N66U internet stopped working, only fixed by quick internet setup

[Deleted member 55165]

I got a notice today from Uptime Robot that internet was down at my rental property. Comcast was reporting from their app that the modem was up and no outages were reported in the area. My N66U was running 380.68_4 and when I got there a few hours later, connecting to the wifi network immediately opened the "Quick Internet Setup" wizard. I originally thought something had happened where it factory reset itself, but after entering my admin username and password, it went through and reconnected to the internet and all the settings were there. At that point I went through and updated to 380.69_2 and reviewed the changelogs as it was updating, but nothing jumped out at me that would have caused this.

I did have 'Enable Web Access from WAN' enabled so I could administer the router from home via DDNS, but does anyone know what could cause this? I had the router factory reset itself once awhile ago but this didn't seem to be the case this time. I've had this router in place since 2012 and have been wondering if I should replace it. Thanks.

 

[Jack Yaz]

I got a notice today from Uptime Robot that internet was down at my rental property. Comcast was reporting from their app that the modem was up and no outages were reported in the area. My N66U was running 380.68_4 and when I got there a few hours later, connecting to the wifi network immediately opened the "Quick Internet Setup" wizard. I originally thought something had happened where it factory reset itself, but after entering my admin username and password, it went through and reconnected to the internet and all the settings were there. At that point I went through and updated to 380.69_2 and reviewed the changelogs as it was updating, but nothing jumped out at me that would have caused this.

I did have 'Enable Web Access from WAN' enabled so I could administer the router from home via DDNS, but does anyone know what could cause this? I had the router factory reset itself once awhile ago but this didn't seem to be the case this time. I've had this router in place since 2012 and have been wondering if I should replace it. Thanks.

Web Access from WAN is highly insecure and a BAD idea. Use a VPN instead (Asus as VPN server).

 

[Deleted member 55165]

Ok, I've disabled that now and am able to connect over VPN.

 

[The H-Man Cometh]

I got a notice today from Uptime Robot that internet was down at my rental property. Comcast was reporting from their app that the modem was up and no outages were reported in the area. My N66U was running 380.68_4 and when I got there a few hours later, connecting to the wifi network immediately opened the "Quick Internet Setup" wizard. I originally thought something had happened where it factory reset itself, but after entering my admin username and password, it went through and reconnected to the internet and all the settings were there. At that point I went through and updated to 380.69_2 and reviewed the changelogs as it was updating, but nothing jumped out at me that would have caused this.

I did have 'Enable Web Access from WAN' enabled so I could administer the router from home via DDNS, but does anyone know what could cause this? I had the router factory reset itself once awhile ago but this didn't seem to be the case this time. I've had this router in place since 2012 and have been wondering if I should replace it. Thanks.

I can confirm the same, or similar, behavior over the last week or so across several different Asus router models... a 68U, an 88U, and an 86U... all running Merlin firmware, but different versions ranging from 380.68.x to latest 382 release. All of a sudden, Internet connectivity is lost, and the routers go into the initial wizard setup mode. This has occurred with both Comcast and AT&T ISPs, so different modems... a couple in "bridge" / "passthrough" mode and one with a Motorola SurfBoard. All had been running fine for months previously with no configuration changes. All had at least one AiProtection feature enabled, but all basic, standard configurations beyond that (no QoS, no custom scripting, etc.). Have not yet seen the issue on 384.

Happened to also have WAN access enabled over HTTPS on one of these units (not trying to debate the merits or risks of this... it was enabled to experiment with remote access). Even though there was no Internet access behind the router, I could load the web interface over DDNS for this one, which brought me to the Wizard setup page. After completing the Wizard setup, Internet access was restored to devices behind the router, and all other previous configuration settings appeared to be intact / retained.

My "hunch" is that some type of AC power loss triggers the issue, buy why now all of a sudden? Until the past week, power cycling has never caused such an issue (they had been manually power cycled on roughly a weekly basis prior to the past week). The 88U has been upgraded to Merlin's 384 release and I've been power cycling it fairly frequently the last couple days without being able to replicate the problem. So basically I have no idea why this is happening.

@vinmassaro Any chance your N66U lost power before the initial issue occurred? Any chance you can replicate the issue if you manually power cycle the N66U?

 

[NomadTech]

I can confirm the same, or similar, behavior over the last week or so across several different Asus router models... a 68U, an 88U, and an 86U... all running Merlin firmware, but different versions ranging from 380.68.x to latest 382 release. All of a sudden, Internet connectivity is lost, and the routers go into the initial wizard setup mode. This has occurred with both Comcast and AT&T ISPs, so different modems... a couple in "bridge" / "passthrough" mode and one with a Motorola SurfBoard. All had been running fine for months previously with no configuration changes. All had at least one AiProtection feature enabled, but all basic, standard configurations beyond that (no QoS, no custom scripting, etc.). Have not yet seen the issue on 384.

Happened to also have WAN access enabled over HTTPS on one of these units (not trying to debate the merits or risks of this... it was enabled to experiment with remote access). Even though there was no Internet access behind the router, I could load the web interface over DDNS for this one, which brought me to the Wizard setup page. After completing the Wizard setup, Internet access was restored to devices behind the router, and all other previous configuration settings appeared to be intact / retained.

My "hunch" is that some type of AC power loss triggers the issue, buy why now all of a sudden? Until the past week, power cycling has never caused such an issue (they had been manually power cycled on roughly a weekly basis prior to the past week). The 88U has been upgraded to Merlin's 384 release and I've been power cycling it fairly frequently the last couple days without being able to replicate the problem. So basically I have no idea why this is happening.

@vinmassaro Any chance your N66U lost power before the initial issue occurred? Any chance you can replicate the issue if you manually power cycle the N66U?

Same thing happened to me like 2 hours ago when trying to enable dual wan and router couldn't get IP address from Verizon. Had to turn it of and on couple of times.
There was no power failure as I have it on UPS.

 

[Deleted member 55165]

@vinmassaro Any chance your N66U lost power before the initial issue occurred? Any chance you can replicate the issue if you manually power cycle the N66U?

I can't confirm if there was a power loss because I was not there, but I checked the footage of my PoE cameras and they were recording at the time of the outage. The NVR is plugged into the same surge protector as the router and modem. The modem in use is a Comcast rental, an Arris CM820A. I have not seen this issue from manually power cycling the router, but I only ever power cycle it after updating firmware. Uptime Robot says the health check was green for 102 days prior to this issue occurring.

 

[The H-Man Cometh]

Same thing happened to me like 2 hours ago when trying to enable dual wan and router couldn't get IP address from Verizon. Had to turn it of and on couple of times.
There was no power failure as I have it on UPS.

Interesting. Do / did you have web access over WAN enabled or disabled? By "it" presumably you mean you were turning the router off/on (and not the modem)? And then it just started working, or did you have to complete the Wizard setup? I wonder if power cycling the modem for a time would be equivalent to the router not being able to "get IP address" from the ISP?

 

[The H-Man Cometh]

I can't confirm if there was a power loss because I was not there, but if I checked the footage of my PoE cameras and they were recording at the time of the outage. The NVR is plugged into the same surge protector as the router and modem. The modem in use is a Comcast rental, an Arris CM820A. I have not seen this issue from manually power cycling the router, but I only ever power cycle it after updating firmware. Uptime Robot says the health check was green for 102 days prior to this issue occurring.

Thanks for the additional information... sounds like my hunch regarding power cycling (of the router anyway) may not be valid. I continue to be at a loss as to the root cause.

 

[NomadTech]

Interesting. Do / did you have web access over WAN enabled or disabled? By "it" presumably you mean you were turning the router off/on (and not the modem)? And then it just started working, or did you have to complete the Wizard setup? I wonder if power cycling the modem for a time would be equivalent to the router not being able to "get IP address" from the ISP?

WAN address was showing 0.0.0.0. I did not complete the wizard. Power toggle was just the router.

 

[FreshJR]

I had this issue happen twice.

The last time was me pulling the plug to power cycle both the router and modem about a week ago.

I have both the modem and router on the same extension cord so if I ever need to power cycle I pull the cord.

Everything was lost including jffs files.

 

[The H-Man Cometh]

I had this issue happen twice.

The last time was me pulling the plug to power cycle both the router and modem about a week ago.

I have both the modem and router on the same extension cord so if I ever need to power cycle I pull the cord.

Everything was lost including jffs files.

I do believe there is some kind of (new?) problem related to power cycling, but I'm at a loss in terms of how to troubleshoot it or identify the root cause. I just had it happen again on a 68U after a power cycle, and this one is running maybe a 6-month-old version of 380 stock Asus firmware. So it's all different models, all different firmware versions (I still have not tested extensively with any 384 branch), but seems odd for it to start just within the last week or two. I am surprised that only the several people commenting in this thread have seen the issue -- feels like something that would be more widespread.

Not sure what router and firmware you happened to be running... don't really think it matters based on what's been discussed. Typically I will delay re-applying power to the router for a few minutes to give the modem a chance to fully boot (a Comcast XB3 in bridge mode seems to need a good 3 minutes or so), but even this hasn't avoided the problem. I don't know if maybe there's some particular setting that triggers the issue? Any suggestions from the experts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FreshJR]

I do believe there is some kind of (new?) problem related to power cycling

The last time before this recent time was approximately two years ago.

I don't think its a new issue, or even a frequent issue.