EMB68: SAMBA accounts cannot be used

[iser]

Hi all,

I hope somebody can help me. I had a set of XT9, which worked perfectly with my external hard disk. Now, I have purchased the EMB68 and GUI of expertwifi.net gives me a lot of troubles. The main one is:

Under “USB Application” and “Samba Share”, I can create new accounts besides my main “admin” account and assign R/W or R rights to it. (In Safari and Firefox the part with these rights is not even shown: I can see it only in Chrome) I assign the correct rights (R/W) to the new account but cannot access the data of the drive by using this account. The message “access denied” is shown in the application I am using. However, when I use the credentials of the main “admin” account, everything works flawlessly. 

I suspect that the new accounts are just shown in GUI but the assigned rights (R/W) are not saved somehow. 

How can I solve this issue? I am running the latest firmware, have tested different browsers, devices and even the Asus ExpertWifi app on my tablet. Nothing works.  I also checked all possible forums but could not find any solution. 

[iser]

I just received an email from the Asus “technicians” and it contains information that is completely irrelevant. They are telling me how to reset my router if I forgot my router’s login name and password. It is not helpful at all given that my feedback concerned the use of SAMBA and new accounts. This is very disappointing to say the least. 

This was their reply:

“Dear Valued Customer,

Thanks for sending us feedback. If you forgot your router’s login username or password, you will not be able to retrieve your username and password because ASUS do not save/collect related information. To reconfigure your login credentials, you can reset your router manually by pressing the hardware button on your router.

• Detailed information please check Method 2 in the following FAQ.

  [Wireless Router] How to reset the router to factory default setting?”

[jzchen]

Actually, a hard reset may just do the trick, IMHO.

IF, you've updated the firmware and there were major revisions, sometimes an update does not completely install properly unless a hard reset is also performed.

I can tell by your wisdom to try different web browsers, that hopefully you would be willing to try this, tedious as it may be to rebuild afterwards.

[iser]

I agree with you, but have done a hard reset two times already. It does not help. There is clearly an issue with the GUI of expertwifi.net. It is indeed “tedious”, especially running up and down with the nodes. 

[jzchen]

Sorry if I missed that you already tried a hard reset.  I should have asked if done vs advise to do so.

I went to check the EMB68 pages on ASUS' website.  I was personally kind of disappointed to see they are using the 3.0.0.6.xxxxx firmware.  I guess they have to to enable the features that the Expert WiFi advertise,

BUT this is the same buggy firmware that they are installing into their consumer level "Pro" routers, such as my GT-BE98 Pro and ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro.

NOT tried and true, aka stable firmware that is typically older that is used for business grade.

I hope that ASUS nonetheless starts working on the fix and releases a new firmware to fix this ASAP.  (I have some experience with this strange response followed up with a firmware fix so I am hopeful).

[iser]

Don’t apologise, please. It’s my mistake. I completely forgot to mention that I had tried a hard reset already. (Both by pressing a physical button on the router and by doing it in the GUI/restoring factory settings).

That’s clear. So, it’s a buggy firmware. Do you know whether there is a more stable version of the firmware that I can download/install? 

To be quite honest, I don’t have much hope that they will spontaneously release a new firmware fixing this issue (and other issues) after having read their standard reply about resetting the router to factory settings. It seems that they don’t care. Fortunately, I can still return this product…