Gargoyle Forum

Because of what was said in another topic I opened viewtopic.php?p=67177 I decided to update my 1043 v4's firmware from 1.12 to 1.14.

After updating the wireless was not functioning. I triple-checked the settings, restored previous settings, played with some settings, nothing made any difference: the radio stays off. The status page is showing Wireless is on but it's not. Can't connect to it. WiFi analyser app on phone sees all the networks in the direct neighbourhood, but not my own one.

So decided to go back to 1.12.

When trying to do that (and again I triple-checked if I had the correct binary) I suddenly got a page with the following message:

"Firmware has been detected as incompatible with this device (wrong device OR too big OR invalid firmware format). Forcing firmware upgrade can result in a bricked device if used incorrectly. Please ensure this firmware is correct for your device!

If you wish to force the upgrade, please tick Force upgrade below."

I decided to go ahead with the upgrade (downgrade really) because I knew the binary was the correct one but it was a tough decision because of the brick warning.

Luckily the downgrade went ok and the wireless is immediately working again.

Now what is the problem here?

Why is the radio off on 1.14?
Why does it falsely give me a warning about a wrong binary when trying to downgrade?

Can you please clearly state your upgrade procedure?
If it includes preserving settings, OR, restoring settings from 1.12 once you get there, that’s going to cause all sorts of grief.

I would recommend a clean flash, no settings preserved or restored.
Clear browser cache and then configure the wifi settings.
If you’ve got issues from there, we can work through them.

Now if you don’t have the time to do this as it’s a production router, I understand. I’m only pointing out that the support for 1.12 is limited and that running it is not advised


As to the brick warning, your devices moved from one architecture to another (ar71xx to ath79). Some devices handle this with no problem, others require special treatment. The images are intentionally marked as incompatible (upstream, not by me) so that people stop and think.
The only difference is that the GUI now shows these warnings. If you did not make such a large version jump you would see these warnings on the upgrade as well.

This fundamental architecture change is why you cannot keep/restore settings.

My upgrade procedure was indeed trying to preserve settings, this because Gargoyle defaults to 192.168.1.1, a very unfortunate choice as it's already the default IP address of my modem, causing conflicts.

Anyway I updated to 1.14 again. I disconnected the modem and selected not to preserve any settings. The update itself went ok, just like before.

BUT.... I am again having some trouble with the radio. It seems unstable. When looking at a number of apps on my phone the ssid of the router keeps appearing and disappearing. Other network ssid's in the area appear steady, just my own one seems unstable.

Is it a known thing?

I also see a new setting 'Fast Roaming', is that something I should enable?

Update: I got it all working again on 1.14 BUT for some reason I can't ping local machines by name anymore.

If previously I had assigned static IP 192.168.1.123 to SomeMachine then I could simply do "ping somemachine" and it would work.

Now I suddenly need to add .local to it! Where is that coming from? And more importantly, how do I get rid of it?

Another update: I did a speedtest now that I have 1.14 running and my down speed has decreased from 200 Mbps to 120 Mbps!

Is 1.14 that much more demanding on the cpu that it almost halves my speed? That's definitely not worth it to me!

Please advise if this is expected.

Devices should still be addressable without the local domain.
Have you defined static leases and you’re sure they have taken the IP (as you reset configs, and DHCP leases can take 24 hours to stabilise).

IPv6 introduces another set of bandwidth monitors, which could reduce performance.
If you disable bwmon
/etc/init.d/bwmon_gargoyle stop
And speed returns to expected (or close) this will be the main source of the problem.

Thanks, that made a difference. From 120 up to 175. Unfortunately Still not the 200 I was used to. In fact what I should be getting from my ISP is 500/100.

Can you recommend a modern router (as in: for sale in shops now) that can run the latest Gargoyle and that would be fast enough to actually get me the 500 down (or at least close to it)?

Oh, and if I reboot the router, will I have to disable bwmon again or will it stay off now?