Intermittent Time Machine Problem - Merlin 378.56_2

[Anthony Tyrell]

Hi,

I have a slightly intermittent issue with Time Machine using Merlin firmware 378.56_2. I am using an Asus AC68U with a 1TB USB drive plugged into the USB3.0 port.

The problems seemed to have begun when I extended my WiFi reach with another AC68U plugged in to the main router and configured as an Access Point (AP). Ever since, there appears to be a problem whenever one of the devices get rebooted and my Mac then gets confused and Time Machine starts to fail.

I begins with the error that the Time Machine backups have failed a consistency check and a new backup is needed. Then I spend the next few days constantly rebooting both router & AP and retrying Time Machine until finally it latches on to the disk properly and then its fine again. That is, until the next time there is a need to reboot something which is, unfortunately, I more regular occurrence at the minute due to Virgin carrying out lots of maintenance/upgrading work in the area of late causing modem hangs and router issues. I've tried Wifi and hard connecting my Mac but neither seem to make much difference.

Hoping that someone may have come across this before ? As you can see, I'm running the latest Merlin firmware so an upgrade can't help unless there is active work to fix this problem?

I've had a read around the forums as well as google in general but nothing is jumping out at me.

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.


Thanks.

 

[tomislav]

I had the the exact same problems. Came from a AirPort Extreme where everything worked perfectly, to failed consistency checks and errors on the Asus router. I tired everything I could think of, even switching from HFS+ to ext4, but in the end gave up and bought a small Synology NAS for Time Machine and storage. There is works perfectly again, and it's also running Linux and ext4.

 

[Jerry12]

I hit this problem again today, on Merlin 378.56_2 on ASUS RT-AC3200. I'm about ready to give up on ASUS Time Machine. (Any Synology recommendations for home use?)

Are these problems fixable by custom server configuration?

In case it helps, here are (heavily de-duped) log messages. The "OOM" and "Cannot allocate memory" errors are the scariest. The router is not running any extra software, and many of its features are turned off because I don't need them and/or forum reports suggest they aren't reliable: FTP, Samba, Traffic Analyzer, Beamforming, Smart Connect, DLNA server, Download Master, & iTunes server.

Jan 15 19:14:08 afpd[22207]: dsi_init_buffer: OOM

Jan 15 19:41:20 afpd[21468]: ad_valid_header_osx("/tmp/mnt/b1/.___var.txt"): not an adoublesx file

Jan 15 19:48:08 afpd[21468]: read: Connection timed out
Jan 15 19:48:08 afpd[21468]: dsi_stream_read: len:-1, Connection timed out
Jan 15 19:48:08 afpd[21468]: dsi_disconnect: entering disconnected state
Jan 15 19:48:08 afpd[21468]: Disconnected session terminating

Jan 15 20:47:18 afpd[31855]: bad function 7A
Jan 15 20:47:25 afpd[31855]: afp_disconnect: trying primary reconnect
Jan 15 20:47:25 afpd[6235]: Reconnect: no child[21468]
Jan 15 20:47:30 afpd[31855]: afp_disconnect: primary reconnect failed
Jan 15 20:47:31 afpd[31855]: dsi_stream_read: len:0, unexpected EOF
Jan 15 20:47:31 afpd[31855]: afp_over_dsi: failed reconnect

Jan 15 23:44:13 cnid_dbd[17797]: Couldn't open extension maping file /usr/etc/extmap.conf
Jan 15 23:44:13 cnid_dbd[17797]: Couldn't load extension -> type/creator mappings file "/usr/etc/extmap.conf"

Jan 16 03:55:35 afpd[11304]: dsi_stream_write: Broken pipe

Jan 16 15:36:33 afpd[18600]: of_alloc: malloc: Cannot allocate memory

Jan 16 15:37:06 afpd[18600]: Conversion failed (CH_UCS2 to UCS-2):Cannot allocate memory
Jan 16 15:37:06 afpd[18600]: dir_new(did: 55292) {3a35, 3a35}: couldn't set UCS2 name

Jan 16 15:48:54 afpd[19953]: afp_zzz: entering extended sleep​