RT-AC87U Reboot time? NAT Loopback? Missing Port Forwards?

[Alexandre Gomes]

I'm having some issues with a new AC87U and I wanted to know if anyone else is having them or my unit is faulty... at the moment I'm running Merlin 378.56_2

First of all, independent of firmware and/or settings, the first thing odd I noticed is that the router always takes from 2min 30s to 3min to turn on. This is very slow compared to my old router with dd-wrt that took 5 seconds and from my RT66U that takes 45-60secs.

Another issue is that the port forwardings stopped working, when I went to the settings page it was empty... this happened twice and I've no idea of the problem, but I assume it's a Merlin's firmware bug.

Lastly, I've a static IP but can't reach it from within the LAN itself... is there a way to allow this? I believe it's called NAT Loopback but so far I haven't found it on the settings.

 

[RMerlin]

I'm having some issues with a new AC87U and I wanted to know if anyone else is having them or my unit is faulty... at the moment I'm running Merlin 378.56_2

First of all, independent of firmware and/or settings, the first thing odd I noticed is that the router always takes from 2min 30s to 3min to turn on. This is very slow compared to my old router with dd-wrt that took 5 seconds and from my RT66U that takes 45-60secs.

This is normal. The bootloader itself pauses for a fairly long period of time. And during the firmware boot, it has to wait for the Quantenna CPU to also boot its own firmware, before it can resume initializing its own services.

Another issue is that the port forwardings stopped working, when I went to the settings page it was empty... this happened twice and I've no idea of the problem, but I assume it's a Merlin's firmware bug.

Port forwards work fine on my firmware. If they disappear then make sure you didn't fill up your nvram, and that you aren't using any browser plugin that might interfere.

Lastly, I've a static IP but can't reach it from within the LAN itself... is there a way to allow this? I believe it's called NAT Loopback but so far I haven't found it on the settings.

NAT loopback is part of the firmware by default. My firmware additionnaly lets you select between Asus's implementation and mine (which is based on phuzi0n's from DD-WRT). Some scenario work better with one, others work better with the other.

 

[Revelstone77]

I'm having some issues with a new AC87U and I wanted to know if anyone else is having them or my unit is faulty... at the moment I'm running Merlin 378.56_2

First of all, independent of firmware and/or settings, the first thing odd I noticed is that the router always takes from 2min 30s to 3min to turn on. This is very slow compared to my old router with dd-wrt that took 5 seconds and from my RT66U that takes 45-60secs.

Another issue is that the port forwardings stopped working, when I went to the settings page it was empty... this happened twice and I've no idea of the problem, but I assume it's a Merlin's firmware bug.

Lastly, I've a static IP but can't reach it from within the LAN itself... is there a way to allow this? I believe it's called NAT Loopback but so far I haven't found it on the settings.

I'm on the same firmware and port forwarding works fine for me. And that is a normal boot time for this router.

 

[Alexandre Gomes]

Well, thanks for the feedback. Some clarifications:

The port forwarding rules, some 10-15, were applied and survived a couple reboots. They were listen until they disappeared those 2 times.

The NAT Loopback I've configured is the "Merlin" one but I still can't access the static's IP domain from inside my LAN. Even disabled the firewall...

How do I check the NVRam size... etc...? Might it have anything to do with the fact that I tried several other firmwares (dd-wrt, asus) and things might not have reset the firmware correctly?

 

[RMerlin]

Well, thanks for the feedback. Some clarifications:

The port forwarding rules, some 10-15, were applied and survived a couple reboots. They were listen until they disappeared those 2 times.

This sounds increasingly like an nvram corruption issue if the content of that nvram setting flats out disappears.

The NAT Loopback I've configured is the "Merlin" one but I still can't access the static's IP domain from inside my LAN. Even disabled the firewall...

Don't disable the firewall, or else you disable the firewall rules that actually create the NAT loopback.

My loopback method can conflict with any of the Trend Micro-powered services, such as Adaptive QoS. Try using Asus's loopback.

How do I check the NVRam size... etc...? Might it have anything to do with the fact that I tried several other firmwares (dd-wrt, asus) and things might not have reset the firmware correctly?

Tools -> Sysinfo page.

Make sure you did do a complete factory default reset after flashing a new firmware. Any leftover from Tomato or DD-WRT will cause issues. Stock Asus should be fine, as long it was a recent release (378_9xxx or newer).