0.
May 10 14:10:12 kernel: tfat warning (device sda1, pid 711): fat_fill_super(): FAT volume KINGSTON is dirty. You should unmount and repair it.
May 10 14:10:12 hotplug[681]: USB vfat fs at /dev/sda1 mounted on /tmp/mnt/KINGSTON
May 10 14:10:12 usb: USB vfat fs at /dev/sda1 mounted on /tmp/mnt/KINGSTON.

Edit:
I changed the traffic to be stored in RAM, transferred files and the data in the 24hour looked like it should. So, I went the Network Map and click the USB Drive and did a Health Scan which cleared the dirty flag.

Scan results:
fatfsck 3014.9.11
Checking boot region...
Checking fsinfo region...
Checking FAT tables...
Checking root directory...
Checking directory structure and allocations...
Checking FAT table allocation...
Using 23/243972 clusters.
Clearing dirty flag...
Repair finished with no repaired inconsistencies.
File system is clean.

I then changed the traffic to be stored back on the USB drive in the same place. I transferred some files and the Traffic Monitor is showing correct values still.

So, perhaps a file system problem on the USB drive was causing it to read/store values incorrectly or changing it to RAM and back set some value somewhere that wasn't? We'll see how it keepa behaving.

 

[RMerlin]

No. It shows if you have AiProtection enabled. It is related to the AiProtection's version.

Both. Those signatures are also used to identify traffic type for QoS.

 

[Mojolacerator]

Beta2 on AC86U, the day the image was posted. All good. Zero issues.

Tx very much, RMerlin!

 

[Deleted member 48827]

So, perhaps a file system problem on the USB drive was causing it to read/store values incorrectly or changing it to RAM and back set some value somewhere that wasn't? We'll see how it keepa behaving.

The same traffic monitoring bug you reported has been driving me crazy with my RT-AC56U running 384.5_beta2. Thanks for figuring out that it's linked to writing traffic monitoring data to a USB stick. Changing to RAM seems to have fixed the problem for me too. Reformatted my USB stick and will again try saving traffic monitoring data to USB stick to see if problem returns.

 

[MarkRH]

The same traffic monitoring bug you reported has been driving me crazy with my RT-AC56U running 384.5_beta2. Thanks for figuring out that it's linked to writing traffic monitoring data to a USB stick. Changing to RAM seems to have fixed the problem for me too. Reformatted my USB stick and will again try saving traffic monitoring data to USB stick to see if problem returns.

Yeah, there's another weird thing I'm seeing while watching Twitch.. the router registers a massive upload spike every 90 minutes or so; however, the Network properties on the PC do not register this data transfer. I changed the Traffic Monitor back to RAM and will see what it does over the rest of the night.

Edit: Same thing happens when saving to RAM. Now testing with the stock firmware. Not that it matters, but I'm watching https://www.twitch.tv/burkeblack

It looks like this:

Edit 2: Going almost 4 hours with the stock Asus firmware and no upload spikes while watching Twitch. This is a weird one.

 

[stuffedtiger]

I did some testing of the traditional QOS. A few observations:

• I had no rules for Highest class yet there seemed to always be something using that class (possibly the router? can programs themselves escalate packets?)
• I tested some games and game libraries at High class and they seemed to be classified properly.
• Using the default rules for HTTP(S)/File Transfer, downloads seemed to fall into the Low class even though I had File Transfer set to Lowest.
• I assumed speed tests would be classified as File Transfer and therefor be dumped into the Low class (see previous point) but they were all over the map. One seemed to fall into multiple classes (Highest/Low/Lowest).
• At one point I removed all of the port rules and set all connected devices to High. While watching a Twitch stream, there was significant activity in Highest/High/Low but a YouTube stream placed all the activity in Low.

Quite a bit was stuffed into the Highest and Low classes for whatever reason; I understand Low is the "default" class. I have no VOIP to test, except for Discord which I didn't test because the port range for voice connections is enormous (read: 15,000+ ports). Food for thought, it would be much easier to test this system with a chart that listed Class/Port/Address.