Release Asuswrt-Merlin 386.4 is now available

[sl4fko]

Strange behavior of my AC86U with 386.4 ("nuked" after flash, configured from scratch):


After a week or so with new firmware the router became unreachable with Asus router android app, every computer web browser or even via Putty. All devices were however connected to wifi and even had a working internet connection!


Rebooting the router helped but still, funny situation...

 

[Gary_Dexter]

Strange behavior of my AC86U with 386.4 ("nuked" after flash, configured from scratch):


After a week or so with new firmware the router became unreachable with Asus router android app, every computer web browser or even via Putty. All devices were however connected to wifi and even had a working internet connection!


Rebooting the router helped but still, funny situation...

Change the login m authentication method to HTTPS only.

 

[SaBl]

I did a dirty upgrade from 384.18 to 386.4 on my AC86U. The changelog for 384.19 states that due to partitioning changes to the jffs partition, it was recommended to back up the jffs partition before upgrade and to restore afterwards. I did just that, everything seems to be working ok. There was error in the system log after restore:

kernel: jffs2: warning: (1312) jffs2_sum_write_data: Summary too big (-32 data, -1606 pad) in eraseblock at 00420000

The router didn't seem to do any of the database maintenance that was mentioned a couple of releases ago, however a family member's AC86U did get stuck doing it for over half an hour. I'm guessing I should be good to go and not require any factory resets or anything? Hopefully that error is not an issue.

Also, can't say I'm a fan of these new white device icons instead of the older grey ones. I was using a couple of custom icons, I changed them to white to match the rest. While they did add extra generic icons, they seemed to have gotten rid of the smart tv icon for some reason.

I'm also assuming the same advice about beamforming applies to new firmwares right? (2.4ghz disable mu-mimo, all beamforming options, airtime fairness, 5ghz, disable universial beamforming, airtime fairness, and possibly the others however newer devices on 5ghz should be ok)

 

[DarkKnight75]

I did a dirty upgrade from 384.18 to 386.4 on my AC86U. The changelog for 384.19 states that due to partitioning changes to the jffs partition, it was recommended to back up the jffs partition before upgrade and to restore afterwards. I did just that, everything seems to be working ok. There was error in the system log after restore:

kernel: jffs2: warning: (1312) jffs2_sum_write_data: Summary too big (-32 data, -1606 pad) in eraseblock at 00420000

The router didn't seem to do any of the database maintenance that was mentioned a couple of releases ago, however a family member's AC86U did get stuck doing it for over half an hour. I'm guessing I should be good to go and not require any factory resets or anything? Hopefully that error is not an issue.

Also, can't say I'm a fan of these new white device icons instead of the older grey ones. I was using a couple of custom icons, I changed them to white to match the rest. While they did add extra generic icons, they seemed to have gotten rid of the smart tv icon for some reason.

I'm also assuming the same advice about beamforming applies to new firmwares right? (2.4ghz disable mu-mimo, all beamforming options, airtime fairness, 5ghz, disable universial beamforming, airtime fairness, and possibly the others however newer devices on 5ghz should be ok)

In my experience...going from 384.. to .386.. code on my ac86u def helped it out by doing a factory reset and reconfiguring...I'm sure some will say not needed...but i went from stock to asus with full reset to avoid any issues..this release is rock solid on my ac86u

 

[ElmerFudd]

FWIW- These are my 2.4 settings that produce a solid connection to many IoT items around the house, including TP-Link smart plugs.
View attachment 38495View attachment 38496

Those settings did not work for on a AX88U with my TPLINK LB110's, KL120, or HS105. I ended up replacing all my bulbs with KL130's and so far 36+ hours no disconnects. Even better is they work flawlessly with with WIFI 6 AX, be-forming settings, as well as protected frames all enabled. I do not recommend turning protected frames off as that makes WIFI less secure.

Posted a lengthy thread to TPLINK on their forums noting that the one think I had in common with my issues is all TPLINK hardware was at REV 1 using firmware 1.8.11 - no problems with other devices and KL130's work flawlessly. They escalated my case so hopefully they find the culprit..... I'm better TP-LINK firmware.


-Mike

 

[ElmerFudd]

So after I replaced all my legacy TP-LINK bulbs with KL130 bulbs, 386.4 works amazing. I noticed that this new release manages memory much better than before. With 386.3.2 my AX88U crept up to 97% memory utilization after about a day with a 2GB swap file, but on 386.4 memory is never more than 58% utilized (although I did change swap to 5G) using Diversion, Skynet, Yazi, and Log Entware.

Cheers to @RMerlin . We are so lucky for his dedicated efforts and great coding. Be sure to send him a token of appreciation by clicking "Thank You" at the bottom of https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ !

 

[ElmerFudd]

I really, really hope that network isn’t called “IOT”…!!

I would also suggest changing your channel width to 20 rather than 20/40 and changing the channel to 1, 6 or 11 rather than 3.

Nothing wrong with IOT SSID... I just recommend you use Yazi, different IP space for IOT VLAN, disable one / two way communications to guest, and set guest client isolation to enabled. That way you keep those Chinese gremlins contained

 

[RMerlin]

Heads up, I'll be locking this thread around the end of the week.

 

[jsbeddow]

Heads up, I'll be locking this thread around the end of the week.

Hmm...as previously hinted to by another member, perhaps this is an additional sign that we may see another alpha/beta cycle coming very soon. Or, at the very least a point release?

 

[PR3MIUM]

Hmm...as previously hinted to by another member, perhaps this is an additional sign that we may see another alpha/beta cycle coming very soon. Or, at the very least a point release?

Release - ASUS RT-AX88U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.46065 (12th Jan 2022)

ASUS RT-AX88U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.46065 Security - Fixed string format stacks vulnerability - Fixed cross-site-scripting vulnerability - Fixed informational vulnerability. Thanks to Howard McGreehan. -Fixed SQL injection vulnerability -Fixed json file traversal vulnerability -Fixed...

www.snbforums.com

Does Asus even add someday a German ISP Profile or just the rest of the World ?

 

[RMerlin]

Hmm...as previously hinted to by another member, perhaps this is an additional sign that we may see another alpha/beta cycle coming very soon. Or, at the very least a point release?

No, it's just the same that I do with all release threads. I lock them after around two weeks as they have moved from reporting release-related issues to general configuration discussions, which should be in their own thread.

There's pretty much no development happening at this time, due to being still waiting for fixed GPLs from Asus, and work being crazy since I got back last week.

 

[sorachan]

It's very sad to see jitterentropy-rngd replaced by haveged for newer models...

 

[torstein]

Late to the party, I know, but for what it's worth; it's been 24 hours and no problems after updating.

• Dirty upgrade from 386.3_2 to 386.4
• I have NextDNS cli installed
• Running one OpenVPN server (tunneling with OpenVPN Connect for Mac and iOS)
• DDNS through asuscomm
• VPN Director running one Mullvad VPN client
• Skynet is doing its own thing in the background (mostly just stressing me out, tbh)
• AIprotect is on
• WPA3 enabled on the 5Ghz radio.
• 2.4Ghz disabled because I dont need it, or want it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

WiFi now working properly with this release on my RT-AX86U. No more crashes of the 5GHz band.

Only issue is the overwritten syslog file on reboot that was previously discussed. And the kernel messages having their timestamps in UTC rather than local time.

Thanks RMerlin.

 

[mcd423]

I posted in the beta3 forum -
I'm not sure what information you need - RT-AX88U
I run 386.4_alpha2-ga85421da82 - works great
I've updated last month to a newer beta version - both WAN ports show disconnected. Reverted back to alpha.

I run a 9/1 dual WAN balance.

I just attempted to upgrade to 386.4 - went back to both WAN ports "disconnected".

I did a factory reset via the Administration - Restore/Save/Upload Setting - set up wireless - set up Dual WAN load balance 9/1 - was okay for one reboot/config change.

Changed IP router to something other than 50.1 - back to the above (both WAN's disconnected) - uggg!

I downgraded back to the alpha version linked above and restored my previous config - back to normal.

I will add logs if requested. I'm not great in Linux so tell me what to terminal.

same problem

you just uncheck the Network Monitoring box,both ways .its okay

 

[ElmerFudd]

It looks like ASUS is posting a new round of firmware for several models. Version 3.0.0.4.386.46065 just came out for the AX88U and I find the note "improved connection stability" interesting. Not going to test myself as I finally my got my router running like a well tunned machine using 386.4 after days of troubleshooting old TP-LINK bulbs. If anyone else had WIFI connection issues with 2.4ghz WIFI, please report back letting us know if the new ASUS firmware is a fix.

Also it looks like the update is a big one with a number of vulnerabilities, AI mesh issues, and DDNS using WAN IPV6 issues addressed. I'm sure Merlin will incorporate in a future update once ASUS releases the GPL.

 

[shabbs]

It looks like ASUS is posting a new round of firmware for several models. Version 3.0.0.4.386.46065 just came out for the AX88U and I find the note "improved connection stability" interesting. Not going to test myself as I finally my got my router running like a well tunned machine using 386.4 after days of troubleshooting old TP-LINK bulbs. If anyone else had WIFI connection issues with 2.4ghz WIFI, please report back letting us know if the new ASUS firmware is a fix.

Also it looks like the update is a big one with a number of vulnerabilities, AI mesh issues, and DDNS using WAN IPV6 issues addressed. I'm sure Merlin will incorporate in a future update once ASUS releases the GPL.

Yeah, I will try that on one of my APs that has my Nest/IOT gear and see if makes a difference. This is a discussion for another thread tho...

 

[Morpheus2020]

WiFi now working properly with this release on my RT-AX86U. No more crashes of the 5GHz band.

Only issue is the overwritten syslog file on reboot that was previously discussed. And the kernel messages having their timestamps in UTC rather than local time.

Thanks RMerlin.

The official firmware of AX86U also has the issues of SYSLOG.

 

[ColinTaylor]

The official firmware of AX86U also has the issues of SYSLOG.

Thanks. Is that the case for 386.46061 which was released yesterday?

 

[djrm]

I'm experiencing a strange issue with an AX88U as every 2 days aprox, the core 4 reach 100% and get there. After some time few cameras cannot establish the wifi connection and the connection start being slower.
In the log there is just connect and disconnect STA records, but in top the process dnsmasq is getting so much cpu, so probably this is the reason of the continous 100% usage of core 4.

A reboot fix this, but I did it 2 days ago and today happened the same...

Any suggestion?