RT-AC88U having high CPU usage from ASD - also dnsmasq-dhcp[410]: failed to write /var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases: No space left on device

[CyberDude]

I've also got the `chknvram` file in there. Appeared yesterday morning, correlating nicely with when these issues started happening.

View attachment 50219

Looks like these issues are widespread. I'm not very knowledgeable about networking equipment. Does anyone have a theory as to what's happened here? I doubt my EOL equipment is going to get a firmware fix for this.

It could be that the newer chknvram20230518 file is what fixed the issue. I wonder if it's compatible between different models - I would expect it to be since this is a software issue. Maybe we can share that file and manually put it in that folder?

 

[2B\/~2B <- qn]

Thanks, and you're right, bad rollouts can happen to anyone at any time.
I see that the AX5700 for example gets good reviews, so I could get one of those, but wouldn't I just be buying another copy of the same bug? since presumably it will have the same memory leak issue.


OTOH, if ASUS are aware that this new file is causing all this grief, then they should just do another patch that removes it themselves, instead of telling us to do a factory reset. (Why would that even help ... ?) I really don't understand their response in this situation. https://www.asus.com/ca-en/support/

 

[RMerlin]

Maybe we can share that file and manually put it in that folder?

No. There are different versions of that files, they depend on the firmware version.

The file is automatically downloaded from Asus' update servers, there is no needs to manually replace it. In fact if it doesn't match what's available on the server, it will probably get overwritten. Just remove it, Asus already published a fixed version almost two days ago.

 

[RMerlin]

then they should just do another patch that removes it themselves,

They already did, however your router will not immediately update it, updates are run by the router on a set schedule. The manual operation allows to make it happen immediately.

 

[rkalinka]

UPDATE - after a "crash" yesterday (4 hours in), the router has been stable for the past 20 hours or so. The problem is that the asd.log is showing that "update failed" so I am not sure if ASD is running correctly. When I opened a ticket with Asus, the indicated that I should factory reset the router and MANUALLY rebuild it (no file import) - which is not something I am willing to do just yet. When I went to double check my Asus support ticket, the ASUS site shows this now so not sure what I am going to do long term:

####################################

Interruption in Router Product Connectivity and Urgent Mitigation Measures
Dear Valued Customer,
During routine security maintenance, our technical team discovered an error in the configuration of our server settings file, which could potentially cause an interruption in network connectivity on part of the routers.
• Our technical team has urgently addressed the server issue and impacted routers should return to normal operation. If your device was affected, we recommend the following:
1. Manually reboot your router
2. If rebooting does not resolve the issue, please save the settings file, perform a hard reset (factory default), and then re-upload the settings file (follow the directions in the https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1050464)
3. If you cannot access the user interface to save settings or perform a reset, you can press the RESET button for about 5-10 seconds until the power LED indicator on the router starts to blink, which means the reset is completed.

[Wireless Router] How to reset the router to factory default setting? | Official Support | ASUS Global

If there are any further developments around this issue, we will immediately update our users.
We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this incident may have caused and are committed to preventing such an incident from happening again.
For any further inquiries about your ASUS router, please contact our customer service for support.

USA & Canada Hotline:1-812-282-2787
Support site ASUS ROG

Thank you for your understanding and thank you for choosing ASUS.

 

[uwotm8]

They already did, however your router will not immediately update it, updates are run by the router on a set schedule. The manual operation allows to make it happen immediately.

Yep, deleting `chknvram20230516` and restarting seems to have done the trick for me. No more error messages after almost an hour of running.

Though I've decided that it's really time I bought a new router. I shouldn't be relying on one that's EOL

 

[2B\/~2B <- qn]

They already did, however your router will not immediately update it, updates are run by the router on a set schedule. The manual operation allows to make it happen immediately.

Interesting. This morning I signed on using PuTTY and found that the file was already gone [after I had done a couple of reboots]. AC3100 already seems to be cured: both CPU cores down to single digits, memory usage steady at 33% (168/512 MB) and no more "failed to write" log messages. Yay.

Still, as L&LD suggested, I'm considering going to an AX* model since my AC3100 is going to drop off the trailing edge.

 

[Drifter]

UPDATE - so far, here is what I did with postive results for that last hour or so:
1.) From command line : simply do:
rm /jffs/asd/chknvram20230516
and then type
exit
to close
then reboot

2.) after reboot
free && sync && echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches && free
and finally

3.)
kill -SIGSTOP $(ps | grep '[a]sd$' | awk '{print $1}')

We'll see how it goes until a fix is pushed by ASUS.

Thanks.

This resolved the 100% cpu utilisation issue on AC66U, which was working fine till yesterday.

 

[jtp10181]

Thanks for the tips! Had an RT-AC3200 with the asd CPU issue running latest Asus stock firmware. Was having all sorts of DNS problem for past week. I had the chknvram20230517 file in there so I just deleted the contents of the entire asd folder and rebooted. Now there is a 0 byte chknvram20230518 file (along with other files) and CPU problem is gone. Back to normal.

Can anyone else confirm should that file be 0 bytes? Not sure how to get it to force it to update it again?

 

[kill-9]

I have a RT AC87U. I have reported it to Asus yesterday (06.05.03); they have already replied today saying it was fixed (I just had to reboot the router manually; no patches). So far seems to be fixed, no sign of the asd service on the top list; CPU at about 3% average, RAM at 53% and holding (over an hour since reboot).

Their statement: "During routine security maintenance, our technical team discovered an error in the configuration of our server settings file, which could potentially cause an interruption in network connectivity on part of the routers."

 

[akkbar]

LONG STORY SHORT: I was having exactly the same issue (same exact system log error as the OP and first reply) with the same symptoms on a RT-AC87R asus router. I did a "manual" reset (reset button factory reset) and it completely resolved my issues (as of 2 days ago from this post). I wanted to post this so people who find this post by googling the system log errors (like I did) will know this solution fixes this problem. No more high cpu usage, no more dhcp problems. Working perfectly, as it was before this issue started. I'm on the latest official available firmware from Asus.

Full story below:

I thought the router was somehow damaged after a power outage (possible surge/spike/brown out) and it started behaving strangely. it wouldn't assign ip addresses to wifi connections on the 2.4ghz radio, would assign static ip's to ethernet and 5ghz wifi (maybe 2.4 as well?), and would crash during bittorrent use (red wan light and stop functioning over ethernet/wifi). also was seeing very high CPU usage on the router and (maybe?) high RAM usage (can't confirm that from memory at all). red light crash symptoms could be resolved by power cycle or soft reboot, but still acted weird. finally googled system log error and found other people complaining of very similar problems that manifested at around the same exact time as mine. Tried the reset button factory reset because I saw people here or maybe another place I saw talk of this issue saying it fixed their issue.

Indeed it has. No further errors in the system log and the router's operation and cpu usage is back to normal. I will edit this post and/or reply with another post if anything changes. So thx to y'all for making this thread. It's possibly, if unlikely I may have replaced it without trying the reset first (like a lazy, assuming idiot). Really helped.

 

[akkbar]

Maybe I'm not technically adept enough to understand from reading this thread, but can someone explain (if we know) how this happened to so many different Asus routers models running many different versions of firmware? I would appreciate that, if possible. thx

 

[kill-9]

I'm not an expert either, I actually contacted Asus about it; these routers have a cloud component. The customer support told me that there was an error in some routine they have causing this behavior.