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BR500 Rebooting Itself
I've noticed that my BR500 occasionally reboots itself. Has anyone else noticed this?
It started doing this after I did the following (not sure which, if any, contributed): upgraded firmware to 5.5.0, connected to Insight for $, configured Insight VPN connection for $. These were all done to get a working VPN connection for a business trip, but the VPN connection was only used a few times several weeks ago, and the reboots occur when I am not connected to VPN (haven't used it in over a month). Not sure if any of this matters, but figured that I would document it, since I didn't see the reboots before any of these changes.
The symptoms, which appear to be random, are:
1) I lose connection to the Internet from my network, although initially all the LEDs on the BR500 look good.
2) After a few seconds, the Internet LED on the BR500 changes from green to orange.
3) After a few more seconds, all of the LEDs on the BR500 turn off for a few seconds, then the power LED turns orange, then the Internet LED turns orange ... usual visual indication that the BR500 is booting.
4) After several more seconds, all LEDs return to normal state, Internet starts blinking green, and I have Internet connectivity again.
5) Looking at the BR500 logs from the console, the first entry is always [Initialized, firmware version: V5.X.X.X]
Noticing that firmware 5.6 was out, I've since upgraded to V5.6.0.1, but am still seeing occasional and random reboots.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this with the BR500?
[Sorry to cross-post, but I made the error of splitting and overlaping my problems across two different threads here, and I want to accept this as my solution to both].
Just an FYI to anyone else who experiences any of this: I have disconnected my BR500 from the Insight service, rebooted the router, and the VPN messages have stopped (obviously!), the "NAT loopback" is allowing my LAN to reliably take advantage of port forwarding (sub-second connection again, before was either hanging or taking 10+ seconds to connect), and my router has stopped randomly rebooting itself. Also, I am no longer seeing the sporadic high-CPU (sporadically 30 - 60+ percent) on the BR500.
Of course I no longer have any VPN (as ports 12973 (TUN) and 12974 (TAP) hang, even when the Open VPN service is enabled, which is the only reason why I enabled Insight + Instant VPN). But having a stable, reliable, working router is much more important to me.
Another user on this forum shared that Netgear had suggested disconnecting from Insight as a possible solution to the random reboots, which is why I am sharing this, in the hope that it may help others.
No promises, your milage may vary, void where prohibited by law, etc., but for anyone who is at their wits end and frustrated with the BR500, as I was, this maybe a possible solution to regain stability if you can live without the Insight service.
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I've noticed this in mine. In the last 4 weeks it's rebooted itself twice and when it did it returned to factory defaults. I'm on Firmware 5.6.0.1
It's getting a little bit tiring for me as I have 10 clients I'm wanting to put these in, but with the continued issues I hesitate. When you can't reach it in the Insight cloud you really can't restore the config unless you're onsite. Clients are from 10 miles to 1200 miles from our office. Trying to walk people through blowing the config back on the router is next to impossible.
I'm hoping Netgear can get a stable firmware to fix this behavior
Ah, very intersting ... mine has probably rebooted itself about +/- 6 times that I've noticed ... might have rebooted more times that I didn't notice since the outage only lasts a couple of minutes ... over the past 8 weeks, on both 5.5.0.1 and 5.6.0.1, and only one time did it reset back factory defaults ... which was a WTF moment for me, but fortunately I had a recent config backup that I could reload. Though I certainly understand your concern about remote support.
Just curious, have you contacted NETGEAR about it? Yeah, I know it is difficult to get support for problems that are not happening RIGHT THIS MOMEMENT with them, but just to report the incidents? And yes, they will want you to reset your devices to factor defaults, reload the latest firmware, reload your configuration, rinse, repeat, etc. However, since I know that other people are experiencing this as well, I may open a ticket. Even if you have already, I might want to reference your ticket # (which you can send me in a private message, if you don't want to post it here). Thanks.
Actually the latest instance occurred this AM. I was going to put in another ticket, but hadn't got to it today. Thought I'd check out the community to see if others were experiencing this issue. Funny thing is I'm a Netgear Powershift Partner and I still get fricking India for support. After 5 transfers I sometimes finally get an english speaking person. I see from what you said about reset, update firmware again reboot and rinse, then repeat.......oh I forgot the critical thing...Please upload your logs to hear the dreaded, "We don't see the problem in the logs" or you don't know what your doing so leave us alone.
I had high hopes when I saw Netgear come out with a new router and I really love Insight. I've been installing numerous switches with Insight and some of their new WAP.
Same problem here. This thing can't seem to stay on for longer than a week without crashing. Posted about it on Reddit.
UPDATE: Filed a support ticket to start a paper trail. Tech said they had one other case of this on file and it was from a previous firmware version. Solution for now is to remove the device from Insight and see what happens from there.
Of course, removing a device from a service it's named after to fix a serious issue doesn't say much good about the device or service.
Actually, I started having the reboot problem right after I signed up for the Insight service service for $$$ and purchased a VPN license for $$$. I would love to remove my router from Insight, but I can't figure out how? When I login to Insight, I see the account status is 'Active', but when I click on My Devices I just get options for upgrading my subscrition or buying device credits.
I also have a message every minute showing up in my logs that I think is related to this: '[VPN] vppnctl: vpn enabled', as I have OpenVPN turned off and have not configured IPSec.
Any ideas on how to remove my device from Insight? I only added it because I could not get OpenVPN working, and never wanted Insight to begin with.
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