Fvs318gv2 connectivity issues

This firmware is also used on units other than the FVS318 series, and there it would seem without such aggravation.

I, for one, can't afford to baby my unit up each time it goes down; I need things to be robust and reliable in the face of a power glitch.

And this is exactly why the smb market isn't for 'rock solid reliability'--that's enterprise stuff.

In the smb market, you simply move to another product with a different set of trade-offs that fit you needs better.  Why do this?  Simple--cost.  You could spend 4x the amount on an enterprise unit or go through a couple of different cheaper smb models before you find the one that works.

If I had a lot of DHCP clients jumping on and off the network, the FVS318N would never have worked for my application.  But that wasn't a requirement compared to reliability once it booted, which the FVS318N outshined the rv016 which needed a reboot every 24hrs to be stable.

My computers, Wi-Fi, etc are all rock solid, and most were fished out of the trash.

It's almost completely irrelevant where something came from.  If it was built well (enterprise quality), it will still work fine.  And for some reasons, while computers and APs seem to not have problems being rock solid, routers regularly do.

True, but even the most basic equipment, no matter how cheap, should be able to boot up and work for longer than 10 mins.

I think they actually do, just as my 318n does.  It's just that most people won't wait the 30m+ it takes for these to boot up solid.

I find that if all is left plugged in, then it doesn't come up even given time; so it is quite a balancing act to get it running.

People that work over the internet can't afford such disruption.

My router ran good for about 3 days... It dead again this morning!  This is bull**bleep**!  I have it set to reboot on 5:00AM this morning.  Preheaps I should take it off!  Once the router run good... I shouldn't try to reboot it.  I just unplug my router, plug it back in and then did a GUI reboot.  This time I took off the self rebooting feature and see how long this last!

Freaking amazing!  The router came out over a year... we still a beta tester!

scat? was that the word you were looking for ;-)

Actually the FVS-318N (same board and firmware) came out around 2012, and the FVS-318Gv2 around 2015; so one might argue they have had almost 5 years to iron out the bugs.

But during the lifetime of the 318N, they have done some hardware changes because the wan-lan spec has changed dramatically.  It seems on older units like mine it will top out at only 60Mbps.

Didn't know that, as there was no revison 2; although I might well be wrong even on that.

The FVS-318N and FVS-318Gv2 boards look the same, although maybe I didn't look closely enough.

Same board, although the N vesion has more components (for the Wi-Fi).

That would make sense that they look almost identical.  I've not seen any of the boards, so maybe there was just a bunch of firmware change that increased the speed.  But I do have 3 different Netgear spec sheets showing 3 vastly different wan-lan throughputs.  The model number also changed with the addition of a -100NAS designation (I believe that was it--I didn't check the spec sheet).

From the release notes:

FVS318Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.3-3

FVS318Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.3-6

FVS318Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.3-8

   Note: Support 25 VoIP phone calls. Next release we will support 50 VoIP phone calls.

FVS318Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.4-1

   Note: Supports 50 VoIP phone calls.

FVS318N Firmware Version 4.3.2-7

FVS318N Firmware Version 4.3.3-3

FVS318N Firmware Version 4.3.3-5

FVS318N Firmware Version 4.3.3-6

FVS318N Firmware Version 4.3.3-8

FVS318N Firmware Version 4.3.4-1

   Note: it supports up to 50 VoIP calls

so I guess they may have got the bandwidth up through firmware, and earlier for the FVS318N

Interestingly

FVS336Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.2-7

   Note:  support 5 VoIP phone calls. Next release we will support 50 VoIP phone calls

FVS336Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.3-3

FVS336Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.3-5

   Note: Support 25 VoIP phone calls. Next release we will support 50 VoIP phone calls.

FVS336Gv2 Firmware Version 4.3.3-6

   Note: Support 20 VoIP phone calls. Next release we will support 50 VoIP phone calls.

Interestingly I have an

  FVS-336Gv2

and it works fine and seems to use the same firmware versions as the

  FVS-318N

  FVS-318Gv2

so one wonders what is going on.

But the firmwares haven't gone through any crazy revisions.  I'm basically using them straight out of the box and one is on 4.3.0-19 and the other is on 4.0.1-67 and both are pretty solid once they boot.  

System up Time: 71 days, 5 hours, 15 minutes, 52 seconds

System up Time: 46 days, 22 hours, 43 minutes, 36 seconds

And I've got site to sites vpns set up between them and a watchguard router that are always transferring traffic.

Yes but the FVS-336Gv2 does not seem to have any booting issues.

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SamirD wrote:

And this is exactly why the smb market isn't for 'rock solid reliability'--that's enterprise stuff.

 

In the smb market, you simply move to another product with a different set of trade-offs that fit you needs better.  Why do this?  Simple--cost.  You could spend 4x the amount on an enterprise unit or go through a couple of different cheaper smb models before you find the one that works.

 

If I had a lot of DHCP clients jumping on and off the network, the FVS318N would never have worked for my application.  But that wasn't a requirement compared to reliability once it booted, which the FVS318N outshined the rv016 which needed a reboot every 24hrs to be stable.

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I don't know, I've always had great experiences with Ubiquiti's EdgeRouter line, particularly their newer EdgeRouter X (that one's just ~$55 !!). And Mikrotik's RB2011 devices. And ZyXel's USG-20/USG-50. And TP-Link's R600VPN. And Linksys's LRT line.

Actually, I've had good experiences with lots of different manufacturers. Can't say the same for Netgear ;)

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shiekh wrote:

Yes but the FVS-336Gv2 does not seem to have any booting issues.

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Yup! That's why mine is still hooked up and ready to go whenever my FVS318Gv2 won’t boot up after a power outage.  But... my FVS318Gv2 has been going fine since August 18th.

I don't know if it was the firmware update, GUI reboot, Turning off DNS Proxy, Change WAN upload/download, or Spoof MAC address. that did it though...

On my FVS336G everything is "default" and after a power outage it comes back, whereas the FVS318Gv2 will be on, but the internet light will be out,

That's the problem, then I would get into the endless cycle of hard reboots by unplugging/plugging back in the power only to have it "work" for 5-10 minutes before the internet light goes out.  Then I'll try unplugging/plugging it back in with nothing plugged into it.  I did this for over an hour and a half while on the phone with netgear.  Then I plugged in my desktop and after 10 minutes the internet light went out again.  Then the netgear people tried something weird where I plugged in the one of the LAN ports to the WAN port and then waited another 30 minutes and the light never went out.  After this, they concluded that it wasn't Netgear's problem, it was the fault of my ISP.

I had been on the phone well over an hour and a half by this point, so I plugged in my trusty FVS336Gv2, did nothing special and after it booted and the internet light came on it worked fine until Aug 18th where I did the steps above to get my FVS318Gv2 going.

Ricky

Did you dare try to see if it can survive a power cut?

If it does have a power cut the. Just go inside the GUI and do a reboot. I used to schedule a reboot inside the GUI to do a reboot every 5 AM. I still having issues every 2 days. Then I just decided to turn that auto schedule reboot off. And just do a GUI reboot once and don't touch it. It's 4 days now and it is still going. I have a UPS hooked up to power the router. Technically I won't get any power bump unless I unplug it myself.

When on the Navajo Nation I even had the electric blankets on sine-wave UPSs, so frequent were the power problems; but batteries are not exactly cheap and now I try to do without.

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train_wreck wrote:

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SamirD wrote:

And this is exactly why the smb market isn't for 'rock solid reliability'--that's enterprise stuff.

 

In the smb market, you simply move to another product with a different set of trade-offs that fit you needs better.  Why do this?  Simple--cost.  You could spend 4x the amount on an enterprise unit or go through a couple of different cheaper smb models before you find the one that works.

 

If I had a lot of DHCP clients jumping on and off the network, the FVS318N would never have worked for my application.  But that wasn't a requirement compared to reliability once it booted, which the FVS318N outshined the rv016 which needed a reboot every 24hrs to be stable.

---

I don't know, I've always had great experiences with Ubiquiti's EdgeRouter line, particularly their newer EdgeRouter X (that one's just ~$55 !!). And Mikrotik's RB2011 devices. And ZyXel's USG-20/USG-50. And TP-Link's R600VPN. And Linksys's LRT line.

 

Actually, I've had good experiences with lots of different manufacturers. Can't say the same for Netgear ;)

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Oh, I agree.  The lack of reliability in the smb market has brought some of the enterprise players in with some fantasic products.  I seriously considered the usg-50 before we got our watchguard.

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shiekh wrote:

When on the Navajo Nation I even had the electric blankets on sine-wave UPSs, so frequent were the power problems; but batteries are not exactly cheap and now I try to do without.

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That's crazy!  That's 3rd world stuff right in the middle of a first world nation!  I'm shocked!

Actually it was delightful to go out back with a chain saw for Winter wood, and I built a 30' repeater tower and so had Wi-Fi at home. A few power cuts was a small price to be part of the past with few of the inconvieniences. It's not for everyone, but I enjoyed it.