I have an issue with media bridge no longer working in my home office after a router firmware upgrade. The media bridge has been replaced with some TP power lines, which are ok but work at a slower speed, but I'm really curious to know what is causing the media bridge to not forward the packets correctly. Does anyone have any ideas on why or where to look to help solve this mystery?
History
Original setup: BT Smart Hub + ASUS EA-AC87 in media bridge mode in home office (~900Mbps wireless connection)
11 May 2022 : BT Smart Hub firmware was upgraded SG4B1000E079
12 May 2022 : Home office has no internet, factory reset the EA-AC87, no joy. Intermittent pings from computer to Router, about 1 in every 8 to 12 would reply. Contacted BT and they kindly fixed my VDSL copper line which I did not know was broken (filled with water after fibre crew dumped the junction box on the floor of the cabinet), no help on the router. Figured it was the BT Hub being incompatible with the ASUS media bridge.
Sometime in June : Purchased a ASUS DSL-AC68U to replace the BT Hub, configured it and the EA-AC87. The VDSL WAN and wifi to the Media bridge is all working correctly and I have my internet back in my home office. Prompted to upgrade the DSL firmware, why not?, upgraded ok and then I lost the internet in the home office again, checked the media bridge - its no longer forwarding packets - intermittent pings same as the BT Smart hub. I did a factory reset on the DSL/EA and re-configured them again but no change. I did not note down what the original firmware of the DSL was before upgrading.
Test Setup
To simplify things I setup a simple network:
[Laptop1] -eth-> [DSL-AC68U] <-- ASUS_5G wifi --> [EA-AC87] <-eth- [laptop2]
ASUS EA-AC87 Operation Mode: Media bridge Firmware Version: 3.0.0.4.374_2814
ASUS DSL-AC68U Operation Mode: Router/Access Point Firmware Version: 3.0.0.4.386_47534-g23e7ef6
I logged on to Laptop1, Laptop2 and the EA-AC87. I did not test from the DSL.
Wifi connected between the DSL and EA was strong in all of the tests and I placed them in the same room for the testing.
I found that during the router start up, I would get a consistent 20 pings in a row before the intermittent pings would start and the router HTML page would load.
Thinking it was firmware related I reloaded older firmware until I found one that worked:
ASUS DSL-AC68U Firmware (factory reset after loading new firmware)
2022/09/14 Version 3.0.0.4.386_50117 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2022/03/04 Version 3.0.0.4.386_47534 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2021/09/30 Version 3.0.0.4.386_45662 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2021/05/26 Version 3.0.0.4.386_43252 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2021/02/25 Version 3.0.0.4.386_41995 Pings ok for all
I also tried the Asus Merlin Gnuton DSL firmwares and the newest one that worked was 386.01_2-gnuton1, which I think is based upon GPL 386_41700
I checked the EA-AC87 'brctl showmacs br0' and 'cat /proc/net/arp' and could see the macs of the 2 laptops
Its like the EA-AC87 can connect to both sides ok, just traffic is getting stuck and cannot pass through it. The only change I can see was the firmware on the BT and ASUS routers. From the ASUS support pages the EA-AC87 is not supported anymore, by the looks they gave up updating the firmware a while ago, but I'm still interested from a technical point why this problem is happening.
Any ideas on what it could be or where to look next?
History
Original setup: BT Smart Hub + ASUS EA-AC87 in media bridge mode in home office (~900Mbps wireless connection)
11 May 2022 : BT Smart Hub firmware was upgraded SG4B1000E079
12 May 2022 : Home office has no internet, factory reset the EA-AC87, no joy. Intermittent pings from computer to Router, about 1 in every 8 to 12 would reply. Contacted BT and they kindly fixed my VDSL copper line which I did not know was broken (filled with water after fibre crew dumped the junction box on the floor of the cabinet), no help on the router. Figured it was the BT Hub being incompatible with the ASUS media bridge.
Sometime in June : Purchased a ASUS DSL-AC68U to replace the BT Hub, configured it and the EA-AC87. The VDSL WAN and wifi to the Media bridge is all working correctly and I have my internet back in my home office. Prompted to upgrade the DSL firmware, why not?, upgraded ok and then I lost the internet in the home office again, checked the media bridge - its no longer forwarding packets - intermittent pings same as the BT Smart hub. I did a factory reset on the DSL/EA and re-configured them again but no change. I did not note down what the original firmware of the DSL was before upgrading.
Test Setup
To simplify things I setup a simple network:
[Laptop1] -eth-> [DSL-AC68U] <-- ASUS_5G wifi --> [EA-AC87] <-eth- [laptop2]
ASUS EA-AC87 Operation Mode: Media bridge Firmware Version: 3.0.0.4.374_2814
ASUS DSL-AC68U Operation Mode: Router/Access Point Firmware Version: 3.0.0.4.386_47534-g23e7ef6
I logged on to Laptop1, Laptop2 and the EA-AC87. I did not test from the DSL.
Wifi connected between the DSL and EA was strong in all of the tests and I placed them in the same room for the testing.
| From\To | Laptop1 | DSL-AC68U | EA-AC87 | Laptop2 |
| Laptop1 | / | OK | OK | Intermittent |
| DSL-AC68U | / | OK | ||
| EA-AC87 | OK | OK | / | OK |
| Laptop2 | Intermittent | Intermittent | OK | / |
Thinking it was firmware related I reloaded older firmware until I found one that worked:
ASUS DSL-AC68U Firmware (factory reset after loading new firmware)
2022/09/14 Version 3.0.0.4.386_50117 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2022/03/04 Version 3.0.0.4.386_47534 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2021/09/30 Version 3.0.0.4.386_45662 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2021/05/26 Version 3.0.0.4.386_43252 Intermittent pings, during router startup pings ok
2021/02/25 Version 3.0.0.4.386_41995 Pings ok for all
I also tried the Asus Merlin Gnuton DSL firmwares and the newest one that worked was 386.01_2-gnuton1, which I think is based upon GPL 386_41700
I checked the EA-AC87 'brctl showmacs br0' and 'cat /proc/net/arp' and could see the macs of the 2 laptops
Its like the EA-AC87 can connect to both sides ok, just traffic is getting stuck and cannot pass through it. The only change I can see was the firmware on the BT and ASUS routers. From the ASUS support pages the EA-AC87 is not supported anymore, by the looks they gave up updating the firmware a while ago, but I'm still interested from a technical point why this problem is happening.
Any ideas on what it could be or where to look next?
