RT-AC88U loses WAN connection

[etulfnicks]

My AC88U loses WAN connection at least once a day. It usually happens after I turn on a device that is LAN wired (not always right away). I'm running the latest ASUS firmware (3.0.0.4.380.3341). I created a ticket with ASUS and they told me to flash an older version of the firmware. I tried to do that unsuccessfully and haven't had a response from them since 7/8/16. My ISP is Mediacom and the DHCP lease time is 3 days. Everytime I lose WAN connection, the following 3 lines are in the system logs:

Jul 12 23:22:26 WAN Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly.
Jul 12 23:22:26 DualWAN: skip single wan wan_led_control - WANRED off
Jul 12 23:22:26 stop_nat_rules: apply the redirect_rules!

I searched the forums here for similar problems and while I see the "WAN Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly" is often referenced, none of the problems sounded the same.

Thanks for any help you can give. I want to like this router. It was flawless for the first couple of weeks but I have been battling this for about a week now and about ready to give up and request an RMA from Asus.

 

[RMerlin]

You need to use the Firmware Recovery mode to flash any version older than 3341. I'm surprised that Asus's tech support failed to mention that.

Builds 32xx/33xx/34xx have a few known issues related to WAN. Asus started releasing a new 38xx release lately that might address the issue, but it wasn't available yet (as of today) for the RT-AC88U.

 

[etulfnicks]

Thank you for the replies. I flashed 2345 using the recovery mode and so far so good.

 

[etulfnicks]

So far so good. Router has been up for 3 days with zero issues. Thank you!

 

[Donny]

So far so good. Router has been up for 3 days with zero issues. Thank you!

Sorry to resurrect such an old post, but your original problem sounds exactly like what I'm experiencing now.

My brand new ASUS RT-AC88U drops its WAN connection around once a day. I haven't linked it to any other event like turning on a wired connected device or anything like that. I was running the latest official firmware at first, then I installed Merlin RT-AC88U_380.66_4 to no avail. Now I've seen this post and I have tried to revert to 2345 like you did. But after installing that, I don't know how to get back to the Web UI router config page. After installing 2345, should it keep the same IP address that I had assigned to it before? (I had changed it to 192.168.2.1) Or does it go back to 192.168.1.1? I tried both. Should I connect to it with a LAN cable? Going from official firmware to Merlin just worked (i.e. I was able to connect to it immediately). Does using the Firmware Rescue Utility go back to a different state? I followed the instructions posted by Sanna1967 above. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I'd like to see if this is going to solve my dropping out problem. Any advice appreciated.

 

[mstombs]

When reverting firmware version you also need to do an NVRAM reset to defaults too, which means the IP address and Wireless SSIDs etc all revert to factory defaults. The nvram reset should be possible through the firmware rescue web tool o r by powering up with correct buttons pressed,

 

[Donny]

When reverting firmware version you also need to do an NVRAM reset to defaults too, which means the IP address and Wireless SSIDs etc all revert to factory defaults. The nvram reset should be possible through the firmware rescue web tool o r by powering up with correct buttons pressed,

Thanks for your reply. I've enabled the "auto reboot" schedule at 5:00AM every day for now. It annoys me to have to do that, but it is keeping it up most of the time (it has only dropped out once since I started doing this). I'd like to get to the real source of the problem and fix it properly. I've noticed a lot of threads with people having similar problems with this router. I feel like it might be an obscure ppp setting or something, but I'm no expert in this area. I need to do a bit more googling when I get the time.
Cheers

 

[mstombs]

There used to be a problem with dhcp renew not working, but many fixes, I just checked my router log, I have a problem with poor signal strength in my cable modem (lousy Intel Puma 6 based), causing 'port flapping'

Jul  1 11:40:08 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Jul  1 11:44:05 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Jul  1 14:11:20 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Jul  1 14:16:22 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Jul  1 20:56:39 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Jul  1 20:58:33 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.

This one is not a router problem.