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Cannot login after downgrade

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RobbieBlok

Occasional Visitor
Hi,
Just upgraded my AC86U to Merlin 384.19 .
The upgrade went fine, but my VPN Client could not startup.
I Thought the easiest way would be to just quickly put back the previous firmware 384.9 and check if that was working.

Now unfortunately I cannot login to the router anymore.

The router itself seems to be working, I can connect to Wifi, and also the VPN Client seems to work again.

I could do a factory reset, but would rather avoid that.
The standard pass admin admin also does not work.

What could this be?

Rob
 
Hi,
Just upgraded my AC86U to Merlin 384.19 .
The upgrade went fine, but my VPN Client could not startup.
I Thought the easiest way would be to just quickly put back the previous firmware 384.9 and check if that was working.

Now unfortunately I cannot login to the router anymore.

The router itself seems to be working, I can connect to Wifi, and also the VPN Client seems to work again.

I could do a factory reset, but would rather avoid that.
The standard pass admin admin also does not work.

What could this be?

Rob
Latest Asus code in 384.19 encrypts passwords, so reverting requires a factory reset as older versions cannot use the encrypted password
 
Moving up 10 firmware versions would do that.

I suggest doing an M&M Config and ideally, also a Nuclear Reset to get your router and network back to a good/known state. Please see the last two paragraphs in the link below.

 
Latest Asus code in 384.19 encrypts passwords, so reverting requires a factory reset as older versions cannot use the encrypted password
Aha, that could make sense.
Is there another way to reinstall the latest firmware, without login in the user interface? Maybe telnet?
Do you know why the VPN Client stopped working with the latest firmware?

Rob
 
Put the router into firmware recovery mode, and use Asus's Firmware Recovery Tool.

As for your VPN problem, the system log would tell you why it's failing.
 
Hi,
I was able to restore the latest firmware again, and I can logon to my router again. :)

However, the OpenVPN client now gives me the same problems:

Sep 6 19:05:39 kernel: klogd started: BusyBox v1.25.1 (2020-08-14 15:19:48 EDT)
Sep 6 19:05:57 ovpn-client1[5834]: Options error: You must define CA file (--ca) or CA path (--capath)
Sep 6 19:05:57 ovpn-client1[5834]: Use --help for more information.
Sep 6 19:06:46 ovpn-client1[6120]: Options error: You must define CA file (--ca) or CA path (--capath)
Sep 6 19:06:46 ovpn-client1[6120]: Use --help for more information.

I cant remember that I did something to the CA file on the previous firmware, so it must be something to do with the latest firmware.

Any hints?
 
Thats what I did a few times.
Not working.
In the old config I only needed to import the config file btw. And fill in my username and password.
 
Last edited:
Thats what I did a few times.
Not working.
In the old config I only needed to import the config file btw. And fill in my username and password.

Please post your config file.
 
I will attach the OVPN file, (deleted the Certificate section)
 

Attachments

  • ovpn file.ovpn.txt
    737 bytes · Views: 103
The CA seems to be properly inlined, so importing the config should populate the CA certificate field automatically. Have you followed the JFFS reset instructions listed in the 384.19 changelog that are specific to the RT-AC86U? Certificates get stored in the JFFS partition, so if it's corrupted, storing it will fail.
 
Yesss,
That did it.
Formatted the RFFS partition, and reloaded the settings.

Your the best Merlin, thanks.

Rob
 
Put the router into firmware recovery mode, and use Asus's Firmware Recovery Tool.

As for your VPN problem, the system log would tell you why it's failing.
Hi,
I was able to restore the latest firmware again, and I can logon to my router again. :)
Hello both of you,

I'm having this exact same issue. I've downgraded from 386.1 to 384.19 which resulted in me not being able to login to the GUI.

I've tried the firmware recovery tool and it hasn't worked out. I've applied both merlin firmware and ASUS stock firmware to the tool but at the end it says transfer failed. Any clue as to what's going on? Or any other solution to this?

Best regards,
Method
 
I'm having this exact same issue. I've downgraded from 386.1 to 384.19 which resulted in me not being able to login to the GUI.

This is normal, as the RT-AC68U switched to encrypted password storage with 386. Reverting that model to 384.xx requires a factory default reset.
 
This is normal, as the RT-AC68U switched to encrypted password storage with 386. Reverting that model to 384.xx requires a factory default reset.
Alright that's what i managed to gather. Guess I'll bite the bullet. Thanks for the reply!
 

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