[Release] Asuswrt-Merlin 384.18 and 384.13_10 is now available

[--Manu--]

I already had the following error in 384.17 and now also in 384.18 (RT-AX88U).
I don't know if it has occurred before. I haven't used QoS up to these versions.


Category:
Adaptive-QoS (no third-party QoS scripts.)

Expected behavior:
Manual bandwidth values (upload / download) should be applied.

Behavior that occurs:
Entered values are not applied, regardless of which QoS type (sfq, fq_codel,..) is selected and there is no bandwidth restriction.
If you change the QoS category at random (adaptive, traditional,..) and additionally change some values and always de-/reactivate QoS , sometimes (rarely) the values are adopted for the download. Never for upload.

Parallel behavior with Stock firmware (tested with firmware releases since April):
Everything is working like expected.

Tested with:
It is noticeable in various speed tests. There is no limitation, even with minimum values of 5 Mbit entered. Likewise with dslreports regarding bufferbloat.

Full factory reset performed:
Yes, several times.
I switched vom orignal to merlin firmware several times for testing.

EDIT:
It doesn't matter whether I run the router alone, with a repeater or in a mesh.

 

[motox22a]

And since I'm retired and no longer making the big bucks I'm the guy that bought those RT-AC86u routers from the mega bucks guys like you...Around $100 a piece...
I'll use them for a couple of years and then flog them on Fleabay for around $60 to yet another lower-tier income person...A good strategy and reuse of equipment.

I found that selling your old router when a new one from ASUS comes out a good strategy. Over the last few years I went from an AC87U to an AC86U and about a year ago I switched to the AX88U. Each time I got some decent money selling them on eBay since the "old" router was still being sold by ASUS and you'll stay current.

 

[reerden]

I already had the following error in 384.17 and now also in 384.18 (RT-AX88U).
I don't know if it has occurred before. I haven't used QoS up to these versions.


Category:
Adaptive-QoS (no third-party QoS scripts.)

Expected behavior:
Manual bandwidth values (upload / download) should be applied.

Behavior that occurs:
Entered values are not applied, regardless of which QoS type (sfq, fq_codel,..) is selected and there is no bandwidth restriction.
If you change the QoS category at random (adaptive, traditional,..) and additionally change some values and always de-/reactivate QoS , sometimes (rarely) the values are adopted for the download. Never for upload.

Parallel behavior with Stock firmware (tested with firmware releases since April):
Everything is working like expected.

Tested with:
It is noticeable in various speed tests. There is no limitation, even with minimum values of 5 Mbit entered. Likewise with dslreports regarding bufferbloat.

Full factory reset performed:
Yes, several times.
I switched vom orignal to merlin firmware several times for testing.

EDIT:
It doesn't matter whether I run the router alone, with a repeater or in a mesh.

Adaptive QoS on wifi clients has been broken in the last few Asus GPL releases. At least on the AX models. You have to wait until Asus releases a fix, so Merlin can merge it into his own builds. Or use a alternative like cakeQoS.

 

[gattaca]

^^^ Yeap, waterfalling the older routers to eBay works great. I keep the boxes, packing items and manuals and clean'n up well! They tend to sell quickly and any $$ offsets the new purchases. I sold just a 56U and 66U which I think i netted $50 time ebay takes it cut and I picked up a used AC86U to play around with (and have as a backup in case I blow it up) vs my main router.

WRT the update.. since that's what this thread is for. I did a dirty upgrade from 384.17, also with AMTM fun adds, of a 1 x AC86U (Main), 2 x AC1900U (Main+AP)and 1 x AC88U (AP) this past weekend. So far I'm not hearing screams from the house so GTG. Will post if issues. As ALWAYS a big THANKS RMERLIN! Peace, stay safe out there!

 

[--Manu--]

Adaptive QoS on wifi clients has been broken in the last few Asus GPL releases. At least on the AX models. You have to wait until Asus releases a fix, so Merlin can merge it into his own builds. Or use a alternative like cakeQoS.

As I mentioned, it works fine with the original Asus firmware of the last few months.
The problem is not a client...it`s the bandwidth values which are not adopted in Adaptive QoS running merlin firmware. You can enter what you want, the values are accepted but not applied.

The first time I noticed it was 384.17. At 384.18 it is the same. Since I've only been using QoS since then, I can't say anything about previous releases.

 

[reerden]

As I mentioned, it works fine with the original Asus firmware of the last few months.
The problem is not a client...it`s the bandwidth values which are not adopted in Adaptive QoS running merlin firmware. You can enter what you want, the values are accepted but not applied.

The first time I noticed it was 384.17. At 384.18 it is the same. Since I've only been using QoS since then, I can't say anything about previous releases.

The firmware Asus released is newer than the GPL code in this release. They haven't released the codebase yet for the newer firmware versions, so Merlin cannot do anything as adaptive QoS is a closed source binary.

 

[Wishmaster1965]

Anyone missing the tools menu after dirty u/g from .17 ?

 

[JIPG]

This I agree with.

When I was looking at an asus router I knew to stay away from the AC87U based what I saw in this forum and it being based on a Quantenna chipset instead of broadcom. It always had these weird quirks which was a red flag for me.

I cannot agree at all.

I have been using my RT-AC87U from more than 5 years ago and I am totally happy with it. I have had no problems at all with the family using it 24/7, and with RMerlin firmware it has been even better (by the way, this model has a lot of dowloads of his firmware).

Anyway, I agree with grifo that I expected to have from ASUS, at least, a similar support to the older and cheaper AC68U ...

My intention is to use it until it dies ...

 

[RMerlin]

Anyway, I agree with grifo that I expected to have from ASUS, at least, a similar support to the older and cheaper AC68U ...

The RT-AC68U is in a way newer, because of the RT-AC66U_B1 that was released only a few years ago.

 

[joegreat]

I cannot agree at all.

I have been using my RT-AC87U from more than 5 years ago and I am totally happy with it. I have had no problems at all with the family using it 24/7, and with RMerlin firmware it has been even better (by the way, this model has a lot of dowloads of his firmware).

My intention is to use it until it dies ...

+1

 

[grifo]

My intention is to use it until it dies ...

The problem with that is the likelihood that in the not too distant future one of the addons will stop supporting the 87U last firmware as it'll require new or updated features from the new firmware.

 

[grifo]

What annoys me the most is that the reasons for dropping the 87U and the 3200 for Merlin users (Asus are still providing updates for their own firmware) aren't technical or due to lack of resources (I'm assuming a large corporation like Asus can afford a few man hours to come up with suitable binary blobs) but seemingly driven by wanting to push their customers who use Merlin to buy new routers.

Well, someone has got to remind them that they're already getting a tremendous deal out of this firmware and this community and perhaps they could show it more respect.

Having a community of experienced users who volunteer their time and effort to help your other customers is every product manager's wet dream. Having someone who provides major enhancements to your firmware to the point that lots of people buy your products based mostly on that and he does it for free on his spare time is off the charts of wet dreams.

Years ago I worked for a major international tech company and at an all employees meeting at our site one of their bosses mentioned how he was amazed at the users community that Apple had, in which their customers would help each other fixing lots of problems for them FOR FREE (his emphasis) and that they needed to strive to have something similar. They never managed to.

 

[Choas]

Thanks for this update, Eric!

384.18 is running here on an RT-AC68U and RT-AX58U in AIMesh mode.
After about 9 hours the 5Ghz radio stops (channel 0) working. Also in the web interface, it shows a half-green radio-beacon icon.
RT-AC68U keeps running. The routers have a wired connection and work in AP mode..
When I go back to stock ASUS on the RT-AX58U I do not observe this behavior and it keeps running nicely.

In the System Log on 384.18 for the RT-AX58U I noticed this around this moment:

Jul 8 12:42:17 kernel: dhdpcie_checkdied: console address : 0x001ECB10
Jul 8 12:42:17 kernel: Assrt not built in dongle
Jul 8 12:42:17 kernel: TRAP type 0x4 @ epc 0x18d38, cpsr 0x28000193, spsr 0x28000033, sp 0x15e040, lp 0x18e27, rpc 0x18d38
Jul 8 12:42:17 kernel: Trap offset 0x15dfe8, r0 0xa87c2d10, r1 0x448248, r2 0x448248, r3 0x1f6350, r4 0x448248, r5 0x15e884, r6 0x2222cc, r7 0x1
Jul 8 12:42:19 kernel: osl_mfree NULL
Jul 8 12:42:19 roamast: eth6: disconnect weak signal strength station [cc:c7:--:--:--:--]
Jul 8 12:42:19 roamast: eth6: remove client [cc:c7:--:--:--:--] from monitor list

This is also the last moment that eth6 (=5Ghz if) appears in the log.

I read about defective hardware in other threads, however since stock seems to be stable (but missing out on all the good stuff added by Merlin) I don't think that this is the case in my situation.

Hopefully, you have a solution.
If you need more info, please let me know.

Kind regards,
Erik

 

[teo1966]

Thanks for this update, Eric

i have rt-ac88u and 2 x rt-68u in aimesh no probleem whit openvpn
i mis still the wifi guest network on my aimesh nodes i hope that asus in the future this add

 

[L&LD]

Adaptive QoS on wifi clients has been broken in the last few Asus GPL releases. At least on the AX models. You have to wait until Asus releases a fix, so Merlin can merge it into his own builds. Or use a alternative like cakeQoS.

Seems to be working on the latest RMerlin 384.19 Alpha?

 

[Jeffrey Young]

Been running .18 now for three days. Logs are clean as whistle. No issues.

PS: I don't use anything Trend.....

 

[PDinDetroit]

On RT-AX88U with Brave browser, Wireless Log page fails to load properly with the entire left nav missing. Have cleared browser cache, but get the same result. F12 Console displays the following error:

form_style.css:1 Failed to load resource: net::ERR_TOO_MANY_RETRIES

The update from .17 to .18 was dirty flash with USB drive unmounted. The RT-AC86U's do not have this issue.

 

[gattaca]

My intention is to use it until it dies ...

Yeap, don't forget, you can always switch any ASUS into an very good access point (AP) and put that in the other end of your home to increase coverages, speeds, etc.. Then front your new shiny router to the front door. The AP is much less critical to security - even when the FW updates completely cease, that router (AP) can still keep functioning as an AP without as much risk as running as your front door router.

I waterfall these routers into AP every 4-5 years b/c the pCPUs are getting faster and better and I just do not want an unsupported / well supported router as my front door. Let the next guy down the street deal with that headache hacker. I'm still using an RT-AC1900 as one of my front doors and an newer RT-AC86U as well the driveway gate. Cheers. Peace.

Things are still going great with the upgrades!

 

[JIPG]

Yeap, don't forget, you can always switch any ASUS into an very good access point (AP) and put that in the other end of your home to increase coverages, speeds, etc.. Then front your new shiny router to the front door. The AP is much less critical to security - even when the FW updates completely cease, that router (AP) can still keep functioning as an AP without as much risk as running as your front door router.

I waterfall these routers into AP every 4-5 years b/c the pCPUs are getting faster and better and I just do not want an unsupported / well supported router as my front door. Let the next guy down the street deal with that headache hacker. I'm still using an RT-AC1900 as one of my front doors and an newer RT-AC86U as well the driveway gate. Cheers. Peace.

Things are still going great with the upgrades!

I have used this approach with several routers before (TPLINK mainly ). But my first ASUS, the RT-AC87U, is still delivering well, so I will wait a little bit more. And I have to recognize that the RMerlin FW has been another reason to keep it due to its stability (I had a lot of problems with the TPLINKs before that were never solved ...)

Which ASUS router would you recommend to substitute the RT-AC87U in terms of capabilities and size (and important parameter for me)?

 

[prosperot]

On my 86U the openVPN seems to freeze showing this message:

Initialinzing the settings of OpenVPN server now, please wait a few minutes to let the server to setup completed before VPN clients establish the connection.

This message does not go away unless I reboot my router.