[Release 384/NG] Asuswrt-Merlin 384.5 is now available

[penguin22]

An observation; I posted a few pages ago about instability and periods where internet access stops working for 10-20 minutes intermittently. As noted, during this time of loss of internet, the router does not reboot, but keeps showing entering and exiting promiscuous mode.

One of my kids is away for a few days on a trip; he happens to be the only iOS and MacOSX user in our family, the rest on Windows and Android respectively. Since his trip began, we had one blip yesterday, where it had been far more frequent with Apple devices on. When he normally gets home from school, the internet was guaranteed to blip for 10-20 minutes. I'm not sure why, but it seems like the Apple devices are specifically contributing to or causing the instability for some reason.

 

[asm1]

No, because I can't know ahead of time what fixes will appear in the future - I released 384.5 a month before these new releases.

You can't compare version numbers between different branches/models, as Asus develops 382 and 384 firmwares separately - just like I developed 380 and 384 firmware separately.

The latest fixes are added by 382.50624 and 384.21045. My 384.5 firmware is based off 384_20648 and 382_50010, both of which are older. I always document in the changelog on which GPL release my firmware releases are based off.

The reason for the separate branches is because Asus develops the 382 firmwares for models without AiMesh, and 384 firmwares for those with AiMesh.

Thank you. That has cleared things up.

 

[agilani]

AC88 wireless instability

So after trying to troubleshoot the wifi issues including DHCP loops over and over in the logs... Last night both 2.4 and 5ghz were down to .2 mb/s throughput and the logs showed the same devices trying to get ip addresses over and over. The network capture however did not show this which leads me to think this is a broadcast/layer 2 issue. Lots of duplicate ack and tcp reset in the traffic capture until the ac88 was rebooted. top showed network using 100% of cpu.

I'm trying stock. First time running stock in years, looks like they now include a lot of Merlin's improvements.

 

[cowst]

After a few days with my new ac86u with latest merlin I am a bit underwhelmed by the visibly weaker signal (at least 5ghz) I get across the house compared with my previous n66u with John's fork.

So far I didn't really have a problem with it, but I might try to flash the fork here as well just to see if it's a hw or sw difference.

 

[bill1228]

no need for reboot, often have this after changing anything in WiFi settings.
for me SSH 'service restart_httpd' helps in 90%, sometimes even SSH not possible.

Thanks for the info. I figured that all that was needed was to restart the httpd service, just did not know the command. Now I do.

 

[Grisu]

After a few days with my new ac86u with latest merlin I am a bit underwhelmed by the visibly weaker signal (at least 5ghz) I get across the house compared with my previous n66u with John's fork.

So far I didn't really have a problem with it, but I might try to flash the fork here as well just to see if it's a hw or sw difference.

John got a fork for 86U ???
Would be interesting news but fake afaik, there is no old firmware with unlimited Txpower for 86U.

You will have to live with it, my 68U is ~5dB stronger in 5G compared to 86U as well ...

 

[cowst]

John got a fork for 86U ???
Would be interesting news but fake afaik, there is no old firmware with unlimited Txpower for 86U.

Oh, I might have assumed too much
No fake news, I just didn't go check

 

[zoggy]

AC88 wireless instability

So after trying to troubleshoot the wifi issues including DHCP loops over and over in the logs... Last night both 2.4 and 5ghz were down to .2 mb/s throughput and the logs showed the same devices trying to get ip addresses over and over. The network capture however did not show this which leads me to think this is a broadcast/layer 2 issue. Lots of duplicate ack and tcp reset in the traffic capture until the ac88 was rebooted. top showed network using 100% of cpu.

I'm trying stock. First time running stock in years, looks like they now include a lot of Merlin's improvements.

try flashing back to the legacy 380.70 merlin firmware to fix it in the short term -- thats what fixed the issue for me.
if you look on this forum, you will see its a 'known' problem with the included wireless driver in the 384.x releases and the next gpl merge that merlin does should* have the fix as it was reported that the newest asus stock firmware doesnt have the problem.

 

[Martronic]

With Merlin's latest ovpn implementation it's become almost to easy...

Click on Vpn ->Vpn-server tab-> Click enable OpenVPN-server and now youre done...

If you havent already set up DDNS, there is a link on the page you can choose. You also get the chance to increase the security with 2048 bit encryption if you like and decide if you like the vpn connection to give access to Lan only or Internet only or both.

If you like you can register vpn users at bottom, or just use your already registered router credentials...

Then hit apply. You will now see a Export button appear, click on it and it downloads a configurationfile to your device. Import this file in your vpn client on your device and youre good to go...

holly thats is easy... i thought that page was for setting up your OpenVPN service for your whole network as a client... sweet!

 

[kfp]

try flashing back to the legacy 380.70 merlin firmware to fix it in the short term

Well one more data point can’t hurt

@agilani could you flash latest stock and report back?

 

[Vexira]

John got a fork for 86U ???
Would be interesting news but fake afaik, there is no old firmware with unlimited Txpower for 86U.

You will have to live with it, my 68U is ~5dB stronger in 5G compared to 86U as well ...

I'm sure I read he said his n66u just for clarification purposes.

 

[agilani]

try flashing back to the legacy 380.70 merlin firmware to fix it in the short term -- thats what fixed the issue for me.
if you look on this forum, you will see its a 'known' problem with the included wireless driver in the 384.x releases and the next gpl merge that merlin does should* have the fix as it was reported that the newest asus stock firmware doesnt have the problem.

I know that the 380.70 branch of code has been stable. This has been my fourth or fifth attempt to upgrade to the new code base. So far I've had to revert back to 380.70 every time. I even replaced every asus device with new equipment to try and get everything on the new code base in case it was an incompatibility issue between the different code base. This time i decided to give stock a try before going back to 380.70

Well one more data point can’t hurt

@agilani could you flash latest stock and report back?

so far i dirty flashed stock 3.0.0.4.384_21045 and everything has been stable. only time will tell. i did loose openvpn and dyndns settings. But everything is working and stable for now. I don't see the constant dhcpdiscover, dhcprequest, and no dhcpack over and over...and for now at least i havent' seen the error message "received packet on eth2 with own address as source address"

I may play with aimesh too and replace one of my repeaters with aimesh and see what happens.

 

[carlWHAT]

i was running 380.69 for the longest of times with no problems. i run an openVPN server on the router which is crucial for me to get to that network. when i upgraded to 384.5, everything worked like a charm.... except when i connected to my RT-AC68P remotely using my openVPN client, network speeds slowed down to the point of unusable....

to summarize, when i am internal on the network, no problems. when i am external and connect via openVPN, my external host machine could not ping google and speeds within the openVPN network were abysmal. i downgraded the firmware back to 380.69, and things are working like a charm again.

 

[kfp]

when i am internal on the network, no problems. when i am external and connect via openVPN, my external host machine could not ping google and speeds within the openVPN network were abysmal. i downgraded the firmware back to 380.69, and things are working like a charm again.

Have you tried cleaning NVRAM and re-configuring?

 

[carlWHAT]

Have you tried cleaning NVRAM and re-configuring?

i have not... i'm guessing you think this is a worthy avenue to pursue?

 

[cowst]

John got a fork for 86U ???
Would be interesting news but fake afaik, there is no old firmware with unlimited Txpower for 86U.

You will have to live with it, my 68U is ~5dB stronger in 5G compared to 86U as well ...

Do you know what is ASUS reason to limit the signal strength?
They just wanted to make aimesh more needed?

 

[BuTTuS]

Should the AiProtection signature version update automatically? If so how often does it run the check? It has never updated for me except when clicking on manual check. I'm now on version 2.070 and has been for some week, (and I'm struggling not to click update, just to see if it will take care of it automatically)

 

[Grisu]

Do you know what is ASUS reason to limit the signal strength?
They just wanted to make aimesh more needed?

changed regulatory requirements for US (FCC), and so they limit it worldwide to make things easier for them.
2.4G in EU got dramatically weaker singnals than US, but more channels.
Sure they love the need of more routers

 

[BuckyBucky]

When is the next build release scheduled for ?

Have been having several issues with latest build compared to flawless usages with previous builds.

 

[joegreat]

When is the next build release scheduled for ?

It will be release when it's ready - was discussed many times and got always the same answer!