Stability issue with RT-AC68U Firmware 384.15 Media Bridge mode?

[David Stidham]

Hello, firstly thank you for making available the firmware alternative for the Asus routers. Great work.

I have two RT-AC68P routers that I have flashed to the Merlin firmware. I applied the latest version, 384.15 to both, and am running them in media bridge mode. I have noticed that they were regularly dropping connectivity to my host router (RT-AC3200 also running Merlin). The reported operating temperatures weren't out of the ordinary; 120-ish degrees F for the radios and 160-ish degrees for the CPU.

At first, I was attributing this drop to actually being my host router and as far upstream as my ISP due to the COVID-19 stay at home causing an exponential increase in internet activity. Then I began monitoring the status lights on the routers and they would actually cycle as if the router were rebooting.

I reflashed one unit back to the prior firmware version, 384.14.2 and today 0 drops on that router. The other unit is powered off, so, no comparison there.

Has anyone else experienced similar behavior with the current firmware in media bridge mode on the 68 series?

David

 

[Fescott]

I just came here to see if anyone else was having this issue. Whatever it is, it affects the legacy branch as well. I replaced both my old RT-N66U and Linksys with 2 new RT-AC66U B1s thinking one of them had gone haywire. Unfortunately, the problem still exists. I've tried both 2.4 and 5 bands. I'll try 384.14.2 and see if I have similar luck as you.

 

[KGB7]

As a test, make one of the 68 routers as a host router, and connect the second 68 router to it as a media bridge.
If you are still having issues, reverse the rolls of the two routers.

Remove 3200 router from the network for testing purposes.

 

[bubba3687]

I noticed a similar issue with my RT-AC87U on the 384.13_4 build. It seemed to be when I had several file transfers occurring on the network along with an RDP session between computers. The router seemed to lock up and all LAN and WAN traffic stopped. Eventually, both the 2.4 and 5 GHz LEDs would turn off and the router would have to be manually rebooted or in a couple of instances seemed to reboot automatically given a longer amount of time. I rolled back to the 384.13_2 build this morning and haven't seen the problem again just yet.

EDIT: Well, I am now thinking my router issues are hardware related. My router just locked up on me again after I had downgraded to the 384.13_2 build with the AC87U. Time to go shopping.

 

[Val D.]

I just came here to see if anyone else was having this issue. Whatever it is, it affects the legacy branch as well.

The only firmware I found working stable with MediaBridge Mode on older RT-N66U and RT-AC66U MIPS routers was Asuswrt-Merlin 380.66. Anything else had intermittent disconnect issues. My wife had her PC connected to one RT-AC66U running 380.66, the router never dropped the connection for >1 year time.

 

[L&LD]

The @john9527 RMerlin fork also provides stable connections for the supported routers.

The current 42.E7 version is not only stable and reliable but as up-to-date security-wise as possible too.

 

[Fescott]

As a follow up, I tried several different versions of the stable branch and all exhibited connection failures within a few hours. I set up a Linksys router in bridge mode to my main Asus router and it has had a continuous remote connection for about 2 days now. So, it seems the issue is on the client side. Thanks for the suggestion L&LD, I'll try the fork sometime soon.

 

[Sanna1967]

Hello, firstly thank you for making available the firmware alternative for the Asus routers. Great work.

I have two RT-AC68P routers that I have flashed to the Merlin firmware. I applied the latest version, 384.15 to both, and am running them in media bridge mode. I have noticed that they were regularly dropping connectivity to my host router (RT-AC3200 also running Merlin). The reported operating temperatures weren't out of the ordinary; 120-ish degrees F for the radios and 160-ish degrees for the CPU.

At first, I was attributing this drop to actually being my host router and as far upstream as my ISP due to the COVID-19 stay at home causing an exponential increase in internet activity. Then I began monitoring the status lights on the routers and they would actually cycle as if the router were rebooting.

I reflashed one unit back to the prior firmware version, 384.14.2 and today 0 drops on that router. The other unit is powered off, so, no comparison there.

Has anyone else experienced similar behavior with the current firmware in media bridge mode on the 68 series?

David

I had the same problem for a long time with my Ac1900p(ac68)
I found that if i turn off 2.4ghz on the bridge before entering in bridgemode, and i set a fixed channel on the 5ghz(main router), no more disconnects for months.
Both router are on 384.16 since yesterday ,uptime =0 days 19 hour(s) 36 minute(s) 43 seconds

 

[elorimer]

I had no end of problems with media bridge on the client side, evident by DHCP requests not going through. The only success I had using an 87U as a main router on any version of AsusMerlin or John's fork were Tomato versions on either an N66 or AC56. Using the AC56 as a main router with the N66, I could get the N66 in media bridge using 62_1.

 

[DeDragonSlayer]

I also have RT-AC68U in Media Bridge mode, at fixed channel 5Ghz. Configured to be in bridge mode directly from new setup wizard.

I found that after a reboot it has issues with reaching outside of LAN. For example ping 8.8.8.8 reports that "Network is unreachable". The workaround I found somewhere on this forum is to turn off wireless using the physical button, and then turn it back on the same way. After that's done, it's stable ... until the next reboot. This possibly does the same thing that Sanna1967 suggested - disabling 2.4Ghz before entering bridge mode.

This is using the latest firmware, either Merlin or original Asus.