V2.1.1.12 is not ready for public release

Pretty common of what's been going on since 1.10.x. Some versions solve some folk's problem and kill other's system.  I've had versions that work well for weeks then go into disconnect hell.  I'm really not sure why, but something has changed since the Spring of this year's releases.

When I first bought Orbi, it was absolutely flawless.  Sadly, I can't afford to switch right now, so I'm stuck with a $600 system in a house where we stream everything and cut the cord earlier this year BECAUSE Orbi was so stable and fast!

As I stated in my initial post I reverted back to the beta version firmware and all is stable again, NETGEAR please get V2.1.1.12 fixed before pushing it out as an auto update - PLEASE

Also I saw in another post where Darren stated they were looking into the 0 devices showing issue, I hope they also look into my situation which was some devices showing but all showed connected to Router when some of them were indeed connected to one of the satellites.

Also I forgot to note on V2.1.1.12 clicking on the refresh caused the satellites to move into the list with all the other devices.

For those of you that have a stable working Orbi with V2.1.1.12 I say congratulations, last January I purchased my RBK53 Orbi from Costco and it has been a long winding road. I have always been a Netgear customer never owned anything but. Out of the box the Orbi provided a much better solution than my WNDR4500 but then came the first of many firmware updates that would bring with them nothing but problems albeit mostly minor to medium issues such as random disconnects. But with the help of DarrenM I was put in contact with tier 2 support and after a few different beta versions I finally landed on V2.0.1.2 which made the Orbi what it should be, a set it and forget it device. I was content to never upgrade the firmware again and just enjoy the working product for which I paid a considerable amount of money, but then came the KRACK vulnerability so when V2.1.1.12 was offered I figured it had to be built on the beta code that had proven itself so stable for me. But as I document above that is not the case, so I moved back to the known good firmware thinking I would wait for Netgear to acknowledge the issue and provide a fix. But while I see DarrenM acknowledging some of the issues I see nothing from Netgear in the way of a suggestion or a fix. But back to the issue at hand so having moved back to the previous firmware I was surprised to find I was now having random and frequent satellite disconnects I defaulted everything and reprogrammed but still the issues persisted. All I can assume is the newest firmware made changes to the hardware that are not reversed by moving back to an older firmware. So today I again defaulted everything and again loaded V2.1.1.12 and it went from bad to simply unusable I cannot use the OOMA to make calls as it cuts in and out (never an issue before) and the satellites drop offline even more frequently. Along with now the main router drops offline randomly as well.  I let it run all afternoon and evening hoping it might somehow stabilize but NO. So I again moved it back to the beta so I could at least have stable hardwired connections. I did send a PM to DarrenM earlier today and had hoped he might contact me with some options but as my wife pointed out I have spent enough time on this thing its time to move on. Luckily, I had purchased it from Costco and when I contacted them they said no problem bring it in for return. SO I guess today is the day that the Orbi put an end to me being a Netgear customer. The eero Pro WiFi System has been ordered and will be here on Monday. By the way I reached out to eero today with some questions and they were immediately accessible.  They also made it clear that if I had any problems now or down the road they were available to help. None of this 90-day support BS. Its sad I really feel Netgear has forgotten how important it is to take care of the customer. To everyone on this forum that offered help and advice to me THANK YOU. To Netgear I say get your house in order you just lost what had been and would have been a lifelong customer.

Unfortunately, the once stable beta firmware is no longer stable for me, I have seen random satellite disconnects and experienced random router reboots all day today. So even if I could share the beta firmware which per the agreement with Netgear I cannot it probably would do you no good.

As for the people posting “mine works great” I say I was once in your shoes with only a few frustrating problems, but I would read postings from so many others about random reboots and just like you I would say to myself thank goodness I don’t have those issues. BUT now I do and given Netgear’ s current track record with their not ready for prime-time firmware releases its probably only a matter of time before you go from “mine works great” to I have had enough of this poorly implemented product.

The Orbi is certainly not an inexpensive item, and at least for me Netgear up until this device was the go to for rock solid solutions. To me it is obvious that this product was rushed to market before it was ready and I find it unforgivable to use the general public as unwitting beta testers as it appears they are currently doing. It seems again they were behind with a solution for KRACK and they pushed out an upgrade that had not been thoroughly tested.

And again this is just me but how can anyone consider it “inconsequential to me” that Netgear provided a firmware release that at the very least breaks the attached device list and much worse than that for many others and when they are made aware of the problems they apparently do nothing look the other way and continue to provide this firmware.

For me NVRAM clear via telnet did not fix my system. 

I am also running beta 2.0.1.2 which, as the OP said, is the most stable version so far. Everything has been working perfectly for 2 months. How can a professional organisation introduce countless bugs (as documented in this and other topics) between a stable beta and a final production release? Someone at Netgear should try googling "regression testing", because they don't appear to have heard of it.

Well I received the eero pro wifi system today it only took about 30 minutes to be up and running. I was pleasantly surprised that I could place the eero devices farther way from each other than I could with the orbi. All but my older Panasonic Plasma TV connected right up with the same network id and pass that I had in the Orbi. To my surprise my speeds are actually higher than what I could get with the orbi that was not expected. So far zero disconnects and zero issues. It I had one complaint it would only be that I had to add a switch for my 3 hardwired pc’s but I needed to purchase a PoE switch anyway as I have 2 IP cameras that have been waiting over a year for me to install them. I didn’t have to mess with any port forwarding like I did on the orbi to get my Slingbox to work and all of the devices I had on the orbi with reserved addresses came up with the same addresses on the eero. The one thing I didn’t realize I would really appreciate is how much smaller the eero’s are than the orbi. So it is with happiness and actually a little sadness that I officially end my journey with the orbi. I can’t believe I am saying this but I think the one thing I will miss is the mundane Netgear web interface its been around so long through so many of my products that its like an old friend. But its not like my orbi gave me any choice on its last day it randomly rebooted over 15 times, this morning I woke to my Samsung Smartthings hub again being offline. I must say pulling the plugs and boxing up the orbi for return did make me feel a whole lot better than I have since they pushed out the firmware that became “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for me. To those of you still having issues I truly hope Netgear gets this fixed soon spending this kind of money is supposed to give you a set it and forget it experience. For anyone on the fence about moving to the eero I can honestly say my first impression is these things work as they should but if you need assistance they are here to help even after 90 days…

Just a quick followup for those of you that purchased your Orbi from Costco I had zero problems returning it. The one thing I thought was pretty interesting was that the person that helped did need to call over a manager for their register key and when the manager walked up he looked an the Orbi and said "not another one of these" I asked have you seen a lot of these come back and he said about 6 in the last few days. I asked if they were still selling it and he said no.

I am happy to say eero pro wifi system has been running since Monday with zero issues, it just works.

If you bought your Orbi from Costco and are having issues take it back and buy the eero pro wifi system I got mine from Amazon and the price was a wash.

To anyone thinking about making a change I would suggest considering the difference between the posts listed on the Netgear Community to those of the eero Community. 

There are some that would have us believe that those of us that had or are having problems with the Orbi were only a small percentage but if you look at the posts to me it tells all.

Further every question and/or suggestion I have emailed to eero has been responded to within 24 hours, I did not get his level of service with Netgear on my Orbi. 

I do trully hope that someone at Netgear would take the time to read these posts and get back to taking care of the customer, they built their business on good service and then somewhere along the way FORGOT what they were about. I would rather see less new products and better support than hundreds of products and next to zero support.