A few years ago I bought a LinkSys WRT1900ACS v2 and put OpenWRT. For some reason I reverted to my previous router using its stock firmware.
I just got fiber to my home a week and a half ago so I thought I'd revisit that very nice router. 15.05 Chaos Calmer works well on it, but I've read the caveats and I want to go to the current build, 18.06.
If it makes any difference, the ISP uses DHCP for my WAN access.
Every time I update to 18.06 or 19.07 rc2 I get LAN access but no WAN/internet and I end up reverting to 15.05 to get basic internet going. I've been through the basic troubleshooting page, but none of those things seem to be the issue, besides it works as an upgrade, my config files don't change, at least not by me. Cabling doesn't change at all.
I'm not very deep into this yet. I'm going with OpenWRT to learn, but config files are not second nature to me yet, so please be patient with me. I'm looking at other posts to see what has helped others, but after a couple of days looking I'm not finding the answer. At the moment I'm betting it's a firewall issue, but that's just a guess.
Are you attempting to keep the settings when you flash the newer versions? If so, that may be the issue. Try performing the flash and disabling (unchecking) the "keep settings" option.
Well, installing 18.06 and doing a total reset seems to be making a difference. If this message posts, we can call it a thread and be done with it, although I'd love to have some idea what was wrong.
Upgrades between major versions of OpenWrt typically require a reset (i.e. flash without keeping settings), because the low level details of the config files may not always be compatible from version to version. YMMV with any specific upgrade path (sometimes versions like 18.06 to 19.07 are compatible or mostly so, depending on a handful of other considerations), but especially from 15.05 (which is quite old), things have probably changed quite a bit.
For the record, I found that independently, BTW. Somehow the "Reset" button eluded me for quite a long time and I'm not convinced that 15.05 had a "Keep Settings" option. I'd wanted to do a fresh start a few days ago.
Anyway, Mr. Sherman, I truly appreciate the help and I've given you credit for this one, just in case anyone is keeping score.
Lol! Thanks @kraigo! I noticed that you replied with your findings so quickly after I had posted that you must have indeed found the solution independently! There is a 'scoring' system for the number of solutions, but that doesn't really matter much to me -- I just like to help solve issues where I can.
Meanwhile, hope you are enjoying the upgrades to OpenWrt since CC!
I'm really excited about this. I've wanted to know more about networking for a long time and this is a really good platform for this. I also have a number of things I want to set up that a closed source system wouldn't give me access to.
Just how geeky do you have to be to get excited about the firmware on your router?
I can’t speak to how geeky you are or anything, but I take pride in my geekiness and I love the platform for all the flexibility and learning opportunities.
KO = pretty geeky. At the same time, I'm something of a Luddite. I don't seek out the latest gadgets, I look for things that solve a problem for me without causing others. I'm fairly wary of IoT devices for example. I'm not paranoid, but I want to be somewhat difficult to hack. More difficult than the next guy anyway.
Somehow the "Reset" button eluded me for quite a long time and I'm not convinced that 15.05 had a "Keep Settings" option. I'd wanted to do a fresh start a few days ago.