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[RT-N66U] firmware upgrade from old merlin build

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amita

Occasional Visitor
Hello,
I am using an old Merlin firmware on my RT-N66U Assus router: 3.0.0.4.374.34_2 (Merlin build).

Since this is a very old version and updated firmware includes many security fixes, as I heard, and since I experience problems with a printer that is connected to my network that starts printing pages that were not sent from legitimate source, I would like to upgrade my router's firmware in order to reduce possibility of attacks over my connected devices.

I understand that the firmware to this router is no longer supported, so I would like to get the latest version that is available to it.

I have few questions:
1. Any recommendation for use of Merlin Firmware vs. the Assus official version?
2. Which version is the latest for this router by Merlin? Where can I download it from?
3. How should the upgrade process be done? Should I only choose from the upgrade screen the new firmware and that's all? should I do anything else? (Note that the current firmware that I use is very old). A link to relevant guide, if available would be appreciated.
Will this process be different in case I choose to install Assus firmware over the Merlin, or if I choose to install the Merlin firmware on top of the current one?

Thanks,
Amit.
 
You have two realistic choices if you want to stay with an Asuswrt based firmware.

1. John's fork of Merlin. It was last updated on 17-April-2019 and includes many fixes not present in the final Merlin release.

2. Stock Asus firmware.

I wouldn't consider the final Merlin release anymore as that hasn't been updated since April 2018.

Installation for either firmware should be a matter of simply downloading and unzippping the file and applying it through the GUI. You should perform a factory reset afterwards followed by a manual configure.
 
You have two realistic choices if you want to stay with an Asuswrt based firmware.
1. John's fork of Merlin. It was last updated on 17-April-2019 and includes many fixes not present in the final Merlin release.
2. Stock Asus firmware.


Great, Thanks for the answers !
Any recommendation about the better option - John's for vs the Stock Asus FW?
 
The RT-N66U isn't capable of supporting some of the newer firmware features, like Adaptive QoS. So that's not a consideration.

Personally I use John's fork. It's rock solid and has some added features that are not in the stock firmware.
 
So I went on with John's fork.
The upgrade was performed using the GUI, even though I read in the @UpgradeMatrix.txt file (which is part of the installation package) that I should have upgrade the router using the Asus Firmware restoration tool.
The upgrade seems to work well - the router works with the new firmware.
Since it seems to work fine, I did not perform NVRAM reset (also supposed to do that according to @UpgradeMatrix.txt file)

Do you know if I should perform the NVRAM reset, and then manually reconfigure the router? if so - how? Will the factory default button in the GUI do the job?

with the new firmware I see one problem: some of the text in the GUI pages is printed over other text - for example the page titles, and explanation text that is printed over some tabs.
See example in the attached screenshot.

Sj2KnQmhSs2adhB16

Who should I report issue this to?
It is difficult to me to assume that I am the first one to see these issues - maybe these are related to the actions that I did not do?
 

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Do you know if I should perform the NVRAM reset, and then manually reconfigure the router? if so - how? Will the factory default button in the GUI do the job?
Yes you really should do a reset. You can either do it in the GUI, or you can just press and hold the physical reset button for 5 seconds.

with the new firmware I see one problem: some of the text in the GUI pages is printed over other text - for example the page titles, and explanation text that is printed over some tabs.
Yes this is a known issue with recent versions of Chrome. The fix is described here.
 
Thanks, Andrei.
I saw that page prior to posting my questions. I did not know about the form made by John based on Merlin's code, and considered using the latest version by Merlin. John's fork is a better option, I understand.
John's recent stuff seems to work well on my RT-N66U. You should go to the "development" page at https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AKXdaMzjqVKbGsc&id=9332FC159A7E129!1117&cid=09332FC159A7E129
for the very latest versions. I am up to 42D3 with no problems but my setup is pretty plain vanilla. YMMV.
 

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