N66R Running Merlin - Port Forwarding Disappearing

[faustiano]

For some reason, my N66R started to drop all of the port forwarding that I associated under WAN. Every time I add all of the port forwarding back, after several days they all disappear. I noticed that no other fields change except for the port forwarding and that the language changes to Chinese. I have tried reflashing several times, but it seems to always happen. I also turned off uPnP just in case something it trying to overwrite the other ports.

Has anyone seen this happen before? Is there any way to figure out why this is happening?

Thank you for your help

EDIT: Forgot to mention that when I save the configuration with the port forwarding, when I try to restore the image, it will not update the port forwarding. Also, I am running the latest version of the firmware: 378.53_0

 

[bbunge]

You are running out of NVRAM. There are a couple of posts about this and ways to fix it. See: http://www.snbforums.com/threads/nmp_client_list-eating-up-all-nvram-space.20491/#post-176770

 

[bbunge]

I must add that since I have switched to "John's fork" I have had zero issues with my RT-N66R! Every time I read about an update to the official firmware or the Merlin build I have to hold myself back from doing the update. Sure, I may be missing out on some features but the solid performance is what is important for me! See http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/threads/fork-update-for-374-43-available.18914/#post-134867

 

[faustiano]

Thanks bbunge,
I will try your suggestions and see if that will resolve the problem! Appreciate your quick responses.

 

[faustiano]

Well I tried out changing to John's Fork. I even set everything to default. The strange thing with this build was that when I tried to add a device to port forwarding and clicked "apply", the unit would start to do a reboot, and when it came back the language changed, and the item disappeared from the port forwarding. I tried to do the flash several times and it still did not work. Went back to v378.53_0 and the port forwarding worked as normal. I will watch again to see if the system resets over the next several days and looses the port forwarding.

 

[john9527]

Did you do a factory default reset after loading the code and reconfigure by hand?
What is the nvram usage reported on the Tools page?
Also, check all your hostnames for invalid characters (use only alphanumeric and -,_)

 

[faustiano]

Did you do a factory default reset after loading the code and reconfigure by hand?
What is the nvram usage reported on the Tools page?
Also, check all your hostnames for invalid characters (use only alphanumeric and -,_)

Yes, I did do the factory default both times after I tried reloading the firmware and reconfigured manually.

The NVRAM has been 41624/65536. I have never seen it go over 50000. So I am not sure if I am having any issues with NVRAM.

I just switched to the latest Merlin Build, and while I was able to "apply" the Port Forwarding, it only lasted for a few hours, before it reset, changed the language to Chinese, and dropped all the port forwards. What is interesting is nothing else is affected when it does this. Only the port forwarding and the switching of the Chinese language are affected. All my other changes stay the same.

My hostnames are only AlphaNumeric.

I wonder if there is something wrong with the HW that would cause it to behave this way? I was going to try to use the script to clean the NVRAM, but given that I have set to default and the NVRAM is not maxed, I am not sure if that will help.

Thank you for your help!

 

[john9527]

Sounds like you covered the bases....and that nvram use is right where it should be.

When it gets to this state, the two nvram variables that would be affected are

preferred_lang
vts_rulelist

if you login via telnet/ssh and do an nvram get, ie

nvram get preferred_lang
nvram get vts_rulelist

are they 'corrupted' or do they have good values.

 

[faustiano]

if you login via telnet/ssh and do an nvram get, ie

nvram get preferred_lang
nvram get vts_rulelist

are they 'corrupted' or do they have good values.

Hi John,
Thanks for getting back to me on this. I have verified that the variables are not corrupted:
nvram get preferred_lang = EN
nvram get vts_rulelist = (complete list of all the port forwards) Everything looks correct...

I will check my NVRAM every few hours to make sure it is not changing. Do you know if there is a way to view a log file to see if there was an NVRAM overflow?

Thank you,

 

[john9527]

Do I understand correctly....preferred_lang=EN and yet the gui is displaying in Chinese? That would be a real puzzle.

As far as nvram, if you start running low, you may see (educated guess here)

kernel: nvram: consolidating space!
logged in the syslog if it has trouble allocating space. (Note that you may also see this in normal operation, it's just like defragmenting a disk)

 

[faustiano]

Sorry John, I was not clear. I actually provided you the results after I changed the language and re-added the port forwarding. I will wait till the next crash and review those results to see if they are corrupt.

 

[faustiano]

So I decided to go back to the first firmware for the router direct from ASUS, did a factory reset, and started to upgrade the firmware (one by one). I did the upgrades for the ASUS (via the console which checks for updates), then did the upgrade to the latest Merlin. Once done I configured and it appears that it has fixed my reboot issues (so far). Fingers crossed...

 

[bishnubee]

I have the exact same problem but with a rt-n16 using 378.50.

faustiano, you reverted to latest Asus Firmware, then changed right back to Merlin's after?

I don't know if it's related but I noticed that recently I also constantly loose (at least every hour) my Internet connection (my cable modem seems to reboot).

 

[ASAT]

I don't know if it's related but I noticed that recently I also constantly loose (at least every hour) my Internet connection (my cable modem seems to reboot).

Just a guess. Try this fixes the issue?
Administration -> System -> Enable WAN down browser redirect notice = No