Trying to Root Cause Router Management Access (Web GUI/SSH) Issues

[Rocketboy235]

Hello,

I'm currently trying to "debug" or figure out the root cause of the issue with my RT-AC68U router.
Currently, it is running Merlin 384.14 firmware and after a few days or 1-2 weeks? (randomly), the router will become unresponsive.

Unfortunately, I am off site so I cannot physically power cycle the router so I am currently accessing it via VPN. Will need to ask someone to power cycle the router for me but in the mean time, trying to see if I could somehow access the logs (which to my understanding is within the tmp folder?)

My Observations:

• When I try to access the router via Web GUI, it would take a long time trying to load it until failing and telling me the page cannot be reached.
• SSH works in the beginning but after some time, it stops working and every time I try to connect to it via PuTTY, it tells me Software Caused Connection Abort before I even get a chance to log in.
• When I connect to my router via WinSCP through SCP, apparently that partially works. It will initially tell me after logging in that WinSCP "failed with return code 1 and error message ls: out of memory." When I do ls in some directories, it will give me that error but some do not which is strange. I first see this error when WinSCP tries to open the tmp directory automatically after I log in.
• Sometimes the OpenVPN server on the router will work and I will be able to connect to it and sometimes it will not.
• The WiFi and internet still works fine (mostly) as I can talk to the other devices on the network. The only exception is my AiMesh node (another AC68U) is not responding when I try to SSH into that particular node.

I did the free -m command to see what the memory usage was while I was in the terminal in WinSCP since that was the only way I could talk to the router. I guess this will be the only way to communicate with the router unless PuTTY SSH starts to work again or if there is a way to reset that service or reset the HTTP service of the router.

This was the output which seems normal to me so I don't see any memory issues here when I checked in WinSCP terminal.

And before I was able to progress any further, OpenVPN lost connection so I will have to wait until OpenVPN server will work again (hopefully).

So with all that said, my goal is to figure a way to grab the logs, check the CPU usage, and some other commands you guys may suggest and also see if I can do a remote reboot? (though last time I did that, my router would then become even more unresponsive and complain the WiFi password is incorrect errors).


Thanks in advance!

 

[L&LD]

While it may be interesting to know the 'why', I wouldn't bother when RMerlin 384.15_0 has been released.

When you get a chance to go there, flash v384.15_0 and do a full reset to factory defaults followed by a minimal and manual configuration to secure the router and connect to the ISP (see the M&M Config and the Nuclear Reset in the link in my signature below for further details).

The above will require less than half an hour to be up-to-date with the most current and bug-free code running. Any remaining bugs should be solvable in almost real-time.

 

[martinr]

L&LD is dead right. You have a rock solid router in the RT-AC68U: you should never need to reboot it because it’s got gummed up with ones and zeros: it’s inherently reliable. You would spend far more time troubleshooting (and still get nowhere) than you would following L&LD’s M&M guide.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac86u-factory-reset.56972/#post-496275

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/major-issues-w-rt-ac86u.56342/page-4#post-495710

The Manual and Minimal factory reset is almost guaranteed to solve your problem; and probably the best you can expect after hours of troubleshooting is the realisation that you need to reset to factory settings. So save yourself the time and reset when you get home.

No short cuts; follow to guides to the letter and it will pay dividends later in a rock solid bit of kit.

 

[Rocketboy235]

Thanks, next time I'm down there, will do that.

 

[Rocketboy235]

My apologies if I am necro-ing a post here though I feel this is still very much relevant. Haven't had a chance to go down and update the firmware as well as do a full factory reset but just recently started looking into the issue again and I think I may have a slightly better understanding on why I'm experiencing this issue... see https://www.snbforums.com/threads/strange-multiple-cp-processes-in-router.63771/#post-580714

 

[Rocketboy235]

Sorry for getting back to this thread so late. I want to tie up some loose ends here.

So I was able to go on site a few months ago back in December of 2020 and finally do a complete factory reset (and upgrade to the latest firmware at the time) but unfortunately still ran into the same problems. It seems like the only solution is the just disable all of the extra features on the router such as parental controls, traffic manager, AIProtection, and Adaptive QoS features. (Also decided to disable it since it was preventing me from using hardware acceleration). This router was in AiMesh configuration with 2 nodes so maybe it was just not stable with that specific setup. I have another network elsewhere with only 1 of these routers alone and that works fine with all of those features running.