Dual WAN problems with watchdog - need help.

[stylish_me]

Hello again.
Unfortunately i was to fast to write that newest Merlin firmware works ok with dual WAN watchdog. In my case it doesn't work at all.

My RT-N66 is connected to internet via isp modem. And uses usb 3g modem as secondary wan.

I turned watchdog and set:
Detect Interval 5 sec
Failover Execution Time 12 times (60 sec)
Failback Execution Time 2 times (10 sec)
Enable Ping to Internet YES
Ping www.yandex.ru

I have 2 options to check if watchdog is working:
1. take primary wan cable from my router to make it think there is no primary wan
2. take line cable from my isp-modem to make router think there is no ping with yandex.ru

1. When i take primary wan cable from the router - it says Primary wan - Disconnected. Within seconds it makes Secondary wan connected and usb modem gets solid blue light saying it's 3g connected. But i get no internet access. Within 2-3 minutes router's primary wan changes itself to Connected (wan cable is still disconnected!!!) and within 2-3 minutes more primary wan becomes disconnected again and secondary wan gets connected once more and i get proper internet access via usb modem.
I don't think it's ok but i don't know where is my mistake.

2. When i try to make router think there is no ping with yandex.ru - it behaves even more strange. There are two options it can behave:
a) As soon as i disconnect my isp line from the modem (router stops getting ping with yandex.ru) - router says Primary wan-Disconnected within 2-3 seconds, without any watchdog 60 second delay and so on. Within 1-2 minutes Secondary wan turns from Disconnected - to Standby mode. And nothing happends for hours. Router is not turning secondary wan on - it stays in standby mode. I see usb modem connected to 3g but router is not using it.
b) As soon as i disconnect my isp line from the modem (router stops getting ping with yandex.ru) - router waits for 1 minute (my 60 seconds setting for watchdog), then says that primary wan is Disconnected, but secondary wan stays disconnected as well. It's not even going to Standby mode - both WANs stay disconnected.

As soon as i plug back isp's modem - i get proper internet via primary wan.

The log from last reboot is in attached files - with several attempts to make watchdog work - i'm not a pro so i don't see mistakes in it..


Any ideas?

Thanx a lot

 

[stylish_me]

No ideas? Still trying to solve this problem..

 

[mstombs]

You should check latest Asus FW

ASUS RT-N66U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.378.9459 2015/12/29

The previous update claimed

ASUS RT-N66U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.378.9383 2015/12/11
- Release Notes –
'''
- Fixed dual wan ping time watch dog issue which might cause .false fail over to secondary wan.

Latest Merlin on 380 branch might not include these changes?

 

[stylish_me]

Latest Merlin on 380 branch might not include these changes?

I'm more then sure you're right. It's one of the problems i'm experiencing right now. Thanx!

 

[Steve Horbachuk]

Couple things I noticed for dual-wan not sure if they are your problem:

I use an IP address rather than a DNS name for the ping target because my primary modem would re-direct DNS when the WAN is down to a error page. I used 8.8.8.8 which is google's public DNS (unlikely to change).

I use Google's DNS rather than the ISP because of the router querying the standby servers when the primary is still up. I reported this bug to asus

 

[stylish_me]

Couple things I noticed for dual-wan not sure if they are your problem:

I use an IP address rather than a DNS name for the ping target because my primary modem would re-direct DNS when the WAN is down to a error page. I used 8.8.8.8 which is google's public DNS (unlikely to change).

I use Google's DNS rather than the ISP because of the router querying the standby servers when the primary is still up. I reported this bug to asus

Also noticed that usb-wan is using the same dns as primary wan does. It't kinda strange and 100% wrong. And i see no place to edit it.
As for providers redirect - if internet is down - providers redirect is usually down as well.
Thanx for your reply!

 

[Steve Horbachuk]

Also noticed that usb-wan is using the same dns as primary wan does. It't kinda strange and 100% wrong. And i see no place to edit it.
As for providers redirect - if internet is down - providers redirect is usually down as well.
Thanx for your reply!

I changed it under "Connect to DNS Server automatically". What I noticed is some ISPs don't allow queries on their DNS server from outside their network. So yes 100% wrong.

In my case, the providers redirect is on the modem itself.

 

[stylish_me]

I changed it under "Connect to DNS Server automatically".

But this setting is for primary wan. My internet connection works much much better with isp's dns. So if i put google's dns - i get slower internet. As far as i understand - there is no extra dns setting for secondary wan, right?

In my case, the providers redirect is on the modem itself.

If you have modem's redirect - so for example google.com can be pinged even without internet but google's ip cannot?

@RMerlin please help with this issue. Briefly - secondary wan uses the same dns as primary. If primary is isp and secondary is usb 3g modem - people get errors because modem starts using isp's dns and isp doesn't allow it. Any option to separate primary and secondary wan dns settings? Thanx.

 

[Steve Horbachuk]

I understand it may be slower, but I would try it to see if that is the (only) issue. Does everything work correctly with googles DNS?

Yes DSL modem is in bridge mode so DNS queries are redirected. A DNS query to google.com returns 192.168.2.1 for example for the Internal redirect. Thus, 193.168.2.1 is pingable so the ping succeeds. Ping directly to 8.8.8.8 fails as it should.

 

[stylish_me]

I understand it may be slower, but I would try it to see if that is the (only) issue. Does everything work correctly with googles DNS?

Yes DSL modem is in bridge mode so DNS queries are redirected. A DNS query to google.com returns 192.168.2.1 for example for the Internal redirect. Thus, 193.168.2.1 is pingable so the ping succeeds. Ping directly to 8.8.8.8 fails as it should.

Well it's kinda strange. Today when i turn off isp's modem power - so router sees no wan cable - it turns to secondary wan without any problems. And when i power modem back - router turns back to primary wan.
So my problem is not with providers DNS for sure.

My problem is with watchdog itself that doesn't start usb modem when yandex.ru is not pingable. I have no provider's or modem's redirect - so i can ping yandex.ru for example. So it's not a problem as well.

@RMerlin please pay attention to this thread.
And one more problem - when dual wan is active - my wan script that sends emails every time wan status is changed - says that my router has the same ip as with primary wan. But it cannot be true. So router thinks it has the same ip because there is no setting for ip and dns through secondary wan and it uses settings from primary wan.

 

[merovingi0]

I have the same problem with the AC87U, found the solution?

 

[stylish_me]

No, i think it's firmware's bug

 

[merovingi0]

It works with some older version?

 

[stylish_me]

It didn't work at all with some older versions. Now at least something works - it's a great progress, but still too many bugs with dual wan.

 

[merovingi0]

 

[Robert Lord Hood]

Is there still no update to this? I'm running the latest firmware version on my n66u (4.380_7266) and the only way it detects a "fail" on the primary is if the cable is unplugged. Watch dog doesn't ping apparently at all no matter what settings/site/IP address I use. If I unplug it so it fails over and then remove the internet cord (tried on DSL and cable modems) and plug it back into the router it jumps back to primary when the modem doesn't even have internet. SO frustrating.

 

[L&LD]

With each new firmware you try, do you do a full and proper reset to factory defaults followed by a minimal and manual configuration to secure the router and connect to your ISP?

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ssid-broadcast-on-5g-band.37961/#post-312643

The links in the post above should help get you to a state where you're actually testing the firmware and not the interactions it may have with previous versions and settings.

 

[SSovets]

More or less the same problem here, on my AC57U: because I have it connected to another network (Static IP config), it doesn't pick up when the other network loses access to internet, but enabling the watchdog makes no change at all. On the contrary, if the watchdog is enabled and I unplug the WAN cable (a sure way to make the fail over switch) - the USB modem does not connect properly (but it does with the watchdog disabled). I am running the latest Merlin build (380.67), it's true that I haven't reset the settings for a while, I just can never find the time for that.

 

[stylish_me]

More or less the same problem here, on my AC57U: because I have it connected to another network (Static IP config), it doesn't pick up when the other network loses access to internet, but enabling the watchdog makes no change at all. On the contrary, if the watchdog is enabled and I unplug the WAN cable (a sure way to make the fail over switch) - the USB modem does not connect properly (but it does with the watchdog disabled). I am running the latest Merlin build (380.67), it's true that I haven't reset the settings for a while, I just can never find the time for that.

Try dual wan helper from @thelonelycoder - i think it will help you a lot!