There's an RT-AC86U with rMerlin 384.13 that I manage for a non-profit. Working fine, pretty simple configuration. I've tried four times to manually upgrade to 384.14_2, including a couple times right after simple reboots. It goes into its 3 minute upload thing, seems to be going fine, reboots and *presto* -- still indicates that it's running the old firmware. Anybody ever seen this? Maybe it's factory reset and manual configure time? Thanks!
Have you re-downloaded the firmware? No usb drives attached? Did you download the 68U firmware by mistake (has happened to a number of users here by accident).
What you say simple reboots, do you mean a soft reboot or a power cycle?
My 86u refuses to update unless I have performed a full power cycle immediately prior.
I've noticed, the past few (dirty, dirty) upgrades, that it takes a 2nd upload of the firmware to get it to "stick;" That would probably change if I were to perform the M&M routine on it...
I've been trying a new method when the router is using a USB drive that doesn't seem to require a reboot first.
I go to the GUI and 'Safely remove drive'. I wait a good 2 minutes after the USB is unmounted and the CPU cores are idle before I flash the new firmware and all just works great.
The best example of this was when I upgraded an RT-AC3100 with 81 days uptime. I safely removed the USB drive, waited 2 or 3 minutes for the GUI to refresh and the cores to go idle and then flashed the latest 384.15 Alpha 1 (Jan 1) firmware on it. The firmware 'took' the very first time and when it had finished booting up all the scripts were fully available. A second reboot (something I do by default) after an additional 15 - 20 minutes and the router and network are stable a week later.
I am trying to determine if we can restart all services on the router (even when not using a USB drive) and forego a reboot? I haven't really pursued that yet, but if I do, it will be with the help @Jack Yaz' scMerlin script.
I go to the GUI and 'Safely remove drive'. I wait a good 2 minutes after the USB is unmounted and the CPU cores are idle before I flash the new firmware and all just works great.
I finally seem to have succeeded in updating the router to 384.14_2, but only after a factory reset. Simple power-down reboot wasn't enough, trying 384.14 didn't do it.
Parenthetically, a factory reset through the GUI doesn't seem to do anything, have to do the power up with WPS button held.