[Fork] 374.43 LTS Beta including new rev AC68U routers (V27BI)

[john9527]

Things are awfully quiet (maybe that's a good thing )

Has anyone with a 1Gb internet been able to confirm that CTF (HW Acceleration) is working?

 

[cybrnook]

Was thinking the same thing....... verrrrry quiet.

 

[jrmwvu04]

Zero problems. Already switched to 1900P full time. Everything that is different is just slightly better thanks to the big upgrade in the CPU. I'm about to switch the modem, though, so perhaps that will provide us with some fireworks.

 

[tracker.ca]

Well, if you all think this is too quiet, lets stir the pot a bit.
Yesterday I picked up a new AC66U-B1 (Hw ver B1) and jumped right into it. Booted in the miniWeb and loaded the LTS. Despite a reload of the firmware, multiple Factory resets, JFFS formatting, manual configuration, script backup/restore using v25a, etc. I can't get it to work properly.
Here is what I found so far:

1 - Router seems to boot properly but at some point the power LED turns off and never turns on again.
2 - If the router is booting from a hardware power-on, the radios turn on (and the lights are on)
3 - If the router is booting from a software reboot, the radios don't turn on (and the lights turn off after briefly turning on)

Did I completely misunderstood the compatibility of the AC66U-B1?

Tomorrow I will revert it back to the default ASUS firmware to confirm I didn't get a dud, then I will go through a regular Merlin before testing the LTS again.

Suggestions?

 

[john9527]

Did I completely misunderstood the compatibility of the AC66U-B1?

No, didn't misunderstand.....AC66U-B1 should work. Did you by chance capture a syslog?

EDIT: Are you sure you got an AC66U-B1 (has fixed antenna's, and a USB3 port on the front) and not an AC66U Rev B1?

 

[jrmwvu04]

AC66U-B1

AC66U Rev B1

I strongly doubt that they could have come up with a more confusing naming scheme with their best efforts.

 

[john9527]

I strongly doubt that they could have come up with a more confusing naming scheme with their best efforts.

Totally agree.....one alternative would have been to just continue their past convention and call it a AC66P if they didn't want to make a new model.

 

[unknownz]

Well, if you all think this is too quiet, lets stir the pot a bit.
Yesterday I picked up a new AC66U-B1 (Hw ver B1) and jumped right into it. Booted in the miniWeb and loaded the LTS. Despite a reload of the firmware, multiple Factory resets, JFFS formatting, manual configuration, script backup/restore using v25a, etc. I can't get it to work properly.
Here is what I found so far:

1 - Router seems to boot properly but at some point the power LED turns off and never turns on again.
2 - If the router is booting from a hardware power-on, the radios turn on (and the lights are on)
3 - If the router is booting from a software reboot, the radios don't turn on (and the lights turn off after briefly turning on)

Did I completely misunderstood the compatibility of the AC66U-B1?

Tomorrow I will revert it back to the default ASUS firmware to confirm I didn't get a dud, then I will go through a regular Merlin before testing the LTS again.

Suggestions?

Facing the same problem when I first got my AC68U-B1 and only firmware beyond 380.xx can be flashed successfully.

I did a check and the only difference I see is in the bootloader (CFE) version; mine is 1.1.1.2 which I seem to recall seeing someone mentioned that certain bootloader version locks the flashing of firmware.

@tracker.ca Would you be able to check what bootloader version you're running and can anyone confirm if the bootloader version does affect flashing of firmware.

 

[tracker.ca]

No, didn't misunderstand.....AC66U-B1 should work. Did you by chance capture a syslog?

EDIT: Are you sure you got an AC66U-B1 (has fixed antenna's, and a USB3 port on the front) and not an AC66U Rev B1?

Hi John,

thank you for looking into this. I sent the syslog file by personal conversation.

I am also confirming the version of the router AC66U-B1 (Hw ver B1) Manufactured in 2016 (!!!) and the bootloader is 1.1.2.0

 

[tracker.ca]

I went back to Merlin .67 and everything works as expected (I mean, the lights, radio, etc... I didn't do any in-depth testing on that as it is not the final objective of this test)
Repeated the process to install .43 LTS v27 and got the same bad results (no radios, no power LED).
This makes me sad... I had high hopes for the AC66U_B1 to be a good replacement for the AC56U.

 

[john9527]

I went back to Merlin .67 and everything works as expected (I mean, the lights, radio, etc... I didn't do any in-depth testing on that as it is not the final objective of this test)
Repeated the process to install .43 LTS v27 and got the same bad results (no radios, no power LED).
This makes me sad... I had high hopes for the AC66U_B1 to be a good replacement for the AC56U.

Don't give up yet....that's why this is a beta (thanks for trying it out!)

Can you append the results of the following commands....
nvram get odmpid
nvram get model
nvram get productid

@cybrnook or @jrmwvu04
Can you do the same for your AC1900P?

 

[tracker.ca]

Don't give up yet....that's why this is a beta (thanks for trying it out!)

Never give up, never surrender! I was just sad that didn't work out of the box like everybody else was reporting... I am happy to help!

Can you append the results of the following commands....
nvram get odmpid
nvram get model
nvram get productid

Here we go, what a mess, eh?

ASUSWRT-Merlin RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4 Sat Aug  5 22:46:24 UTC 2017
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get odmpid
RT-AC66U_B1
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get model
RT-AC68U
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get productid
RT-AC68U

 

[RMerlin]

@john9527 , I have an RT-AC66U_B1 here, if you need further testing done (just unsure how much time I'll have before the weekend to test things out).

I also have an RT-AC68U rev C1. Note that both have probably fairly early bootloaders (Asus sent them to me just before they were released), so if any new production batch has an updated bootloader, I can't test that part.

 

[john9527]

Here we go, what a mess, eh?

ASUSWRT-Merlin RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4 Sat Aug 5 22:46:24 UTC 2017
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get odmpid
RT-AC66U_B1
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get model
RT-AC68U
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get productid
RT-AC68U

Peter Quincy Taggert thanks you

Unfortunately, those values are exactly what I expected they should be.

@RMerlin - Thanks for the offer! If I come up with something, I give you a shout.
One question, do you know what functions got moved into the prebuild modules private.o and tcode.o?
(That's the only places of significance that the AC66U_B1 string shows up)

 

[cybrnook]

@cybrnook or @jrmwvu04
Can you do the same for your AC1900P?

This evening, absolutely.

 

[john9527]

@tracker.ca

I had another thought.......can you get another set of values for me?
nvram get 0:ccode
nvram get 0:regrev
nvram get 1:ccode
nvram get 1:regrev

 

[RMerlin]

One question, do you know what functions got moved into the prebuild modules private.o and tcode.o?

I don't remember the exact list (we'd have to check the first commit where private.o got added to see what function "disappeared" at the same GPL commit), but you can see them by doing a "strings private.o" on the file (among the other noise). For private.o, these would be the functions that seem to have been moved to it:

robo_ioctl_len
traffic_wanlan
check_trx
check_imagefile
check_crc
is_ac66u_v2_series

(so mostly stuff related to firmware flashing, and the traffic monitoring code that directly polls the BCM5301x - something I keep disabled anyway as it's unreliable).

For tcode:

tcode_default_get
tcode_init_nvram_list
tcode_nvram_list
tcode_add_rc_support_list
tcode_del_rc_support_list
tcode_location_list

A quick dig through git log seems to indicate that private.o was added with 380_2697, and tcode probably around GPL 380_9177.

EDIT: you can get a cleaner output by using "objdump -r file.o" too. There might be a switch to only get symbols exported by the object itself, but I don't know it.

 

[jrmwvu04]

@cybrnook or @jrmwvu04
Can you do the same for your AC1900P?

admin@RT-AC1900P:/tmp/home/root# nvram get odmpid
RT-AC1900P
admin@RT-AC1900P:/tmp/home/root# nvram get model
RT-AC68U
admin@RT-AC1900P:/tmp/home/root# nvram get productid
RT-AC68U

While I am at it...

edit: The bootloader is 2.0.0.6 as well, but I don't think I've seen any instances of anything else on this model.

 

[tracker.ca]

@tracker.ca

I had another thought.......can you get another set of values for me?
nvram get 0:ccode
nvram get 0:regrev
nvram get 1:ccode
nvram get 1:regrev

Here we go:

ASUSWRT-Merlin RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4 Sat Aug  5 22:46:24 UTC 2017
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get 0:ccode
CA
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get 0:regrev
60
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get 1:ccode
CA
admin@RT-AC66U_B1-FB90:/tmp/home/root# nvram get 1:regrev
60

 

[ColinTaylor]

Just an update to say everything is working fine on my old model RT-AC68U.

I don't have gigabit internet so I can't test that, but I did disable QoS and IPTraffic and got "Enabled (CTF + FA)". As expected Traffic Monitor graphs incorrectly show negligible data for WAN to LAN transfers, but WAN to WLAN is OK.

Wireless performance appears to be unchanged (EU model).