RT-AC68 - New firmware 3.0.0.4.376_3602 (AVOID)

[jonstatt]

I am truly horrified.

Asus have released a firmware that totally decimates my 5GHz WiFi. I am based in the UK. Firstly, the DFS support has disappeared (even after a full factory reset). The only frequencies are 36,40,44 and 48. Even if I change the channel to 48, it is still stuck on 36. And not only that, buy my link to my second RT-AC68U in media bridge mode has dropped to 117Mbits (I am not kidding) from 877Mbits.

WTF Asus?!

 

[jonstatt]

I am truly horrified.

Asus have released a firmware that totally decimates my 5GHz WiFi. I am based in the UK. Firstly, the DFS support has disappeared (even after a full factory reset). The only frequencies are 36,40,44 and 48. Even if I change the channel to 48, it is still stuck on 36. And not only that, buy my link to my second RT-AC68U in media bridge mode has dropped to 117Mbits (I am not kidding) from 877Mbits.

WTF Asus?!

Hmm..it gets worse. After reverting back to the older firmware, the channels have still not returned despite doing a factory reset again.

 

[IAAI]

Hmm..it gets worse. After reverting back to the older firmware, the channels have still not returned despite doing a factory reset again.

Wow . Have you tried the hard reset ?

 

[IAAI]

Changes
ASUS RT-AC68U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.376.3602
Network map new features:
- Click the lock icon in client profile to assign fixed IP for client.
- Added number on client icon to show how many clients connect to repeater and AP under router
- Added the DHCP and static IP identification.
Known issue. If the IP is fixed in client side, Network map would show DHCP.

Security
- Upgraded OpenSSL library to 1.0.0o

Bug fixes
3G/LTE
- Fixed HUAWEI E180, E261, E1750, E1780, EC122, EC1260, EC1261, EC150, EC167, ET128, compatibility issue.
- Fixed ZTE MU251, T A356, AC580, AC590 compatibility issue.
- Fixed BandLuxe C170 compatibility issue.
- Fixed HTC M8 USB tethering compatibility issue.

Others
- Fixed NAT loopback issue.
- Fixed samba issue when plugging two USB drives.
- Fixed the NTP sync issue in AP mode.
- Fixed user interface issues for IPTV, Media bridge mode, VPN server.

 

[jonstatt]

Wow . Have you tried the hard reset ?

I did what I believe to be the best reset, which is to telnet into the router and erase the nvram.

I don't get why I don't have the same channel list I had before I updated the firmware! I had my router on channel 112. Now i can't select it, and the performance I am getting, even with the reverted firmware is now very poor on 5GHz.

Is there a separate modem firmware from the main firmware and if so, does the modem firmware revert if you re-install an earlier firmware?

 

[john9527]

I'm not sure why, but for me doing a WPS reset (hold the WPS button down while powering on the router and the led goes into fast blink mode) has reset things when other methods have failed. May be worth a try.

 

[IAAI]

Strange . Contact asus support you may have a defect router

 

[Maghook]

I am truly horrified.

Asus have released a firmware that totally decimates my 5GHz WiFi. I am based in the UK. Firstly, the DFS support has disappeared (even after a full factory reset). The only frequencies are 36,40,44 and 48. Even if I change the channel to 48, it is still stuck on 36. And not only that, buy my link to my second RT-AC68U in media bridge mode has dropped to 117Mbits (I am not kidding) from 877Mbits.

WTF Asus?!

Upgraded from Merlin 376.48b3 with hard reset afterwards using Asus Firmware Restoration Tool.
Findings:
- Auto settings on 5G will always set ch. to 44 with 40MHz ch. width on my AC68u EU-unit (never 20 nor 80MHz)
- Only available 5G channels are: 36-48
- DFS is indeed bugged
- Set 5G to a fixed channel will allways set 5G to ch. 36 with 20MHz ch. width (it's stuck)
- Enabling IGMP-Snooping while using auto settings on 5G will switch ch. width to 20MHz on my unit.

Update
--------
I made a diff btw Merlin 376.48b3 nvram config and Asus 376.3602:
-bl_version=1.0.1.8
+bl_version=1.0.2.0
-pmon_ver=CFE 6.37.14.73 (r448163)
+pmon_ver=CFE 6.37.14.86 (r456083)
-wl1_chlist=36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 100 104 108 112 116 132 136 140
+wl1_chlist=36 40 44 48
-wl1_country_rev=13
+wl1_country_rev=0
+wl1_rxchain_pwrsave_enable=1
+wl1_rxchain_pwrsave_pps=10
+wl1_rxchain_pwrsave_quiet_time=1800
+wl1_rxchain_pwrsave_stas_assoc_check=0

So looks like this update also updated the bootloader from 1.0.1.8 to 1.0.2.0.

 

[metadethrax]

I am having the same problems reported here, reverting to the former firmware does not solve the disappearance of the 5 GHz channels. Tried everything from hard resets to factory defaults. WTF? Asus is not testing their firmwares anymore? These are pretty big faults, not some small annoyances.

 

[jonstatt]

I am having the same problems reported here, reverting to the former firmware does not solve the disappearance of the 5 GHz channels. Tried everything from hard resets to factory defaults. WTF? Asus is not testing their firmwares anymore? These are pretty big faults, not some small annoyances.

This is MASSIVE!

I am glad I am not alone but this is absolutely insane. Not only do you lose 5GHz channels, but you cannot even choose the few you do have. The power output seems to be lower than it should, and I cannot get 80Mhz to work either as Maghook said!

I posted as quickly as I could to try and warn people away from this firmware and I hope the post has stopped some others from installing these POS.

Now what happens? Unless Asus are going to release a fix pronto, they will have to replace all our routers as we cannot go back!

 

[Pierino]

You could flash the 1.0.1.8 cfe back to it to see if that fixes it.

 

[RMerlin]

Firmware upgrades do not upgrade the bootloader. Either you had the wrong version stored in nvram (the nvram setting isn't automatically in sync with the actual bootloader), or you updated it at some point and failed to do a factory default reset, so you still had the old version in nvram.

 

[metadethrax]

I am too having the 1.0.2.0 bootloader without manually updating it (never did this) and i followed the same procedure I always use when flashing a newer firmware: flash the firmware, then factory reset. I even tried a hard reset (both ways, 30/30/30 and holding the WPS button when powering the router), no chance to have the 5GHz channels back even with an older firmware.
If I leave everything on auto, then devices connect on channel 44 with 40 MHz, any change defaults to channel 36, 20 MHz.
Oh, and in the system log I am having a lot of rc_service: ntp 732:notify_rc stop_ntpc events.
I am not a newbie and I am mostly certain Asus put on a buggy firmware they don't seem aware of.
What to do, guys? What should we try to have out routers back?

 

[Maghook]

I updated to 1.0.1.6 through the Asus DDR Update utitlity. Afterwards to customized 1.0.1.7 (EU) and then to 1.0.1.8 (EU) linked in the CFE dumps collection. Did a reset afterwards by pressing reset button on the back after every update. 1.0.1.8 was reported by 376.48b3. So I have no clue about how it should be 1.0.2.0 as of now as I did not update to this version? I also remembered that firmware update don't update the bootloader.

Update
-------
I could confirm everything what jonstatt and metadethrax have observed from my findings on my AC68u.

 

[RMerlin]

Since a TRX image cannot contain a CFE update, I decided to unpack the actual 3602 firmware to see if I could figure out what happened. Looks like Asus inserted the CFE update right inside the firmware code itself, it must probably be done the first time the router gets booted:

merlin@mint-dev ~/fmk/trunk/376-3602-ac68/rootfs/rom/cfe $ ls
cfe_1.0.2.0.bin  cfe_1.0.2.0_esmt.bin  cfe_tmo_2.1.2.2.bin  mtd-write

I think I know why they did this tho. Currently, the RT-AC56 and RT-AC68 are running out of space on the firmware partition to add additional features (such as the new DPI engine that will be added later on). I suspect this is how they decided to implement the CFE update that will increase the size of the firmware partition to 64 MB, versus the original 32 MB partition size.

So the 3602 FW does indeed upgrade the bootloader.

 

[metadethrax]

Thank you for investigating this for us, RMerlin. What do you suggest to do in order to have those problems fixed?
Also, I really don't understand what those ntpc errors are, as I haven't had any in the previous firmware.

 

[RMerlin]

The ntp events aren't errors, they are just notifications that the NTP client was stopped. Could be because it's resyncing the clock every hour - I can't say, since I haven't seen the source code yet.

Can't help you with the wifi issues, sorry. I made a general wifi troubleshooting post a few months ago in the Asus Wireless sub-forum here, and stopped trying to help people with these because most of the time their issues can be resolved through what's already on this thread, or because they just refuse to believe me when I tell them the problem is as likely to be with their client devices as it is to be with their router itself. And having experienced first-hand cases where I would give someone two "different" firmwares, and would be told that firmware "A" had better range than firmware "B" when the two were actually identical, I decided it was hopeless to educate people on how wireless performance can be impacted by a multitude of factors, and stopped trying.

 

[jonstatt]

The ntp events aren't errors, they are just notifications that the NTP client was stopped. Could be because it's resyncing the clock every hour - I can't say, since I haven't seen the source code yet.

Can't help you with the wifi issues, sorry. I made a general wifi troubleshooting post a few months ago in the Asus Wireless sub-forum here, and stopped trying to help people with these because most of the time their issues can be resolved through what's already on this thread, or because they just refuse to believe me when I tell them the problem is as likely to be with their client devices as it is to be with their router itself. And having experienced first-hand cases where I would give someone two "different" firmwares, and would be told that firmware "A" had better range than firmware "B" when the two were actually identical, I decided it was hopeless to educate people on how wireless performance can be impacted by a multitude of factors, and stopped trying.

I understand, but this is not about one version being better than another and people convincing themselves of something that isn't true or different. Asus have properly broken it this time. The wrong channels are there, the GUI to change the channel doesn't work and you cannot set 80MHz! I was kind of hoping that most of this was down to some massive GUI coding bug which I was hoping you might be able to help with!

 

[metadethrax]

RMerlin, thanks again for your help, but, as jonstatt previously mentioned, these are not personal issues with range or the idea that one firmware is better than others: these are serious issues on Asus' side: there are only a few 5 Ghz available and no matter the selected channel, the router defaults to 36. The same situation applies to the speed: manual setting defaults to 20 Mhz, 80 Mhz is a no show and 40 Mhz works only if no change to the default settings has been made. I am using the same clients I have been using with the 1663 firmware, with no changes, therefore the clients are not the culprits, but the firmware itself.
Unfortunately, reverting to 1663 is not solving the problem, the lost 5 Ghz channels are gone for good.

 

[RMerlin]

You will have to contact Asus about this one, sorry. I have no idea what was actually changed in the bootloader (I can only guess that the partition size was the primary goal).