Weird, I've got 1.9.4.0 still and no problems. Tried some of the troubleshooting tips like setting max connections to 5 (I set mine to 4 because yolo) and adding new nodes, and voila.
Cloak's gon' cloak
If you're on 1.9.4, you're on the wrong fork. You need to be on the latest wallet. 1.9.6 was a MANDATORY update. Link is in the OP.
the github repo has mandatory core protocoll changes built in but ist still 1.9.4. So I'm on 1.9.4 and on the right fork.