WRT1900AC Spontaneous Reboots, lockups

[chadster766]

I've cold booted my wrt1900ac twice since I got it for the same reason. My Mac Pro 4,1->5,1 couldn't access the router itself, not even by BonJour. I've only been using it in bridge mode, leaving my 2Wire dsl modem to still handle the dhcp.

Please post your wifi settings for troubleshooting purposes.

 

[htismaqe]

Hey guys. I exchanged my router for a new one at Best Buy tonight.

Since I was already down hard most of the evening, I decided to go ahead and do some testing.

I changed the 2.4Ghz settings dozens of times, in every different combination. ZERO reboots. None whatsoever.

Don't know if I had a bad unit or not but I tried pretty much everything and couldn't get it to lock up or reboot at all.

 

[htismaqe]

Well, it rebooted on me spontaneously this morning. I was editing a device name in the Network Map and the router rebooted.

 

[chadster766]

Well, it rebooted on me spontaneously this morning. I was editing a device name in the Network Map and the router rebooted.

I would ask you to send me the sysinfo.cgi log but I don't see the point since it gets cleared upon reboot.

 

[htismaqe]

I would ask you to send me the sysinfo.cgi log but I don't see the point since it gets cleared upon reboot.

I went right back into the Network Map and edited 4 or 5 more devices. No more reboots.

 

[chadster766]

I was testing my WRT1900AC last night and was logging the serial output during that time.

Once when I unplugged the WAN connection it rebooted. I think I may have captured the log just before that but can't be 100% certain.

AP-STA-DISCONNECTED 78:54:2e:1a:1d:82
RTNETLINK answers: No such process
reset LAN ethernet port
Thu May 29 04:46:07 2014 xrac Device is not associated, exiting... 
Belkin ICC Cron job created
QoS auto-prioritize [info]: No networkID; skipping auto-priority update
info: Received event notification_event-device-offline with value "f7379633-55b8-4352-a93e-a1c9cb245fa0".
info: Handled event notification_event-device-offline.

I notice that with wireless changes this is outputted:

Configuration file: /tmp/hostapd-wdev0ap0.conf
Using interface wdev0ap0 with hwaddr b4:75:0e:5a:76:5f and ssid 'WRT'
Thu May 29 04:01:19 2014 xrac Device is not associated, exiting... 
Belkin ICC Cron job created
reset LAN ethernet port

 

[htismaqe]

So I just had another reboot. I was logged into the router GUI and sitting at the main page (I was changing a static DHCP reservation a few minutes earlier and forgot to completely log out).

Of course, the log is useless. There's so many hundreds of IGMP messages in there I can't see anything else really.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
I tried same thing on 2.4GHz G only, B-G-N only(my usual setting) back and forth 3 times.
Router did not crash. Still going over one month up time. Raining today, pausing on yard work and fixing neighbor's laptop, nothing serious one bad memory stick on old HP G6,
the El Cheapo model.

 

[RogerSC]

Harumph...I had gone back to the R7000 to test debug firmware that it turned out fixed one of my IPv6 problems, but not the other *smile*. Just then, a new version of Tomato came out, so I jumped on that. It kept my Verizon Network Extender from running, so back to dd-wrt. Then I figured, well, as long as I'm using IPv4-only firmware, might as well try the WRT1900AC experiment with only IPv4 to see if enabling IPv6 could be at least part of the cause of my reboots.

So turned on the WRT1900AC, and it rebooted in about 10 or 15 minutes of being turned on, without IPv6 enabled.

Still waiting for better firmware for WRT1900AC, I guess. No good root cause to point at for reboots. I wasn't even fiddling with the router when it rebooted, I was sharing something on Facebook.

So it goes. Back to the R7000 and dd-wrt, where things are stable and functional.

 

[chadster766]

Harumph...I had gone back to the R7000 to test debug firmware that it turned out fixed one of my IPv6 problems, but not the other *smile*. Just then, a new version of Tomato came out, so I jumped on that. It kept my Verizon Network Extender from running, so back to dd-wrt. Then I figured, well, as long as I'm using IPv4-only firmware, might as well try the WRT1900AC experiment with only IPv4 to see if enabling IPv6 could be at least part of the cause of my reboots.

So turned on the WRT1900AC, and it rebooted in about 10 or 15 minutes of being turned on, without IPv6 enabled.

Still waiting for better firmware for WRT1900AC, I guess. No good root cause to point at for reboots. I wasn't even fiddling with the router when it rebooted, I was sharing something on Facebook.

So it goes. Back to the R7000 and dd-wrt, where things are stable and functional.

Thanks for confirming that you don't have to be using the UI for the reboot to occur.

 

[htismaqe]

Hey guys, Roger posted in another thread about the progress of OpenWRT for this router and he posted this link:

https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=50173&p=13

On that page, there's a post quoted that says this:

So here is what I've been seeing after running it solid for over a week.

The disconnects don't seem to be directly tied to running out of memory-- I've been running with with tweaked memory settings and swap and they are still occurring.

I do see a lot of cpu stalls-- ALL of them showing stack traces related to network ops-- often Sys_sendto but not always.

I've also seen several kernel panics-- hadn't turned on minicom logging and so have missed the full details before it would reboot itself.

The migration/0 process is consuming a massive amount of CPU time-- migration/1 almost nothing.

At times the route's load will jump to 4-5 when nothing seems to be going on-- feels like it's due to the migration/0 process. This often happens around the time of disconnects-- certainly see cpu stalls during this time.

Several of my machines are using the WRT1900AC as their router-- caveat that any machine that needs a solid wifi is connecting to an Airport Express.

Other devices such as phones are using the WRT1900AC's wifi and rarely see issues... but they are likely 1) always re-connecting and 2) not moving huge amounts of data.

 

[NightOwl326]

This seems like a pattern. Buyers jump on the new mega device band wagon. Swear it is more stable than Mother Teresa. Others run out on buy it based on these stability statements made by early buyers who have not given the product time to really know its stability. Then as time goes on instability rears its ugly head, and we are down the same early adopter path as others with Netgear and Asus. One disadvantage for this model is for Netgear we have DD-WRT and Asus has Merlin. Seems like $250.00 gets you a pretty blue fixture to show off to friends, with little more stability than an ASUS or Netgear at a lower price. But it weighs a ton too, so you can have friends lift it up and show them how heavy it is. (like reviews state "built like a tank" or "its a beast"). My router just sits on my desk and is not going to be involved in any head on collisions! My router weighs more than your router, Na nana na naaaaa. And don't forget that snazzy 4th antenna! So, its built like a tank, its a beast, it weighs a ton, it has a 4th antenna, Amazon is trying to sell them for over $300.00, and yet it has the same issues as the other models by other manufactures that sell for less. And who really trusts Belkin to get it right? Go figure....

 

[Mordred]

This seems like a pattern. Buyers jump on the new mega device band wagon. Swear it is more stable than Mother Teresa. Others run out on buy it based on these stability statements made by early buyers who have not given the product time to really know its stability.

Well I think the explanation is easy, once a product comes out, at the first day you see 5 star reviews, with a few words saying how great a unit is.

The regular user won't have a unit the first day it comes out and most likely will not write a review after 5h of operation. Thus you can't trust these reviews.
I'm sure some of the reviews are just "bought" or they are by people that are somehow "sponsored" by these companies.

You can't trust reviews in the first few weeks after a new product comes out.
Also reviews as you see on smallnetbuilder don't really focus on stability and compatibility.

I usually first read negative comments and if they show detailed info why something is not working and if there are a few people mention the same issue it is very likely, that it is an issue

As for the WRT, this wireless chip is new, only one model uses it, thus the chances are small, that it is stable out of the box.

It is much more likely that a router is stable if it uses a common chip that a bunch of manufacturers support e.g. broadcoms ac, since they all do some tests bug squashing before a unit is revealed to the public. And the more testers and developers working on a unit the chances are greater, that bugs in the common base for all, the wireless chip, are fixed before they hit the users desk.

 

[htismaqe]

Despite this reboot issue, the WRT1900AC is far more stable for me than the R7000. And while there may not be a lot of confidence in Linksys and Belkin, after spending 5 weeks doing all of the troubleshooting while Netgear "experts" literally threw beta firmware at me, I'll take my chances with Linksys.

While DD-WRT and Merlin may be options for some, they aren't for me. I don't like using either.

And FYI, NightOwl, Amazon isn't selling this router. Those $300+ price tags are marketplace sellers, not Amazon. It's the same story with NewEgg. The device is currently only available direct from Linksys and/or Best Buy.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
All this storys about router problems are myth to me. No matter what router I use, it works for me and my family. WRT is up and running for more than a month now, except f/w update on the fly once. OpenWrt is fine but for general public, it has to be download-flash ready not some thing one has to compile or configure for their needs.
Like dd-wrt of Merlin's, Tomato, etc. I don't think if WRT expects half cooked OpenWRT will be good for drumming up their sale, I don't think so.

 

[htismaqe]

Hey Tony, how often do you access the GUI, if at all?

I've had zero reboots when I'm not in the GUI. I'm at 19 hours now and humming along.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
My idea is always "if it ain't broke, leave it alone" So unless something feels or looks funny(my own personal hunch coming from many, many years in the field) I just leave it alone. If I hear there is say a new release f/w is out, I wait for a while to make sure it is safe to upgrade. Or I wouldn't even bother if I don't have a reason to upgrade. More than GUI, I'd prefer using Telnet or SSH access. One reason I like dd-wrt. Otherwise I have to solder in a serial console hook up.

 

[chadster766]

Hey Tony, how often do you access the GUI, if at all?

I've had zero reboots when I'm not in the GUI. I'm at 19 hours now and humming along.

I wish that was the case but reboots are occurring even if the GUI isn't used

 

[RMerlin]

I wish that was the case but reboots are occurring even if the GUI isn't used

And there was no Kernel panic or oops in the serial log when that happened? Odd.

Could be Linksys isn't enabling that kind of debug info in their firmware. And since they don't provide with everything needed if one wanted to recompile their firmware with different kernel options, there's next to nothing you could do to troubleshoot this.

 

[sfx2000]

Despite this reboot issue, the WRT1900AC is far more stable for me than the R7000. And while there may not be a lot of confidence in Linksys and Belkin, after spending 5 weeks doing all of the troubleshooting while Netgear "experts" literally threw beta firmware at me, I'll take my chances with Linksys.

While DD-WRT and Merlin may be options for some, they aren't for me. I don't like using either.

And FYI, NightOwl, Amazon isn't selling this router. Those $300+ price tags are marketplace sellers, not Amazon. It's the same story with NewEgg. The device is currently only available direct from Linksys and/or Best Buy.

Fry's Electronics is now carrying the WRT1900AC - $249.00 -- not sure if this is all stores, but they have them in San Diego - here's the SKU -- 8087974 - can also order it online from them for the same price - for the online store, you have to type in the SKU above to find it, as they just now started carrying this model.

(Fry's is pretty awesome BTW - returns are a pain, but they do have an excellent catalog of devices, and IMHO, a better source then BestBuy).