Joined: 08 Jun 2010 Posts: 109 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 13:57 Post subject: RT-AC3200 LAN and WAN Ports inverted (and radios missing)
So I have been on Kong 37985m as it is the last good version that works with IPSec support. However, since Kong has left, I thought it was time to move to a Brainslayer build.
I tried upgrading to the new Brainslayer build from 2019-09-22, but only one of my 5ghz radios was showing up and my 2.4ghz radio was missing as well.
Even after doing:
nvram erase && reboot
So I tried to revert back to Kong until I have more time to test and I ran into major issues (couldn't get into recovery mode, couldn't ping modem when recovery was active, firmware restoration tool failing, etc...).
After *many* hours I managed to tftp Kong 37985m back onto it. I did several factory resets and then went to restore my backup config file I made prior to starting all this and I couldn't get my WAN to come up. After another 2 hours of testing I have discovered that all of my WAN and LAN ports are completely scrambled up. LAN 4 is now registered as the WAN port and the LAN ports are out of order.
I have repeatedly tried to go back to factory default via webgui, nvram commands at the CLI, nvram reset from the CFE loader and using the WPS button + power on to restore to factory.
Nothing restores my WAN and LAN ports to their correct assignments (even before I try to restore my config file).
How and why is this persisting and how do I get myself back to true original factory state? _________________ RT-AX86U MerlinWRT & RT-AC68U DD-WRT
Joined: 08 Jun 2010 Posts: 109 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 21:08 Post subject:
...actually it looks like the ports have been completely inverted.
The physical ports (as labeled on the modem) are now backwards according to the VLAN port mapping in DD-WRT. Anyone have a clue how this happened and how I get it back to normal?
However, it seems going back to stock or MerlinWRT can clear up this issue. It got so frustrated I installed latest Merlin via tftp and the ports were back to where they were. Then installed dd-wrt again and the ports were still correct. I think I agree now with the recommendation in this post that going stock->DD-WRT, DD-WRT->stock might be the safest approach when making a big version jump or switching branches/distributions.
Some other tricks along the way. Getting this modem to reset into recovery mode can be *hard*. I found resetting to factory by doing WPS button while powering on, then powering off and pulling the power adapter for 30 seconds, then powering up while reset switch was held was the most reliable way to get into recovery mode.
The asus recovery utilities never work for me at all, but tftp from windows has been the most stable way to push the firmware. _________________ RT-AX86U MerlinWRT & RT-AC68U DD-WRT
