New - RBR50 / RBS50 Firmware Version 2.7.4.24 Released

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SidewinderX wrote:

Well, it looks like my Orbi auto-updated my firmware sometime in the last week to the 2.7.3.X firmware, which seems to have "restored" the issue of dropping internet connections (likely DNS issue) forcing me to power-restart the Orbi multiple times per day to keep restoring the internet. I then upgraded to this latest firmware hoping it would help, but no luck.

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If my WiFi router had to be restarted several times a day, that would be intolerable. As it is, my RBR50 has been running firmware v2.7.2.24 since May of 2022 and is only restarted (a) when Edison treats us to a long power outage, or (b) when I am doing a crazy experiment of some sort.  Currently, it has been up for 75 days.  My DNS entries are set to 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 (an experiment I was doing and just "left it that way.")

There certainly have been recent posts about various Orbi systems having "problems" that go away temporarily when the router is restarted, and it is not always clear what the cause might be.  In this case, I would first want to validate the assumption that the Orbi DNS resolution is central to the problem.  For example:

• Set some device on the network not to use the router to resolve DNS.  I often point a Windows PC to a Pi-hole DNS server (another experiment) or set it to use Google (8.8.8.8) and/or CloudFlare (1.1.1.1).  If other devices on the network begin to have problems but that specific device does not, that would tend to reinforce the idea that Orbi DNS is failing.
• When problems arise, before hitting the power, conduct some brief experiments, such as opening a command window and attempting to reach internet resources by IP address on the device that is failing. For example:
  • Try to ping Ford:  ping ford.com
  • If that fails, try this: ping  19.12.97.37
    If this succeeds, that also would be evidence that Orbi DNS is at fault.

I stay with the Netgear firmware in order to participate in the community forum.  See no problem with loading Voxel's version as long as the directions are followed (loading up a specific version of Netgear firmware first, etc.) When I tried Voxel, it worked great and has interesting features.  If you try rolling back to an earlier Netgear version, I would expect to wake up one morning and find that it had updated to V2.7.4.24 again.