amtm LONG time Asus/Merlin, first time amtm -- reassurance please

[CaptainLockness]

There are new Asuswrt features causing issues with excellent add-ons from the past.

I'm sorry, but Guest Network Pro may be propagated to... some nodes, but YazFi was much easier to use, simpler and with more useful features. Not to mention how many people praised FlexQoS for gaming, streaming, etc., how much time the developers invested to make it better than ever and... now Adaptive QoS is just broken on the new routers. This work-in-progress building of "pro" features on top of limited and unpredictable compatibility "mesh" black box caused disturbance in regular user base, custom firmware users and scripts ecosystem community.

I heard about FlexQoS and was like, this is useful until, I got a Wi-Fi 7 router, yeahhh didn't age well.

 

[JGrana]

My honest opinion, not really. But that answer is subjective and will change based on who you ask and what experience they had... ScMerlin was the only one I've ever seen RMerlin speak out against.

It should be noted - the functions of scMerlin aren’t the issue. In fact it’s quite useful.
From what I recall, the issue was that JakYaz modified some html properties that resulted in how menus on the left side of the WebUI are displayed.

@ExtremeFiretop - maybe add a configuration option to disable this behavior?

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

It should be noted - the functions of scMerlin aren’t the issue. In fact it’s quite useful.
From what I recall, the issue was that JakYaz modified some html properties that resulted in how menus on the left side of the WebUI are displayed.

@ExtremeFiretop - maybe add a configuration option to disable this behavior?

It's not a bad idea.

I haven't seen the new method break anything yet, but might be a smart way to help curb potential issues down the road and give some control to users that might be concerned about such a thing.

 

[Tech9]

Removing the GUI menus will increase the value of the script. People install it for the shortcuts and get "like it or not" GUI addition with no dependencies showing unrelated to the configuration or settings pages.

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

Removing the GUI menus will increase the value of the script. People install it for the shortcuts and get "like it or not" GUI addition with no dependencies showing unrelated to the configuration or settings pages.

I thought about it more over night, and came to the conclusion I like the idea.
If nothing else, it could help offset some of the negative publicity scMerlin has had in the past.

We all know RMerlin’s guidance was specifically about this one feature, not the entire add-on.
Maybe we can shift the message from “don’t install it” to “don’t enable this feature.”

That’s a much safer place for users to be: they keep control, understand the tradeoff, and can make their own choice.
Thanks for the suggestion @JGrana - It's been officially noted I'll work on it while I have some time in my evenings, shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

 

[David Cavalli]

The more things you start installing, uninstalling, replacing, adjusting, blocking, filtering, logging, monitoring, etc. the lower the quality of your life will be. Write that down. Your setup was perfect before because you know what you need and how to do it. After you're done exploring go back to your cleaner better setup.

My setup was *extremely* streamlined and my router was a rock.

Since you are getting closer to factory reset anyway...

I was *never* happy with the prospects for my router after reading that line. I posted for "reassurance" here and this was anything but! My fears were realized at 5am this morning when I looked at my Google Home Nest and saw "Network Error". *That* was new. And ungood. Spent an hour trying to salvage *anything*. Made an executive decision. Tech9 knew it and it was time to admit it. Factory reset.

Armed with my .tar backup of my JFFS partition and my thorough documentation of every setting of my install when the router was new, I was able to get things 97% perfect (i.e. where I was on 2/24) before anyone woke up. Still have some new minor tweaks to do since 2/24, with a new device or two, but I have a lean/mean/clean installation, and things are flying.

*HERE* is where I shine and *THIS* is where I will stay. Thanks for playing amtm (which I installed to make sure *nothing* persisted from prior JFFS)! ...and thanks for the warning @Tech9!

 

[dave14305]

I looked at my Google Home Nest and saw "Network Error".

What addons had been installed?

 

[Tech9]

Google Home Nest and saw "Network Error"

Which step did you get to?

Skynet - Is default firewall good enough?

Sorry if this has been asked before, I just wanted opinions. Do you think the default AX86U firewall, combined with the usual windows firewall is good enough, and is there any real advantage in using Skynet? We also all have malwarebytes premium installed, trendnet on and adguard with all...

www.snbforums.com

You over-blocked or over-filtered something...

 

[David Cavalli]

What addons had been installed?

Entware Linux "App Store"
Disk check USB Disk Maintenance
scMerlin GUI Service Control
Diversion Network-wide Ad Blocking
Skynet Firewall IP-level "Blacklist"

 

[David Cavalli]

Which step did you get to?

Step 0. No GUI access. I couldn't even SSH into the router. Over an hour trying to even *in* somehow. Then I realized by 6am, my family will be *pissed*. Set up the travel router so nobody would notice, if they woke early, and decided factory reset... By 7am, prioritizing *their* world, then the IoT devices, I had the Asus going well enough so that they didn't even know / notice that anything had happened. By 9am, even the tiniest level of tuning was perfect.

You over-blocked or over-filtered something...

I think you're wrong here, but right earlier. Diversion and Skynet were literally just installed. On Diversion, I even had it whitelisted to just my main computer, and when it affected League of Legends, turned it off for my computer too, until I got around to figuring out which sites needed to be whitelisted for the game. Figured I'd (eventually) tune it for *me*, then the family could slowly get integrated. That's my Pi-Hole future, if/when... Skynet was install and do nothing.

I think you're right earlier. Installing, uninstalling, etc. is what did me in. No idea *which* script put me over the top, current install or removed one, but think I like the stable world I had with the features that have gotten me through 7 (Merlin) / 15 (Asus) years...

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

You over-blocked or over-filtered something...

Seems like a plausible answer.

Just for some perspective, I have all these add-ons installed that he listed above, plus more, all of which are actually configured and working without any issues across multiple routers on both 3004 and 3006 firmware. Uptime is as long as the last firmware release.

Another possibility to explain what happened is a locked up/dead USB? I've heard of horror stories here over cheap unreliable USB drives dying and causing the router to go into "limp mode". May simply need something more reliable installed like an SSD.

Hard to know what happened to him for sure, since logs are gone after the decision was made to factory reset.

 

[Tech9]

I think you're right earlier.

Stick to what you know works best for you. Just because someone else likes something doesn't guarantee you are going to like it as well. I sense signs of perfectionism and vanilla firmware with own light customizations is perhaps your way of doing things. The wall on the image below perhaps does exactly the same thing, but I personally like the right side better.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Stick to what you know works best for you. Just because someone else likes something doesn't guarantee you are going to like it as well. I sense signs of perfectionism and vanilla firmware with own light customizations is perhaps your way of doing things. The wall on the image below perhaps does exactly the same thing, but I personally like the right side better.

View attachment 70620

The wall on the left looks like that of the average script developer's from doing too much smash head -> wall -> repeat.

 

[Tech9]

doing too much smash head

Asuswrt with developers?

 

[ExtremeFiretop]

@ExtremeFiretop - maybe add a configuration option to disable this behavior?

Removing the GUI menus will increase the value of the script.

This request was completed @JGrana and @Tech9 and merged into the dev version of scMerlin yesterday.

Option to Fully Disable / Detach state.js modifications by ExtremeFiretop · Pull Request #71 · AMTM-OSR/scMerlin

@Martinski4GitHub Food for thought on this? You can follow the discussion here for the details and inspiration : https://www.snbforums.com/threads/long-time-asus-merlin-first-time-amtm-reassurance-...

github.com

Just waiting a bit longer before merging to production.