N66U port forwarding weirdness

[Chris313AllNight]

For the past years, I've used port forwarding in my gaming life Xbox Live and GTA Online in particular. It's worked flawlessly, open Nat, nothing going wrong. Then about two days ago, I got a FW update on my modem, along with a updated speed tier. However unlikely, could that have affected my router somehow?

Since that time, I've noticed my Xbox has a moderate NAT. I went in my router and noticed all my port forwarding stuff is gone. Also, I went to put it back in and hit apply and it just disappears, like I put nothing in at all. I've re-enabled UPNP and it gives me an open NAT, but in the past it hasn't done much of anything to help, with port forwarding doing much better

Is my Merlin install going bad and I need to reinstall it?
Is my router itself going bad and I need a new one? I bought this N66U in april of 2013.
Am I just bonkers and are doing something wrong?

What do ya'll think?

Btw: I use a Netgear CM1000 modem and a N66U for the router. No gateways here.

 

[ColinTaylor]

If you haven't made any changes to the router (firmware updates, etc.) and it's just lost it's settings by itself, and when you "apply" settings they don't save, that suggests the router is failing.

Not untypical for that model of router because of it's age. Some people have breathed extra life into their N66U's by replacing the power adapter. They tend to be cheaply made and fail much sooner than the router itself.

 

[john9527]

Also check the nvram utilization on the Tools>Sysinfo page. If nvram starts getting full (say approaching 95% utilized), it seems that port forwards start getting lost.

 

[Chris313AllNight]

Also check the nvram utilization on the Tools>Sysinfo page. If nvram starts getting full (say approaching 95% utilized), it seems that port forwards start getting lost.

The page noted this:

NVRAM usage 65547 / 65536 bytes
JFFS 0.61 / 8.00 MB

 

[Chris313AllNight]

If you haven't made any changes to the router (firmware updates, etc.) and it's just lost it's settings by itself, and when you "apply" settings they don't save, that suggests the router is failing.

Not untypical for that model of router because of it's age. Some people have breathed extra life into their N66U's by replacing the power adapter. They tend to be cheaply made and fail much sooner than the router itself.

Yeah, I wondered if the unit was failing. If it's concluded it is failing, I do have a replacement in mind. But, wow. Still, since the day I got the N66U, it's run 24/7 for the past 4 years. Still, this model has served me very well for the time I did have it if I do indeed have to replace it.

I've not touched any settings on my router for the past 6-12 months. Then 2 days ago, my issue began.

 

[john9527]

The page noted this:

NVRAM usage 65547 / 65536 bytes

That's the problem.....you are over 100% utilized. Time to factory reset and reconfigure.
Or if you want to try work through it manually, there are some posts you can find that detail some methods on freeing nvram space.

 

[Chris313AllNight]

That's the problem.....you are over 100% utilized. Time to factory reset and reconfigure.
Or if you want to try work through it manually, there are some posts you can find that detail some methods on freeing nvram space.

No, I can wipe it out and redo. I'll report back later and we'll go from there. Thanks.

 

[Chris313AllNight]

That's the problem.....you are over 100% utilized. Time to factory reset and reconfigure.
Or if you want to try work through it manually, there are some posts you can find that detail some methods on freeing nvram space.

Came back from resetting to factory and all is well. I freed up 21097 worth of NVRAM in the reset. My port forwards are all where they belong and everything is working as it should be again. My gaming life thanks you. UPNP may say it works, but port forwarding will beat it every time.

With how the NVRAM filled up like that, how did that happen?