web interface showing internet status: disconnected but internet is working

[iw2ejh]

Hi all,

Since new year I noticed that my rt-ac68u is showing the internet status as Disconnected.

I'm running the latest Merlin FW 386.4 .

In the "WAN" > "internet connection" web page, I have the value of internet Detection set to "PPP Echo", and I also changed it with the "DNS Probe" without results.

In the "Administration" > "System" web page I tried both and single, the "DNS" query and the "Ping" setting different IP values without results.

in the last month I also upgraded my pi-hole that was two year old, and did some changes to the DNS settings in the router in order to route all the traffic through the node.

During the tests I also take of the loop pihole, but that didn't change the status of the internet connection showing "disconnected".

I do not have issues with internet, everything is working, just only that message instead of the real status and the DDNS address that usually appears.


I found a post where they solved changing the ip of the ping probe, I tried all the suggestions but still no result

thanks for the help

-3m

 

[eibgrad]

in the last month I also upgraded my pi-hole that was two year old, and did some changes to the DNS settings in the router in order to route all the traffic through the node.

With 386.4, ASUS has gotten a lot more aggressive w/ their connectivity checks. They normally ping dns.msftncsi.com over the WAN. And to make sure that happens, they also statically bind the WAN's DNS server(s) to the WAN itself! But they're not always smart about it. I had someone recently who had configured their WAN w/ the IP of the OpenVPN server (10.8.0.1) from their own VPS running pihole, which the router then bound to the WAN w/ a static route! The idea by the OP was to have the router eventually bound to the pihole across the tunnel once it was up and running. But w/ that static route, that was never going to happen.

So I'm wondering exactly what you did. Seems to me we're going to see more and more cases of ppl messing w/ the WAN's DNS servers and creating problems due to these static routes by ASUS.

 

[iw2ejh]

So I'm wondering exactly what you did.

Actually my config is very light.

The Pihole is running on a raspberry pi inside a Docker container.
the DNS (ip of the Pihole) is advertized in the DHCP running in the router, so all the devices connected to the router use it to access internet.

The router is configured:
WAN> Internet connection > Account Setting > Internet Detection: PPP Echo
Wan > Internet Connection > Account Setting > PPP Echo Interval : 6
Wan > Internet Connection > Account Setting > PPP Echo Max Failures 10


WAN > Internet Connection > WAN DNS Setting > Connect to DNS Server automatically: yes
WAN > Internet Connection > WAN DNS Setting > Forward Local Domain queries to Upstream DNS: no
WAN > Internet Connection > WAN DNS Setting > Enable DNS Rebind protection: yes
WAN > Internet Connection > WAN DNS Setting > Enable DNSSEC support: no
WAN > Internet Connection > WAN DNS Setting > Prevent client auto DoH: auto
WAN > Internet Connection > WAN DNS Setting > DNS PrivacyProtocol: none


LAN> DHCP Server > DNS and WINS Server Setting > DNS Server 1: 192.168.1.xxx
LAN > DHCP Server > DNS and Wins Server Setting > DNS Server 2 : ----------
LAN > DHCP Server > DNS and Wins Server Setting > Advertise router's IP in addition to user-sepcified DNS: no


during tests, I did set the:
WAN > Internet Connection > WAN DNS Setting > Connect to DNS Server automatically: no
and indicate the ip address of the local pihole DNS as per indications in the ASUS site in order to redirect all the traffic to my DNS server. I think this should be my final configuration, but actually the router is taking automatically the ISP DNS server.

 

[eibgrad]

If you haven't messed w/ the connectivity checks (ping or DNS query), then it should be attempting to issue a DNS query to the default, dns.msftncsi.com. If you ssh into the router and issue the following, does it return the IP?

nslookup dns.msftncsi.com

If that doesn't work properly, that's at least one reason it would report no connectivity (e.g., your pihole is blocking it).

 

[bennor]

Since new year I noticed that my rt-ac68u is showing the internet status as Disconnected.

I'm running the latest Merlin FW 386.4 .

Seems to be a fairly common problem for some based on the numerous past posts and threads about the issue with the 386.4 firmware. Some past discussion:

GUI: "Disconnected", but I'm online

I recently updated to 386.4 and since then, the GUI shows "Internet status: Disconnected" - and the status LED is red. I cant say which version i had before, but there was no issue. I found out, that this issue is related to the dns.msftncsi.com request. PiHole block almost any connections to...

www.snbforums.com

386.4 incorrectly shows that internet is not connected on RT-AX88U

Just updated my RT-AX88U to 386.4 The web UI now shows Internet status: Disconnected and the Internet light on the router itself is red. However, I'm connected fine and internet is working. Has anyone else seen this issue?

www.snbforums.com

Bunch of posts in the 386.4 thread you may want to dig through:

Release - Asuswrt-Merlin 386.4 is now available

This is what I get with nslookup on the ssh connection: Server: 100.64.0.1 Address 1: 100.64.0.1 Name: dns.msftncsi.com Address 1: 131.107.255.255 dns.msftncsi.com Address 2: fd3e:4f5a:5b81::1 It seems to be correct. Try setting this debug flag and watching the system log for a while...

www.snbforums.com

Release - Asuswrt-Merlin 386.4 is now available

Dirty update from previous release on AC88U. Everything's fine except Time Machine, I have the following message when I try to select the AC88U usb drive as Time machine drive (that I just formatted): The version of the server you are trying to connect to is not supported. Edit: Time Machine...

www.snbforums.com

Alpha and Beta 386.4 had it as well:

WAN Strange behaviour

Since a few days I got a buggy internet connection. Status shows disconnected on the left and an IP etc. on the right. I do get inter connection but somewhere there is a fault. Any ideas? I'm on Firmware Version:386.4_beta1 but I don't think that's the issue.

www.snbforums.com

[ 386.4 alpha Build(s) ] Testing available build(s)

Probably better to block ads locally anyways. At least there is some level of control on what gets blocked. I imagine they will keep a free dns service going that doesn't support ad blocking. Does that mean I should remove AdGuard from available presets? I use AdGuard DNS as a custom...

www.snbforums.com

A troubleshooting suggestion if you haven't done so already. Do a hard reset (https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1039077). If that doesn't work, try downgrading back to 386.3_2, then upgrading back to 386.4. Some who run 386.4 on the RT-AC68U do not have this particular problem.

 

[iw2ejh]

Thanks to all for your valued answers, the problem now seems solved, I can see the status of Connected in the web page.
Unfortunately I have not understood what was causing the issue and what solved it. The status appeared as "Connected" after I logged via SSH to the router, issued the "nslookup dns.msftncsi.com" command and it was sucessfull. I run some other commands like top etc, and logged out. Then reloading the web interface, the "internet status" appeared as connect and showing my wan IP and my DDNS. I suspect there is some incongruity between the web interface settings and the config written in the router, but not sure at all. This situation was there since a month, reboot and reconfiguration never change anything. Now it is ok.

Thanks again.

 

[L&LD]

In many instances, a single reset to factory defaults isn't enough. Seems like you did as many as needed.