RT-AC86U with Merlin 384.14_2 - Nest Thermostat cannot connect? [Solved]

[Rici]

Hi all,

After I took out my old RT-AC68U running Merlin, where my Nest Thermostat had no problem connecting to, I cannot get it to connect to my new RT-AC86U running Merlin 384.14_2.

As it looks like it gets the DHCP information from the router, but cannot communicate with the Internet.

Are there any tricks that I can use for making my Nest Thermostat working again?

Thanks for helping me.

 

[Rici]

Everything that I can think of

Rebooted the router, the Nest as well, set the 2.4Ghz WiFi on the router to 20Mhz only, enabled/disabled Bluetooth there - but no change.

The Nest gets the DHCP Infos, but cannot communicate with the Internet. Ping, according to Nest, remains at Zero ms.

 

[Rici]

Nope, both the Nest app and web interface tell me my thermostat is offline.

 

[rwe]

Maybe you may want to check out the following link "https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9240155" has some usefull info about nest products

 

[Rici]

That's something I checked already.

And with my former router it worked.

Is the something specific with Merlin 384.14 and Nest Thermostat that causes this strange behavior?

 

[Crazy]

Turn off “Airtime fairness” for 2.4 Ghz.

 

[ewokuk]

I had a similar problem with a few devices when I tried to use DoT with nextdns, at first they seemed ok but after a while (not sure how long, a few minutes or an hour maybe) they would be connected fine but have no internet access. It was something to do with nextdns over DoT because switching it to DoT with 1.1.1.1 instead, it hasnt happened since. If you are using the built in DNS-over-TLS then it might be related to that.

 

[Rici]

So, DHCP and Wifi connection between the Merlin router and the Nest thermostat is working.

But: Still Nest cannot communicate with its cloud service - so I cannot control the thermostat with the app from remote.

Is Asus/Merlin - or Diversion / SkyNet - blocking the communication of the thermostat with the Nest cloud servers?

How to trace that down and find out?

 

[CaptainSTX]

To solve if it is Skynet use the option to temporarily disable using option 9, then reboot your router and confirm Skynet is inactive and then try and reconnect.

 

[Kingp1n]

If you're using a VPN...you might need to disable that too temporarily.

 

[Marin]

I have never had any issues using my Nest thermostat when I had an AC86U or now with my AX88U. I have used Skynet and NordVPN all along and other scripts and they never impacted its function.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SheikhSheikha]

With Nest Protect I have the experience that they require a complete new configuration (after a full reset) before they work stabile with a new router firmware. Perhaps the same is applicable to the thermostat?

 

[Rici]

Hi folks, thanks for all your hints.

While I could not determine a root cause, it was definitely caused by a combination of Diversion and DNS Server settings.

As soon as I disabled Diversion and enabled DNS Filtering with providing my Nest Thermostat a particular DNS server (1.1.1.1 in my case), my Nest became accessible by the app and web again.

So it's working now, issue solved.