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RT-AC66R WAN/LAN Ports not Working

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reggie14

Occasional Visitor
I'm trying to set up a spare RT-AC66R router on a guest network. It's been about 6 months since I used this router, but it used to be my primary router/AP before I moved to pfSense.

This time around it was acting a little goofy from the start. When I initially turned it on to test it and reconfigure it (prior to connecting it to my network) I kept getting the web admin warning saying the settings have changed and I need to use the updated IP/port to connect to the router. But, I hadn't changed anything.

I tried updating to john9527's v12 firmware fork, and for about an hour I got it working. Then the web admin errors started again. So, I tried updating to the 387.55 beta firmware. After doing that I noticed I couldn't pull an IP when I tried a wired connection to the router. I tried putting it recovery mode and setting a manual 192.168.1.x IP address on my box, but I still couldn't connect. Then I tried resetting the router by holding down the WPS button. It reset, but LAN/WAN ports still didn't start working. Setting a manual IP on my box still doesn't let me connect to the box over a wired connection.

I can still connect to it via wifi, but there are no obvious problems in the web config. I tried reflashing both sets of firmware, but that still didn't fix it.

Any ideas? Is it a hardware failure?
 
OK, I found one thing that's odd:
Under Tools->System Information->Network, I'm setting strange things in the "Ethernet Ports" table.

Specifically, I see a "LAN 5" port with a link state of "10 Half Duplex," and I see my WAN port is identified as being on VLAN 2. My other Asus routers are running older firmware, but they don't list a 5th LAN port. They also don't put the WAN port on VLAN 2, although none of them are in router mode.

Also, when I connect a computer to one of the LAN ports, I see (from a wifi-connected computer) the table updates the link state of that port to "10 half duplex." Note that the computer has a functional gigabit ethernet port.
 
Hate to have to ask a basic question, but did you do a reset to factory defaults when you changed the firmware levels?
 
Hate to have to ask a basic question, but did you do a reset to factory defaults when you changed the firmware levels?

I think so...

After firmware updates I held down the WPS button to clear the settings. Is that the right way to reset to factory defaults?

I'm not sure if this is related, but I'm continuing to have lots of problems accessing the web admin page. I keep getting the error saying "Settings have been updated. Web page will now refresh..." when I try to go directly to 192.168.1.1. But, it seems to work if I go to router.asus.com.
 
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Myself and others have had mixed results with the WPS button reset. Try doing the factory reset via the GUI first: Administration-->Restore/Save/Upload Setting-->Restore and see if that gets you back to factory defaults and fixes your issues.
 
I think so...

After firmware updates I held down the WPS button to clear the settings. Is that the right way to reset to factory defaults?
Just to double check, you do a WPS reset by holding down the WPS button while powering on, wait for the power LED to start a fast blink, wait a few more seconds, then release the WPS button. The router should then reboot into the initial setup. While some have had mixed result, for me, the WPS reset has always worked (sometimes when the other reset methods couldn't).

I'm not sure if this is related, but I'm continuing to have lots of problems accessing the web admin page. I keep getting the error saying "Settings have been updated. Web page will now refresh..." when I try to go directly to 192.168.1.1. But, it seems to work if I go to router.asus.com.[/QUOTE]
I don't quite understand that one. router.asus.com just has a hosts entry that points to the router address (default 192.168.1.1). What type of client are you using to access the router? That message will be generated if something changes on either end...i.e. if your client ip address changes while you are connected it can cause problems. It shouldn't happen....but.....
 
Myself and others have had mixed results with the WPS button reset. Try doing the factory reset via the GUI first: Administration-->Restore/Save/Upload Setting-->Restore and see if that gets you back to factory defaults and fixes your issues.

I tried that before. But, after seeing your note about the WPS button (which did seem to be working for me), I tried the reset button again. Repressing everything the DD-WRT forums taught me back in the day, I just held the button down for 5-10 seconds, released it, and let the router reboot on its own. That seem to get it going again. Why/how that worked, when so many other attempts failed, I have no idea. I'll cross my fingers that it will keep up.
 
I'm not sure if this is related, but I'm continuing to have lots of problems accessing the web admin page. I keep getting the error saying "Settings have been updated. Web page will now refresh..." when I try to go directly to 192.168.1.1. But, it seems to work if I go to router.asus.com.
I don't quite understand that one. router.asus.com just has a hosts entry that points to the router address (default 192.168.1.1). What type of client are you using to access the router? That message will be generated if something changes on either end...i.e. if your client ip address changes while you are connected it can cause problems. It shouldn't happen....but.....

One thing that might be related is that my pfsense box is on 192.168.1.1. I've noticed that Chrome desperately wanted to redirect me to HTTPS from HTTP, even when I entered the full URL, like it was trying to get me to my pfsense page. Of course, since I was connected only to the router, which wasn't connected to anything else, I couldn't get to the pfsense box, but nonetheless Chrome seemed confused. IE wouldn't redirect me to HTTPS, but would give me the error.

Does this sound like an issue of redirections getting cached?

Since getting the router set up and on a different IP I haven't had the error anymore.
 
One thing that might be related is that my pfsense box is on 192.168.1.1. I've noticed that Chrome desperately wanted to redirect me to HTTPS from HTTP, even when I entered the full URL, like it was trying to get me to my pfsense page. Of course, since I was connected only to the router, which wasn't connected to anything else, I couldn't get to the pfsense box, but nonetheless Chrome seemed confused. IE wouldn't redirect me to HTTPS, but would give me the error.

Does this sound like an issue of redirections getting cached?

Since getting the router set up and on a different IP I haven't had the error anymore.

I have experienced the same caching problem (HTTPS/HTTP redirection). I solved it by using a Private Browsing (Incognito Mode) tab which should avoid any caching.
 
So, I unplugged the router to move it and when I plugged it back in the same problem is back. I can't connect to the router.

It's a bit inaccurate to say the LAN/WAN ports don't work. The device works fine as a switch, just not a router or AP.

It's actually quite odd. Right now I have the AC66R in AP mode. I'm connected to it over a wireless connection, where I had to manually assign a x.x.1.100 IP address on my wireless client in order to access the AP at x.x.1.1. I'm also connected to a LAN port on the AC66R, where I'm getting a X.X.50.100 address from the DHCP server on my pfSense box.

Since I can view the web admin page off the wireless client, I can see under the Tools page that it says the WAN port is just connected at 10 half duplex. But I can tell its going faster than that just by looking at my internet speeds on the LAN client. Plus the managed switch that the AC66R connects back to says the port is running at 1000mbit full duplex.

I've tried resets again. All kinds: using the reset button, using the WPS button, and using the web admin. I actually did have it briefly working once: It worked just long enough after an initial reset to reconfigure it from router mode to AP mode. But, it broke when I switched to AP mode.
 

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