DNS issues beyond version 384.8_2

[Starlick]

I have a RT-AC86U as my router. I have tried upgrading several times to various new versions of firmwares as they were released and just tried the latest a couple of days ago.
I have the same issue in that it causes DNS problems and I am not sure why.

As soon as I upgrade, everything works except DNS.
My router is set to a LAN IP of 10.0.0.1
All my computers etc on the network are on subnet 255.255.255.0
Most are on DHCP and have 10.0.0.1 as the gateway and dns server.

When I do a nslookup, you can see 10.0.0.1 is being used but the lookups just fail, they timeout every time.
And then all the phones attached by wifi start failing to get to sites etc etc.

If I revert back to 384.8_2 changing no settings at all, the lookups work straight away.

I dont have any dns filtering on.
I don't have any static routes, any port forwarding etc on port 53. I am really stumped on this one.
I would like to upgrade but obviously this is quite a serious problem and I am hoping someone has some ideas

Dns server 1 and 2 settings blank
Advertise router's IP in addition to user-specified DNS: Yes
Forward local domain queries to upstream DNS: No

I can see that the router has picked up the ISP"s dns servers, they are visible on the main internet status page.

Help

 

[Grisu]

upgrade to _13 and make a factory reset with initialize, power cycle and manual setup.