RT-AC1900P bad eraseblock

[Rob Q]

Hello, I've just upgraded my RT-AC1900p up to version 386.5_2 of Asus Merlin and once it finished upgrading and it rebooted, it wouldn't connect me to the internet and when I tried to log in to the web admin page it says "IP address conflict". So, I've unplugged the power and rebooted it and it worked, connected me to the internet and let me go in to see what was going on in the log.
While I was looking at the log, I've noticed something that caught my eye and I have no clue to what it is or how to fix it, which would be "Bad eraseblock". I've never seen it before since it's been awhile since I've went in to read the log.
The router does bootup and it's running normally so I don't really know what's going on or what to do.

May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Northstar brcmnand NAND Flash Controller driver, Version 0.1 (c) Broadcom Inc. 2012
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: NAND device: Manufacturer ID: 0xc2, Chip ID: 0xf1 (Unknown NAND 128MiB 3,3V 8-bit)
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Spare area=64 eccbytes 56, ecc bytes located at:
May  5 01:05:02 kernel:  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Available 7 bytes at (off,len):
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: (1,1) (16,2) (32,2) (48,2) (0,0) (0,0) (0,0) (0,0)
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Scanning device for bad blocks
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Bad eraseblock 675 at 0x000005460000 
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Options: NO_AUTOINCR,NO_READRDY,
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Creating 2 MTD partitions on "brcmnand":
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: 0x000004000000-0x000007ec0000 : "brcmnand"
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: 0x000007ec0000-0x000008000000 : "asus"
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly on device 31:3.
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: devtmpfs: mounted
May  5 01:05:02 kernel: Freeing init memory: 212K

I've also cleared the system log and cycled the power of the router and that "bad eraseblock" is still there.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

After the upgrade you should do a GUI "Factory Reset" and as a precaution you should wipe the JFFS partition as part of that step.

Reload everything from scratch. (you can keep backups of settings and the JFFS, just in case)

You can also try re-flashing the same firmware again and see if you get the bad block warning again.

Sometimes it's the JFFS partition out of alignment.

You omitted important details as to what firmware you were on and what scripts if any you use that could cause a conflict.

 

[Rob Q]

Sorry, the upgrade was from 386.5 to 3865_2.
Since I've received that IP address conflict error after the first attempt of the firmware upgrade, I've ran it a second time and I shut down all of my devices on the network as a precaution.
The JFFS partition, can't recall if that's on the memory of the router or on my USB stick. If it's on the USB stick, it would be on my old Kingston 8GB USB thumb drive which holds the swapfile and Entware packages.
Scripts are Diversion and Skynet. I call those two a must have.
Haven't tried a full factory reset, yet.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

Last week my Modem started boot-looping, never happened before. DHCP error.
I wiped the JFFS (router side) and reloaded all the scripts, including taking the USB drive out and reformatting in the PC as exFAT and (then reformating as EXT4 with Journaling, in the router.)
I did not have to wipe the settings.
All fixed. I suspect it was the JFFS area, clearing this and starting over has been my go-to.

Edit: Wiping the JFFS requires that you put a check in the box (on next reboot) and hitting APPLY on the bottom of the page.

 

[Rob Q]

Only thing that I could think of was my Synology DS118 was trying to grab that one IP address. I've had the IP address config for the DS118 to manual and the DHCP scope in the router set to start at 192.168.1.5. So maybe something goofed there. Or maybe it was even my cable modem but that's on the WAN port, who knows.

 

[Rob Q]

After the upgrade you should do a GUI "Factory Reset" and as a precaution you should wipe the JFFS partition as part of that step.

Reload everything from scratch. (you can keep backups of settings and the JFFS, just in case)

You can also try re-flashing the same firmware again and see if you get the bad block warning again.

Sometimes it's the JFFS partition out of alignment.

You omitted important details as to what firmware you were on and what scripts if any you use that could cause a conflict.

I've wiped out everything, reset to factory defaults, wiped off the JFFS partition, and ejected my USB stick.
Now the router is so much faster and the internet has really sped up too! No more mention of a "badblock" anymore. Just this...

May  5 01:05:01 kernel: Found a Mxic NAND flash:
May  5 01:05:01 kernel: Total size:  128MB
May  5 01:05:01 kernel: Block size:  128KB
May  5 01:05:01 kernel: Page Size:   2048B
May  5 01:05:01 kernel: OOB Size:    64B
May  5 01:05:01 kernel: Sector size: 512B
May  5 01:05:01 kernel: Spare size:  16B
May  5 01:05:01 kernel: ECC level:   8 (8-bit)