Having been using an RT-AC66U for several years without issue, last weekend the USB drive seemed to fail... this was the push for me to finally upgrade, so I bought myself an RT-AC86U along with a new USB3 Sandisk Ultra Flair drive...
The first thing I did was to upgrade straight to 384.7.2, and start setting things up based on the configuration on my existing router. The only configuration that was actually imported was my list of manually assigned IP addresses.
After getting everything set up, there were a few niggling issues, but most of these are now resolved. I've read through the whole thread this morning, and of my three main issues left, one has already been mentioned (devices showing as MAC address rather than name) as being an Asus problem. And my issue with getting the PIA VPN client working is probably just my setup rather than anything inherent with the firmware
Which leaves us with my biggest problem... As I have come straight from stock I don't know if this is a 384.7.2 issue, or something I've screwed up with my configuration, but I've played around with settings and cannot find anything to fit it myself!
I have a WHS server sharing folders using SMB, and my laptop mounts these on boot up. However, half the time I boot they're not available, and I cannot mount them manually. It's not just an SMB issue, as I cannot connect to the web services running on the same PC, although I can connect to the AC86U. If I disable/reenable wifi, I can then mount the shares and connect to the web services. There are no issues for devices connecting to the server over ethernet (not via AC86U).
After a few minutes of being connected, I get a pop-up on my laptop telling me that the server has disconnected. If I wait long enough, the server becomes accessible again, but nothing shows up in the system logs (default log settings) so I am at a loss as to what it caused the issue. Alternatively, I can restart wifi and everything becomes accessible immediately.
I'm hugely confused!
I thought it might have been down to the dual band smart connect, so I disabled it, but still have the problem. I encounter the same issue with my phone; so it's not purely a laptop issue. Funnily enough, I can connect to the web services via my DDNS address at the same time as being unable to connect via the direct IP address.
Does anyone have any thoughts / suggestions as to how to track this down?