Weird issue with Asus RT-AX88U router. Can't access the web interface until power cycled, and then after some time the issue will come back.

S

sram

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
1,707
Hi,

Like the title says, my Asus RT-AX88U router will refuse to enter the GUI and just get stuck. The only thing I can do to fix is to power cycle it. I will then be able to access its GUI for some time (several days) before the issue comes back again. As far as connectivity is concerned, it is working fine but I can't access its GUI which is annoying. Have you seen something like this? It is not on the latest firmware so I'll update that and see if it helps.
 
sram said:
Hi,

Like the title says, my Asus RT-AX88U router will refuse to enter the GUI and just get stuck. The only thing I can do to fix is to power cycle it. I will then be able to access its GUI for some time (several days) before the issue comes back again. As far as connectivity is concerned, it is working fine but I can't access its GUI which is annoying. Have you seen something like this? It is not on the latest firmware so I'll update that and see if it helps.
Click to expand...
I could be wrong but I remember there being a known vulnerability in the past year that compromised a bunch of these and other Asus routers. They suggested a firmware update.

May also be faulty hardware. I had one of these for about 4 months (with the most up to date firmware) that did something similar to yours.

I contacted Asus and sent it in for rma. Sure enough I got a brand new unit and a email saying the last one had a faulty motherboard and that one of the bands was out of wack basically. They just replaced it no issues with the new one yet.
 
Dreamerbydesign said:
May also be faulty hardware. I had one of these for about 4 months (with the most up to date firmware) that did something similar to yours.
Click to expand...
I've seen weird stuff happen with router when the power supply was failing too. It could be as simple as this--no firmware update needed. ;)
 
SamirD said:
I've seen weird stuff happen with router when the power supply was failing too. It could be as simple as this--no firmware update needed. ;)
Click to expand...
And they have been known to have psu issues with these also. It was a known thing when it was first released. I can’t find the Reddit thread right now but there was a way to tell if you had an updated psu or not.
 
Dreamerbydesign said:
And they have been known to have psu issues with these also. It was a known thing when it was first released. I can’t find the Reddit thread right now but there was a way to tell if you had an updated psu or not.
Click to expand...
Cool to know! I never knew there was a known power supply issue on a router before.
 
Firmware update is a good bet. Lazy answer is I think ASUS puts a scheduled reboot option in their routers; if it reboots every sunday night, that 'fixes' the problem.

I've had this kind of thing happen with different network devices if I write scripts to hit the web interface once a minute. Some sort of memory leak that might or might not get fixed. Usually just the web interface breaks, but it keeps working, sometimes it's a bit more (managed switch wouldn't process arp updates anymore, etc)
 
I have the AX88U and on current FW with no issues. I always wait a week after releases and looked at smallnetbuilder thread about the new FW before updating.

Do you have Captcha login enabled? That causes issues. What is you CPU and RAM usage in the router status?

You may want to hit up smallnetbuilder.com for more specific problems as there are some experienced ASUS router users there they may know the issue you are having and a solution.
 
Last edited:
Dreamerbydesign said:
I could be wrong but I remember there being a known vulnerability in the past year that compromised a bunch of these and other Asus routers. They suggested a firmware update.

May also be faulty hardware. I had one of these for about 4 months (with the most up to date firmware) that did something similar to yours.

I contacted Asus and sent it in for rma. Sure enough I got a brand new unit and a email saying the last one had a faulty motherboard and that one of the bands was out of wack basically. They just replaced it no issues with the new one yet.
Click to expand...
What exactly was wrong with one of the bands? Slow speed? Was it 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz?
 
SamirD said:
I've seen weird stuff happen with router when the power supply was failing too. It could be as simple as this--no firmware update needed. ;)
Click to expand...

Dreamerbydesign said:
And they have been known to have psu issues with these also. It was a known thing when it was first released. I can’t find the Reddit thread right now but there was a way to tell if you had an updated psu or not.
Click to expand...

SamirD said:
Cool to know! I never knew there was a known power supply issue on a router before.
Click to expand...

Dreamerbydesign said:
It wasn’t a mass recall or anything. Just an observation by people from what I remember. This was a while ago
Click to expand...
This is scary. Hopefully nothing is wrong with my PSU. I updated the firmware after I posted here and I'm observing it. So far so good. If it does a whole week without issues getting into the GUI, then I think it is fixed.
 
bluestang said:
I have the AX88U and on current FW with no issues. Waited a week after release and looked at smallnetbuilder thread about the FW before updating.

Do you have Captcha login enabled? That causes issues. What is you CPU and RAM usage in the router status?

You may want to hit up smallnetbuilder.com for more specific problems as there are some experienced ASUS router users there they may know the issue you are having and a solution.
Click to expand...
Captcha is not enabled. CPU and RAM are fine I guess. The cpu is barely being used. RAM is at 50%.
 
Mega6 said:
Asuswrt-Merlin Firmware is the way to go.
Click to expand...
Yep. I have it downloaded from the beginning. But since everything worked after my initial configuration, I became lazy and forgot about it.
 
The obvious path is to enable ssh and look at the logs when the gui screws up.
 
Dreamerbydesign said:
It was not that specific. It just said one of the bands was not functioning properly.
Click to expand...
I asked because I couldn't reach full speed with 2.4 GHz. 5 GHz is fine though and I can get up to 600 Mbps which saturates my internet link speed. This latest firmware doesn't seem to fix it also.
 
sram said:
I asked because I couldn't reach full speed with 2.4 GHz. 5 GHz is fine though and I can get up to 600 Mbps which saturates my internet link speed. This latest firmware doesn't seem to fix it also.
Click to expand...
In my case it was clearly faulty. I don’t use the 2.4 ghz band so I didn’t realize it was faulty. I did not have speed issues with the 5ghz band so likely it was the 2.4 band. I was having lots of internet drops and random hard restarts on the router.
 
sram said:
This is scary. Hopefully nothing is wrong with my PSU. I updated the firmware after I posted here and I'm observing it. So far so good. If it does a whole week without issues getting into the GUI, then I think it is fixed.
Click to expand...
Not too scary as power supplies are easier to fix/swap than dealing with firmware/software issues imo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top