Latest BE98 Asus Firmware possibly important (and annoying) bug fix included

[miker33]

Hi All,

Although not directly Merlin related just quick heads up to let you know that ASUS seem to have finally resolved the weird network issues with the latest firmware on the BE98 with regards to randomly losing all internet access from all devices (wifi and LAN) despite the router itself remaining happily connected to the internet. Previously I would be lucky to get more than a 4 or 5 days (sometimes maybe just over a week) before needing to reboot to fix this issue but with the new firmware released at the start of Feb been running without that fault for a whole month. Not sure which codebase it's using but hopefully it'll get Merlin'd at some point soon (at least for the BE98 Pro and then get GNUTON'd for the BE98)

Kind Regards,
Mike

 

[miker33]

Spoke too soon, after well over a month of stability it's now started to drop connections again every few days, there must be some caching, buffer or something that gets cleared during a full firmware update which isn't cleared on a reboot or why else would it remain stable for so long then revert back to every couple of days. It was the same when new, firmware was updated to latest and it was fine for well over a month then it was every few days again needing a reboot.

 

[radiomyke]

So sorry to hear about the latest disconnections you're suffering. I'm having the same issues with a BE98 (non-Pro) that I purchased at the end of January. It's paired with a BQ16, both on the latest FW (but not the March BQ16 release of yesterday).

All was perfect for around 4 weeks then all wifi connections would fail. A reboot rectified matter matters but, after another couple of weeks wifi would fail again so I'd reboot. I started to notice that the uptime periods were getting shorter and shorter, down from weeks to days and, finally, just hours. After trying several complete resets to both units and trying many different configurations (including leaving everything as per the initial set process, toggling wifi 7 on or off etc) none of which helped, I contacted Asus UK support and presently have an open ticket that's been 'escalated to our team at HQ'.

While this is ongoing I reverted to using the ISP supplied router (an eero Pro 6e with another in mesh mode) and they've been rock solid. Looking through the various BE98 and BQ16 threads there seem to be several other owners complaining about these or similar issues. My preferred option would be a fix from Asus but, having had no problems with the ISP supplied gear, I'm starting to think that it might be time to consider other alternatives

 

[miker33]

As a test i've just re-flashed the latest firmware which was already installed and see if it lasts well over a month again, if it does then it must be due to something getting either bloated, full or corrupted over time which isn't reset fully at a reboot but is when you do a firmware update.
Will let you know next time it descends into failing every couple of days, hopefully not before May

 

[miker33]

Quick update, so we are 2 weeks in since I basically flashed the same firmware over the top and still no reboots been required whereas before it was lasting a couple of days between reboots. There has to be some table or temp areas somewhere that is reset\wiped during a flash which isn't reset during a reboot.

 

[radiomyke]

Quick update, so we are 2 weeks in since I basically flashed the same firmware over the top and still no reboots been required whereas before it was lasting a couple of days between reboots. There has to be some table or temp areas somewhere that is reset\wiped during a flash which isn't reset during a reboot.

I'm still in the process of following advice from the Asus HQ team. Over the course of the last month there has been new FW for the BQ16 used as the mesh node which I've installed. As per Asus HQ advice, I've disabled WiFi 7 and used auto for channel selection which didn't stop the complete loss of wi-fi within a couple of hours.

The next response was to use fixed channels on all with 80MHz bandwidth for everything (except 2.4 GHz). These settings did improve general wifi stability but my Sky Q boxes were prone to disconnection which I think was caused by the Asus suggestion to use ch36 for the routers 5-1 band (Sky Q uses ch 36 for connection between the Q and the mini boxes) . I was also asked to enable/disable the 5.2 band to see if this made any difference but it didn't.

The latest advice was to move the router's 5.1 GHz band to ch48; and to set the bandwidth settings from 80MHz to 160MHz. I did this a couple of days ago and, so far, the router/wifi has been stable and the Sky boxes haven't had any disconnections. So potentially the latest settings appear to be good. However, it's early days yet as, in the past, the system has been fine for up to around 4 weeks before it all goes horribly wrong. Adding to my concern that this could recur is that the settings now in place are extremely similar to the settings I was using when I first encountered the problems; the only settings that are different right now is that I'm using 160MHz bandwidth on ch 6 as opposed to 320MHz and ch48 for the 5.1 channel instead of ch60. Perhaps the BQ16 FW update has helped.

Fingers crossed for the next 3 weeks, and glad to see that you are also not experiencing any problems