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AC68U, updated from 386.10 to .12 and now 2.4GHz wifi is... temperamental

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ajinder

New Around Here
RT-AC68U: about two weeks ago I updated this from 386.10 to 386.12. All went well, as it always does... but during the last week or so I've had multiple problems with two or three older devices which aren't used that often. All can only use the 2.4GHz band and they either would not connect at all or only sporadically, even when placed next to the router. And if they connected the speed was in the low 100KBs, again next to the router. At first I suspected congestion issues so did multiple tests with various channel options. Nothing I tried made a difference. The 5GHz devices are all fine (if not I would've seen this much earlier).

At long last I remembered that I'd done this update... so I re-uploaded the 386.10 version... and all problems seem to be gone. I say "seem" because it's in the nature of the beast that I can't say with absolute certainty that it's to do with the update but the problems I described lasted for about a week and vanished the moment I rebooted the router with 386.10. I could re-upload 386.12 to check but I am loath to do this as my electricity supply is not always the most stable and I don't want to sit next to a bricked AC68U.

I could also try 386.11 but before I do anything rash I thought I'd ask here about this strange effect.
 
Are you running any add-on scripts on the RT-AC68U?
RT-AC68U: about two weeks ago I updated this from 386.10 to 386.12.
By skipping over 386.11 you may have missed performing the steps to free up some NVRAM memory:
https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/node/14
386.11 (14-May-2023)
- CHANGED: Reduce max OpenVPN clients to 2 for RT-AC68U and
DSL-AC68U due to lack of NVRAM on these two
models. Note that existing settings are not
automatically removed, you must run the following
command over SSH to remove them from nvram and
the /jffs/openvpn/ directory:

clear_vpnclients.sh

A backup will be saved in /jffs/openvpn_backup.tgz.

Any time you start having weird issues on a RT-AC68U that cannot be tracked down to recent changes or that indicate an issue in the log; one of the first troubleshooting steps is to look at the amount of free/used NVRAM. And one troubleshooting step to try and resolve the weird issue is to perform a hard factory reset and reconfigure the router from scratch without uploading a saved router CFG file, without having a USB drive connected to the router, and do not load any add-on scripts. Then see if the issue continues to present itself.
 
No, I am not running any add-ons.

As to the NVRAM issue, yes I had done that prior to the update, ie when still on 386.10. Used NVRAM space fell from a little over 65536 (?) to around 53000 IIRC. Actually this problem was the main reason why I checked for an update and found 386.12.

I have now had the 2.4GHz devices in use for a whole day and they definitenly work much better with 386.10 than they did with 386.12. Yes, now (after going back to 386.10) the NVRAM stands at slightly below 65000. But honestly, I prefer this to the abysmal performance of 386.12 on the 2.4GHz band.
 
So... no further hints or pointers. I assume I have a choice between a working 386.10 with the NVRAM problem or a 386.12 which does not play well with 2.4GHz devices.

Perhaps 386.13 will be rectify this but I'll stick with 386.10 for the time being.
 

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