What's new

FW Betas & Dirty Upgrade

  • SNBForums Code of Conduct

    SNBForums is a community for everyone, no matter what their level of experience.

    Please be tolerant and patient of others, especially newcomers. We are all here to share and learn!

    The rules are simple: Be patient, be nice, be helpful or be gone!

Clark Griswald

Very Senior Member
Tl;dr summary of Post #20
-I whined about too many dirty upgrade posts in RMerlin beta threads
-RMerlin set me straight that he uses the data in those threads
-I understand
-then @shabbs @AntonK proclaim they are filthy dirty upgraders ;)

It is nice to know that the upgrade works, but all the post stating "dirty upgrade everything fine" flood the beta section.
-Yes, I am guilty of this offense, apologies.
If only the issues that arise, after a clean install of beta were discussed, perhaps "noobs" like The Gris, would be able to find their answers easier, and without the numerous post of "dirty upgrade worked".
Now one of you young fellas get over here & help me off my soap box!
 
Last edited:
I'm sure at least half of dirty upgraders don't use VPN on router. VPN Director is the focal point of this update after all. If you have issues - no like! If you dirty upgraded and no issues - like! Only few people discuss VPN Director in this Beta thread. When Merlin releases Alpha build, usual suspects jump right away with comments it's ready for prime time, 5min after the update - like! When Merlin fixes things and releases Beta 1, it's ready again 5min after the update - like! Merlin fixes more things in Beta 2, it's ready again immediately - like! Some people don't test anything and just flood the thread.
 
As you've shown on your account - The signature information is a good place to put that "context" so that people know what features (beyond plain vanilla) they are running. I personally run piholes with unbound so I put all of my "extra stuff" on those rather than my routers. I am guilty though of not showing the fact that I am doing AIMesh. I don't really mention the AIMesh because it is closed source so Merlin doesn't really have much (any?) control over its functionality.
 
This common flooding resulted in ignoring people throwing copy and paste links for 10 resets in a row for every single issue and/or supporting claims with fake company with many customers no one knows about. I'm sure those customers were already updated remotely over VPN to the latest Alpha/Beta and none of them has any issues whatsoever, on any Asuswrt-Merlin ever released. This behavior is not helping any of the folks coming here for advice and not helping Merlin's Alpha/Beta testing process either.
 
Having people post a quick "Updated and seems to be working fine" is actually useful to me. It does not denote that these people have done any kind of extended testing so it does not mean that the release is bug-free, but it does provide some basic sanity checks that nothing horribly wrong has happened with the release. It also gives me an idea of how many people are actually testing it.

What is far less useful are people who post a quick "Flashed it, had issues, flashed back to previous release". That kind of feedback is absolutely useless to me, as:

a) the user fails to even provide detail as to WHAT the issue was
b) the user failed to provide any basic info such as log content since he already switched back, meaning I can't even do any troubleshooting, and
c) if the user has done zero troubleshooting, then I can rightly assume that the issue may very well be an end-user configuration issue, therefore I can either waste time possibly chasing a bug that does not exist, or blindly flail in the dark trying to track down an issue for which the user can`t provide me any debugging info.
 
Give it up already. RMerlin has answered. What do you think he does with his stockpile of Asus routers anyways?
 
I just know what happened to DD-WRT in the past and what the difference was with 10 supported and tested routers vs 200 automatically built releases. I’m interested to know what direction this project is going to.
 
Use search then.
 
Do you test the builds on your routers before releasing Alpha/Beta to public?
Not every single one. I don't have the time nor the will to plug, power on, and flash 12 separate routers every single time I publish a new image. I only constantly test the main test platform (the RT-AC68U), and any platform that received a GPL/SDK update. The rest is on a case-by-case basis. For example the RT-AX86U when I need to test something that might impact HND routers.
 
Having people post a quick "Updated and seems to be working fine" is actually useful to me. It does not denote that these people have done any kind of extended testing so it does not mean that the release is bug-free, but it does provide some basic sanity checks that nothing horribly wrong has happened with the release. It also gives me an idea of how many people are actually testing it.

What is far less useful are people who post a quick "Flashed it, had issues, flashed back to previous release". That kind of feedback is absolutely useless to me, as:

a) the user fails to even provide detail as to WHAT the issue was
b) the user failed to provide any basic info such as log content since he already switched back, meaning I can't even do any troubleshooting, and
c) if the user has done zero troubleshooting, then I can rightly assume that the issue may very well be an end-user configuration issue, therefore I can either waste time possibly chasing a bug that does not exist, or blindly flail in the dark trying to track down an issue for which the user can`t provide me any debugging info.
Ya, that's what I meant!
Thanks RMerlin!
 
Filthy upgrade, everything fine.
 
I still haven't found the time (or a reason) to do a full/proper M&M Config to my 2x RT-AX86U's running in wired 2.5GbE backhaul mode with a 1Gbps up/down symmetrical ISP connection, except for the very first RMerlin install back in December/January, when I bought them.

Unwashed upgrades seem to be working very well!
 
I still haven't found the time (or a reason) to do a full/proper M&M Config to my 2x RT-AX86U's running in wired 2.5GbE backhaul mode with a 1Gbps up/down symmetrical ISP connection, except for the very first RMerlin install back in December/January, when I bought them.

Unwashed upgrades seem to be working very well!
Please don't post things like the above statement.
There is a certain forum member;) that tells everybody to do a M & M Config for everything!
To assist in a "beta" forum cleanup, perhaps a poll to signify if using beta, clean or dirty upgrade, no-issues. I'm trying to assist RMerlin's quest to solve issues and my desire for organization to "clean up" the forum.
@shabbs @AntonK get over here and help me down off the soapbox so I can get my OCD meds, you filthy up-graders!
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure that I understand where this thread is going now. RMerlin said that quick comments from a user that a firmware appears to be working is helpful to him, even if its a dirty upgrade, however, comments about a firmware not working without providing context is not useful.

I didn't hear anything about a preference for clean or dirty upgrades. In my somewhat limited programming experience, the only time there is a concern for a clean install is when the data in preference files is expected to be in a new location with the updated software. I know there are ways to deal with this such as having a snippet of code in the new software to detect an old preference file arrangement and update it to the new arrangement. I don't know if RMerlin utilizes such features when needed, but the Merlin firmware wiki says that in general, dirty upgrades should work just fine, and I would think that he'd let the community know when a dirty upgrade is not likely to work.
 
I only posted, because I was tired of going through all the post I thought were unneeded.
RMerlin set me straight that the data collected was useful to RMerlin, which I am completely fine with :)
We can stop posting and let the thread die, and all of us have a better day!
Gently stepping down from soapbox, now
 

Similar threads

Latest threads

Sign Up For SNBForums Daily Digest

Get an update of what's new every day delivered to your mailbox. Sign up here!
Top