[Release] Asuswrt-Merlin 380.65 is now available

[bluepoint]

Several people have including me . . . honestly not sure how ASUS tests their releases.

You guys needs to follow up, reporting it is not enough. Many reporting it the better describing the problem step by step so they can recreate the problem that will hekp them solve the problem quickly.

 

[abwyatt]

Hi Merlin

Always appreciate the work you do to introduce new features.

However, could you spare a thought for us poor AC3200 owners who are on the NVRAM critical edge when you introduce new features? I am not sure if the new firmware checking and NVRAM monitoring feature themselves eat into NVRAM, but I've noticed a jump of roughly 500 bytes of additional NVRAM usage between 380.64 and 380.65. Not much, but significant when one is running on the edge. Is there a way to provide options to turn off new features or would that also eat into NVRAM?

I've turned off most features I am willing to sacrifice, even the second 5 GHz band. Not sure how much I would gain with a factory reset, but resisting that route as I have a huge list of IP assignments and port forwards to re-establish.

 

[bradbort]

You guys needs to follow up, reporting it is not enough. Many reporting it the better describing the problem step by step so they can recreate the problem that will hekp them solve the problem quickly.

Have you ever tried to report a problem to ASUS. It's pretty much like throwing your words into a blackhole. I could find no way to do it in writing (when I did, it went to a totally different division, who instructed me to call), so I called, and got a chipper person who took cursory notes. There is no way to "follow up" or even give real detail.

 

[Beherit]

Have you ever tried to report a problem to ASUS. It's pretty much like throwing your words into a blackhole.

I second that. And it's been the same, shirtty customer service since I first contacted them back in 2003 or 2004 about a motherboard.

The procedure is no different whether it's a motherboard, laptop, tablet or router: First you get an auto-reply that your inquiry will be answered within x number of days. Then, if your question is deemed "too" technical for first-line support, you get a cc with your inquiry forwarded to their R&D department. More often than not with a somewhat humorous message in bloken Engrish, "Wong, please Answer To Customer". A few days later, you get to know that either A) they are working on it. B) it's supposed to be that way. C) yes, it's a bug but they're going to do f**k all about it.

(note: I've not made another attempt since 2013, but as i understand from others, not much has changed since)

 

[bluepoint]

Have you ever tried to report a problem to ASUS. It's pretty much like throwing your words into a blackhole. I could find no way to do it in writing (when I did, it went to a totally different division, who instructed me to call), so I called, and got a chipper person who took cursory notes. There is no way to "follow up" or even give real detail.

Yes, for US & Canada support go to https://cms-am.asus.com/ecp/c55r.html and fill up the "esupport case submittal" form to report the products problem. Describe your problem in a concise description and attach files. Once you've submitted the form it will auto generate a case. Take note of that case number and refer to it for your follow ups.
In addition, you can open a thread of your problem getting the attention of ASUS in their Official Forum here @snb.
https://www.snbforums.com/forums/asuswrt-official.51/

 

[Zirescu]

Hi Merlin

Always appreciate the work you do to introduce new features.

However, could you spare a thought for us poor AC3200 owners who are on the NVRAM critical edge when you introduce new features? I am not sure if the new firmware checking and NVRAM monitoring feature themselves eat into NVRAM, but I've noticed a jump of roughly 500 bytes of additional NVRAM usage between 380.64 and 380.65. Not much, but significant when one is running on the edge. Is there a way to provide options to turn off new features or would that also eat into NVRAM?

I've turned off most features I am willing to sacrifice, even the second 5 GHz band. Not sure how much I would gain with a factory reset, but resisting that route as I have a huge list of IP assignments and port forwards to re-establish.

If you're adding the IP addresses manually to the UI you could do it via the command line and custom configs instead and then use the dnsmasq.conf.add. Some additional info is available here for backing up your current list to a file: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/backup-manual-dhcp-list.12876/page-2

dnsmasq.conf setup example
dnsmasq.conf.add goes under /jffs/configs/

# dnsmasq.conf.add
# DHCP Static Leases
dhcp-hostsfile=/jffs/etc/dnsmasq/static_leases

static_leases would be stored under /jffs/etc/dnsmasq/

 08:60:6E:EA:XX:XX,RT-N66U,192.168.2.2,infinite
20:C9:D0:96:XX:XX,MACMINI-WIFI,192.168.2.100,infinite    
A8:20:66:31:XX:XX,MACMINI-LAN,192.168.2.101,infinite

 

[bmn1]

TOR stopped working all together for some reason. Please fix!. Thanks for all your hard work Merlin!

 

[RMerlin]

However, could you spare a thought for us poor AC3200 owners who are on the NVRAM critical edge when you introduce new features?

Nothing I can do about it. The RT-AC3200 has an extra radio that takes a lot of nvram, and Asus/Broadcom didn't see it fit to increase the available nvram.

The use increase comes from a lot of different sources, including new settings added by Asus, and temporary storage. I already regularly refuse to add new settings for features that would only get used by a very small number of users, I can't make the amount of available nvram increase. This is simply a limitation of this specific model.

 

[RMerlin]

The only way I could save some nvram is to do what Asus does with their entry level models, and reduce the number of supported OpenVPN clients from 5 to 2. This would however require a lot of work, something I'm not willing to put into at this point just for that one single model which I'm not sure I will be supporting for a long time. This is basically the RT-N16 situation all over again.

If someone wants to do the work of providing a pull request to make the number of supported clients configurable on a per-model basis, I'm open to merging it. Otherwise, I don't intend to devote hours of work on this, sorry.

 

[fanix]

@RMerlin
Can you please advise on which version of the original ASUS firmware your 380.65 build is build on?

I dont see a 380.65 firmware source build on their page: https://www.asus.com/uk/support/Download/11/2/0/103/svItyTHFccLwnprr/8/

Thanks, would greatly appreciate it

 

[eddiez]

@RMerlin
Can you please advise on which version of the original ASUS firmware your 380.65 build is build on?

I dont see a 380.65 firmware source build on their page: https://www.asus.com/uk/support/Download/11/2/0/103/svItyTHFccLwnprr/8/

Thanks, would greatly appreciate it

You could try reading the txt files included in the download...

 

[Makaveli]

Y could try reading the txt files included in the download...

Or reading the first post on page 1.

 

[fanix]

Can you please advise on which version of the original ASUS firmware your 380.65 build is build on?

I dont see a 380.65 firmware source build on their page: https://www.asus.com/uk/support/Download/11/2/0/103/svItyTHFccLwnprr/8/

Thanks, would greatly appreciate it

You could try reading the txt files included in the download...

Well the readme says Asus GPL 380_4180. but 380.4180 is for the AC66U model. So I'm curious to know if you were hypothetically to rebase your custom build on top of an original asus firmware, which version of their firmware would it be? What im trying to accomplish is compare your build against the original asus one if that makes sense.

 

[Makaveli]

Well the readme says Asus GPL 380_4180. but 380.4180 is for the AC66U model. So I'm curious to know if you were hypothetically to rebase your custom build on top of an original asus firmware, which version of their firmware would it be? What im trying to accomplish is compare your build against the original asus one if that makes sense.

This is from page 1

"portions of Asus's 380_4180 GPL were merged"

So the rest of it that wasn't merge would be from the previous GPL that 64_2 was using?

 

[hggomes]

380.3831

http://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/changelog

 

[tc0566]

First of all a big thanks to RMerlin! I've been a long time user of your router firmware. But sadly this latest update has caused some problems by breaking my Tor vpn. A downgrade to 380.64 would not fix Tor. The only way I could fix was by forcing a corrupt firmware and thereby putting the router into recovery mode so that I could restore the very first firmware by RMerlin and then upgraded to 378.52. At this point it works and I'm afraid to go to newer firmware.

 

[psychbiz]

RT-AC66U
Same problem with DLNA that others report after flashing 380.65 final (without factory reset). Was working fine until I tried the experiment and added a file to my music folder with samba. Then, like others, no more DLNA server found by Skifta, and also, http://192.168.50.1:8200 not accessible when enabled. All works OK after reboot/restart until any further files added to music folder which recreates the problem. Have never had this problem with earlier versions. Just adding my user experience to others to confirm there is a problem with minidlna that wasn't in earlier versions.

 

[snorryhobo]

how come the Merlin firmware is missing features ? my rt-ac56u doesnt have a firewall tab or traffic manager/qos, even the original firmware had this

 

[RMerlin]

how come the Merlin firmware is missing features ? my rt-ac56u doesnt have a firewall tab or traffic manager/qos, even the original firmware had this

That's because you're not in Router mode.

 

[snorryhobo]

oh yeah that's right i'm running in AP mode , man do i feel stupid right now.