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Asuswrt-Merlin 384.5, RT-AC87R: IPV6 will not work

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badstuff9

Occasional Visitor
I have Asuswrt-Merlin 384.5 installed on an RT-AC87R router. (Ubuntu 17.10, if that matters.)

I had never enabled IPV6. Today I was talking with tech support from my ISP (Charter/Spectrum) about a different issue. But I also asked, Does Charter support IPV6 where I am? The technician said they do, and that the modem they had supplied me will work with both IPv4 and IPV6. He said all I need to do is enable IPV6 support on my router. He urged me to make the change, because he said that more and more the world is converting over to that new standard.

So, on the IPV6 category I enabled IPV6, and just accepted all the default settings. (You can see that I attached a screenshot of the settings.) Then I clicked on "Apply". The result was that I completely lost my connection to my ISP.

I ended up having to change the IPV6 setting back to "Disabled", and reboot the router in order to regain internet connection.

I then spent most of the day looking online to understand what I should be doing to make the IPV6 setting work. I have eventually had to give up, there is far too much information out there, and I am not able to understand most of what is being said. I know so very, very little on the the topic of routers. Also, some of it seemed contradictory, so I didn't know who to trust.

Here are my questions:

1) Should I expect IPV6 to work with Asuswrt_Merlin 384.5?

2) Are the settings I show in the attached image correct?

3) Are there other settings on the router that I need to change?

Screenshot from 2018-07-14 17-51-12.png
 
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What modem do you have with Spectrum?

I can turn IPv6 on fine with my Arris SB6183 modem. I’m on Spectrum as well and like you, I just chose Native. I now have it disabled. I find my internet speeds and ping times to be a tad better with it off.

Charter uses a dual stack DNS with IPv6. They use their IPv4 DNS for both. They still don’t have a dedicated DNS server for IPv6.
 
What modem do you have with Spectrum?

I can turn IPv6 on fine with my Arris SB6183 modem. I’m on Spectrum as well and like you, I just chose Native. I now have it disabled. I find my internet speeds and ping times to be a tad better with it off.

Charter uses a dual stack DNS with IPv6. They use their IPv4 DNS for both. They still don’t have a dedicated DNS server for IPv6.


The modem they gave me is a Cisco DPC3208.

Thanks for the reply. Sadly, I can't say I grasp the significance of your comment that Charter uses a "dual stack DNS with IPv6".
 
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The router they gave me is a Cisco DPC3208.

Thanks for the reply. Sadly, I can't say I grasp the significance of your comment that Charter uses a "dual stack DNS with IPv6".
Instead of using separate DNS Servers for each, they route both through IPv4 DNS servers. According to some of the experienced folks on the Spectrum forums, this sometimes causes issues with ping times.

According to this dsl reports forum post, some Charter areas are having issues with IPv6:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31993406-TWC-Spectrum-IPv6-broken
 
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Have you tried different DNS settings?
Screenshot_2018-07-15 ASUS Wireless Router RT-AC86U - IPv6.png
 
Have you tried different DNS settings?
View attachment 13690

No, I have not. A couple reasons I have not:

1) For the first three fields under the "IPv6 LAN Setting" category, I don't know what I should enter in there, nor where I would find that information - nor even what it means.

2) When experimenting just to replicate what I see your screenshot, I discover that I am not allowed to make any entries into the first three fields under the "IPv6 LAN Setting" category. How did you "enable" those fields?
 
1) For the first three fields under the "IPv6 LAN Setting" category, I don't know what I should enter in there, nor where I would find that information - nor even what it means.

2) When experimenting just to replicate what I see your screenshot, I discover that I am not allowed to make any entries into the first three fields under the "IPv6 LAN Setting" category. How did you "enable" those fields?
You're not meant to put anything in those fields. The router should populate those values with the information it gets from your ISP's network. The fact that here's nothing there suggests either a bug in the way the router has implemented IPv6 support or your ISP is not providing you with an IPv6 service. Have you tried bypassing the router completely and plugging a PC straight into your modem. If you still can't get IPv6 then it's an issue with your ISP.
 
You're not meant to put anything in those fields. The router should populate those values with the information it gets from your ISP's network. The fact that here's nothing there suggests either a bug in the way the router has implemented IPv6 support or your ISP is not providing you with an IPv6 service. Have you tried bypassing the router completely and plugging a PC straight into your modem. If you still can't get IPv6 then it's an issue with your ISP.

Hey, thanks, that was a good idea.

When bypassing the router, I navigated to several sites that test both my IPv4 and IPv6 connections, in all cases both tested as perfect. Sooooooo..... I am concluding that the problem is with some setting in my router - sound correct?

How do I best chase this down? Or would it be best simply to do a factory reset of the router, and avoid reinstalling Asuswrt-Merlin all together? I am looking for a reasonably timely approach, I don't want to spend the next week falling down the router rabbit hole in Internet Wonderland, so if a factory reset is the best solution, so be it...... On the other hand, if there is some simple setting that I am overlooking, I'd rather just correct that.
 
Hey, thanks, that was a good idea.

When bypassing the router, I navigated to several sites that test both my IPv4 and IPv6 connections, in all cases both tested as perfect. Sooooooo..... I am concluding that the problem is with some setting in my router - sound correct?

How do I best chase this down? Or would it be best simply to do a factory reset of the router, and avoid reinstalling Asuswrt-Merlin all together?.
When you upgraded to 384.5, did you initialize (factory reset) and restore your settings manually (don’t restore your backup config)?

If not, you can try that.

384.5 worked with Spectrum’s IPv6 here and 384.6 alpha as well.
 
I finally had time to try this.

First of all, I could never get the factory reset to work. I tried the Initialize option, that did not work, after rebooting it would say that I was still using ASUSWRT-Merlin 384.5 (although I could see that all the my settings were gone). So, I tried the factory default Restore option, same failed result. So, I powered off the router, restarted it, and pressed the reset button on the back - same failed result. So, I powered off the router, then started it back up as I was holding down the WPS button on the back - same failed result. Finally, I just went to the ASUS site and downloaded the latest firmware and installed that. Now the router web page says it is using Asus firmware 3.0.0.4.382_50702 instead of 384.5 of Merlin. So, I'm *guessing* I finally succeeded in doing a factory reset??????

Anyway.....

I now am able to configure the IPV6 settings on the router and NOT lose internet access. So, that is an accomplishment.

However, when I go to a site like https://whatismyipaddress.com/ds-check , it says that my IPV6 address is not detected.

How do I determine if the problem is with settings in the router, or my ISP? (I made no other changes on the router after installing the ASUS firmware.)
 
First of all, I could never get the factory reset to work. I tried the Initialize option, that did not work, after rebooting it would say that I was still using ASUSWRT-Merlin 384.5 (although I could see that all the my settings were gone).
That's what a factory reset does. It wipes out your configuration settings so that you have to set it up from the beginning. It does not revert the firmware to a previous version.
 
Well..... When I do a "factory reset" on other devices, it actually resets the device to the state it was in when it "came from the factory". I had no reason to suspect that "factory reset" for an ASUS router meant something different. Oh well.......

So when I hook my computer up directly to the router, I am able go to traditional IPV4 sites, and to sites that are IPV6 only.

When I put the ASUS router between the modem and the computer, then I can view only traditional IPV4 sites, none of the IPV6 only sites are reachable. This tells me that there is some problem within the ASUS router.

The ASUS router is simply set up to have IPV6 enabled using the "Native" setting. That, creating a router password, and setting up wireless networks are the only changes I made to the stock ASUS firmware.

How do I best pursue figuring out why the router will not let me reach IPV6 sites? Are there some forums I should be looking at that have people who specialize in these matters who could help?

I am at a loss, and Google is sending me on wild goose chases. (I admit I probably don't know the exact correct search terms I should be using.)

Thanks again.
 
Does the modem do voice (phone) as well?
 
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking.

If you are asking if the modem is hooked up to a telephone: No, it is not. Spectrum's (Charter, the ISP) cable comes into our house and is hooked directly to the modem. Then, from the modem it is hooked to the Asus router only. From the router the connections are only to computers.

If you are asking, "Is the modem *capable* of handling a phone", I do not know the answer to that. How would I determine that?
 
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The reason I asked, an all-in-one modem has to be bridged.

Have you thought about asking your ISP to swap the modem out? Reading up on your modem, it appears it’s older hardware. I believe the 3216 is more recent. That may be worth a shot. Could be some kind of conflict?
 
Well, if you think that's a logical next step, I will try that. First, let me ask you more about what your thought process is:

As I wrote above, when I connect the modem directly to the computer, I can access the IPV6 sites with no problem. So, I concluded, the modem is not the problem.

Based on your last suggestion to replace the modem, you must not agree with my logic?????
 
Well, if you think that's a logical next step, I will try that. First, let me ask you more about what your thought process is:

As I wrote above, when I connect the modem directly to the computer, I can access the IPV6 sites with no problem. So, I concluded, the modem is not the problem.

Based on your last suggestion to replace the modem, you must not agree with my logic?????
Logic is good. I don’t see why it shouldn’t work, but maybe hardware isn’t playing well together. It happens. Worth a swap to rule that out. If you have a local office, it’s an easy exchange.
 
I will try that. And if it works, great. But......

If that does not work, what do you suggest as future things to try? Replace the router? Other things to try?
 
I will try that. And if it works, great. But......

If that does not work, what do you suggest as future things to try? Replace the router? Other things to try?
I’m on Spectrum, in a legacy TWC area. IPv6 was always fine here. I simply turned on Native IPv6 and It worked. Outside of that, I couldn’t tell you. After you get the new modem set up and if that doesn’t work, you may have to check with Spectrum tech support for guidance.
 
Well..... When I do a "factory reset" on other devices, it actually resets the device to the state it was in when it "came from the factory". I had no reason to suspect that "factory reset" for an ASUS router meant something different. Oh well.......

I have never seen any device that does that, because it would require the device to keep two separate copy of is whole firmware. A factory default reset on virtually any device only affects the volatile configuration, not the running operating system.


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