[InfoCGagn]

I've been experiencing a weird issue for some weeks now. My router is crashing randomly when I upload Facebook videos.

The router crashes, it kinda locks itself up, I lose internet connection and I can no longer communicate with it in any ways. The only way to make it work again is to unplug/replug the power every time it happens.

I was running the latest builds of DD-WRT. The router and the power adapter are in perfect condition. The cfe is stock cfe and is fine as well. The router is not overheating. I reset the router every time upgrade to a new build.

This week I've been uploading YouTube videos for about 2 days then I started uploading videos to Facebook and had 2 crashes in 1 day. I was running the first build of 2022 and I was watching YouTube videos at the same time.

I only watch and upload up to 1080p 30fps videos. I'm pretty sure the load is not the problem because it's still a pretty capable router.

It never crashed 2 times in 1 day on latest builds. It was only crashing every 2 days or so.

I was running a build from april 2022 for a while which I found pretty stable but I wasn't uploading Facebook videos at that time. I taught downgrading to an older build from 2022 could improve stability but it didn't.

I think I found a new clue at :
https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Netgear_R7000

It says :

Stability: There have been observations of poor stability with ddwrt on r7000 (observed with builds from June 2022). Various users reported kernel crashes and reboots within a week or two of uptime. It is possible that the issue is with SFE/CTF, but without them gigabit speeds are impossible. Until ddwrt stability improves there are 3 solutions:

1) Load older (pre 2022) builds until a stable build is found.

2) Disable CTF/SFE and observe stability (uptime of 1 month + without crashes is considered stable). This is only advisable with connections up to 500 Megabit, faster connections may get throttled.

3) Load alternate firmware. FreshTomato, as of build 2022.3 supports CTF (Advanced -> Miscellaneous) and has been tested to have multi month uptime without any issues. This is likely due to FreshTomato utilizing same linux kernel as Netgear, which is more compatible with CTF.

PLEASE REFER TO THE FOLLOWING THREAD ON THIS ISSUE Discussion of this entry

-I think it makes a lot of sense but there is a lot of disapproval from some users on the "THREAD ON THIS ISSUE". Some users say it shouldn't be on the R7000's Wiki page so how did it end up there then? Isn't there any special requirements to edit these pages?

This is very confusing. What should I do now? Load and older (pre 2022) build and disable SFE or keep upgrading to latest builds until ddwrt stability improves on the R7000?

[dale_gribble39]

This statement right here is why you can safely disregard that whole section. FreshTomato supported CTF long before that build and the CTF module compiled for DD-WRT is compiled against the kernel in use (Linux 4.4), and the whole performance section... hate to say it but SFE+(CTF+FA) is not a valid setting, so the benchmark section is completely fallible.

[InfoCGagn]

All crashes happended on wired connection. I couldn't find an easy way to save logs after reboot. I could provide screenshots but there's really nothing special in my router's configuration that could trigger this kind of crashes. I restored my cfe again using the first build of 2015 that supports mtd commands (newer builds don't support this). I uploaded Facebook videos while watching YouTube videos at the same time for a while and no crashes with the first build of 2015. Now I'm trying the first build of 2021 with SFE disabled like he said. I think he's right because a long time ago I noticed that older builds are much more stable than newer builds at least on the R7000.

Here are some of my old notes :

-Effective workarounds for bridged VAPs not working at boot on Broadcom routers : (needed since DD-WRT r35667 (2018), Save Startup and reboot)
sleep 20; stopservice nas; wlconf eth1 down; wlconf eth2 down; wlconf eth1 up; wlconf eth2 up; startservice nas
Update : The Guest Wi-Fi is not working anymore even with this workaround. (it worked but didn't last)

-The proprietary Broadcom Wi-Fi driver in DD-WRT is broken since 2018. Wi-Fi is unstable when using some default Wi-Fi settings and it can no longer do Guest Wi-Fi.
All Broadcom routers using the same driver may have the same issue. The only way to do a Guest Wi-Fi with a Broadcom router is by using a 2nd router.
I created a port based Vlan on the Broadcom router then I plugged a 2nd router to the Vlan's Lan port and voila! The 2nd router is isolated from the main network!

-The FreshTomato Firmware still use an old but more stable proprietary broadcom Wi-Fi driver. The 5Ghz speed is not great, maybe this older proprietary broadcom Wi-Fi driver don't support 5GHz AC.

-The Xwrt Vortex Firmware is also using an older but more stable proprietary broadcom Wi-Fi driver. The 5Ghz speed is great but it can't do port based Vlans, only Guest Wi-Fi.
*Must restore stock cfe before going back to DD-WRT.

[egc]

You might be running out of memory.

Use an USB drive with swap file of 2 GB.

My R7000 runs for weeks using recent builds.

It is used as Openvpn server and providing wifi but nothing else

[InfoCGagn]

Oh that makes a lot of sense because I was multitasking each time a crash happened. I'll try that for sure. Maybe the old build didn't crash just because it uses less memory just like old linux distros.

[InfoCGagn]

No crashes with the first build of 2021 with SFE disabled. Only up to 10% CPU usage and 20% memory usage while uploading Facebook videos and watching YouTube videos at the same time. However having the latest security patches is very important so I'll try the lastest build again.

[egc]

I have done some hefty multi gig downloads on my R7000 the last couple of hours, uploading files and using Samba to shuffle files frrm and to my USB drive, Memory is 80% used and load average is going through the roof (I am using wireGuard) all without a problem.

All testing was done wired.

I do have CTF+FA enabled.

I attached the latest experimental build if you want to try it.

Unzip and upload. *After* upload reset to defaults and put settings in manually

[InfoCGagn]

I'll try it for sure thank you very much!

[egc]

It is still experimental but running on my end.

First try without any acceleration (no SFE and no CTF+FA)

[InfoCGagn]

So this is what you're using :
Shortcut Forwarding Engine: CTF
Flow Acceleration: CTF & FA

But to test stability first I must set it to :
Shortcut Forwarding Engine: Disabled
Flow Acceleration: Disabled

Is it right?

[egc]

Yes exactly.

Acceleration is a double edged sword it does accelerate but comes with its own problems especially if you are shuffling traffic via multiple interfaces

[InfoCGagn]

Good to know!

This is very helpful as well :

CTF and SFE are software optimization techniques to accelerate NAT, while FA is a Hardware NAT acceleration mechanism. SFE works on all dd-wrt routers while CTF requires Broadcom CPU's and FA requires both Broadcom CPUs and specialty hardware in the Broadcom SoC

"ctf is much faster. with sfe i reach about 700 mbit with lan->wan tests. with ctf i get full gbit speed. so 950 - 980 mbit and lower cpu usage.... i'm running it here for 2 weeks now on several routers (r7000, ac66, n66)" --BrainSlayer"

Ok now I'll run it without any acceleration and see if it crashes or not. I actually care more about stability than speed anyways.

Thank you!

[InfoCGagn]

No crashes with the new build! Thank you very much!

[egc]

Well it is early yet so keep fingers crossed

[InfoCGagn]

Still no issues after a while.

Thank you very much and Merry Christmas by the way!