NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
LorneAv
Oct 23, 2015Tutor
cannot sign in to openDNS account to set-up parental controls using NETGEAR Genie
Hi, I am trying to use NETGEAR Genie Parental controls and when I attempt to login to my OpenDNS account, I get the following error message: "There was an error signing, in please make sure you're ...
MrPink
Nov 28, 2016Aspirant
Hi NetGear Community,
Same problem here with the Parental Controls feature not working. I have a D7800 (firmware V1.0.1.16) and using the Windows Genie App (2.4.34) and the iOS Genie App (2.4.38). I have an existing OpenDNS account which I can access through www.opendns.com and netgear.opendns.com. When I first started to get everything going, I was able to access the parental controls feature on my ipad, briefly, but now, nothing. Signing into OpenDNS on my iPhone (using working credentials), i get a message saying "Internet is not available. Please connect your router to the internet first.". On my ipad, it just hangs on the "signing in" screen. On my PC, i get the message: "you don't appear to be connected to the internet". I have tried accessing the parental controls directly through the device (192.168.1.1 admin login). When i select the parental controls tab, i get redirected to www.netgear.com/lpc. Parental Controls "the easy way to set some online boundaries".
Hi @TonyWilath, i would like to hear more about your road to a solution.
- DexterJBDec 21, 2016NETGEAR Moderator
Hi MrPink,
The latest update from engineering is that the case is still being worked on.
Regards,
Dexter
Community Team
- MrPinkDec 21, 2016Aspirant
Hi Dexter,
Thanks for the update. I have since been in contact with OpenDNS and unfortunately, they couldn't help. I have also submitted a ticket to Netear Support who are currently trying to help me out and has since been upgraded to the expert technician team.
Fortunately, I have an older Netgear modem/router that I have added to my network which I have setup running through the OpenDNS Family Shield servers. I have all my boys devices connected through that modem as a bandaid until I can get these parental control sorted.
So far, we have tried everything from restarting, rebooting, uninstalling, reinstalling, updating, rolling back to previous firmaware, factory resetting, power cycling and bunch more, with no luck. I am curious to know if anyone out there has been able to setup these parental controls first time with no hassles, and also,
I would be interested to hear from people who have had problems with the parental controls feature and have been able to work through to a solution to fixing the issues that they experienced (probably won't here though because not many people jump on these forums if everything is working fine).
- TonyWilathDec 24, 2016Guide
Hi MrPink
I have still have this issue after it started occuring back in August this year. This is what I have done:
1) Logged a call with OpenDNS - they told me this was a known issue with Netgear and they needed to fix this
2) Logged a call with Netgear - They have got me to try all sorts of things such as:
- Changing my passwords to use different lengths and characters - no affect
- trying beta firmware on my Nighthawk D7800 device - same problem
- upgrading Genie clients - same problem
- replacing my entire modem/router - even this didnt work so its not a hardware issue
3) Logged this forum response - has been of no help apart from making it obvious this issue is very wide spread and affecting a large number of people regardless of make/model - I work in a large fortune 500 IT company and based on my experience and observation I suspect this is a coding issue with the Negear Genie application and/or a security setting either on networking/firewall/loadbalancing infrastructure/webpage security somewhere between Netgear and OpenDNS which is not allow logon credentials and/or data to be passed between the Genie client and the the OpenDNS account.
4) Support has been very very very poor and its been over a month and a half since I have heard anything. I generally have no contact unless I follow up with an email asking "what is going on" and then I tend to get "we are working on your issue and doing everything we can" type response.
They are still advertising this function on their router which in my mind is false advertising. I bought the top of the range router purely for the parent filtering function that could be selectively applied to device level and this has worked less than 50% of the time I have owned the modem/router.
My experience has been so bad that I would not recommend Netgear to anyone ever again. I am currently looking at the ASUS routers that seem to have some kind of parent filtering at device level and whilst it doesnt look as good as using OpenDNS (which is very good in Australia for a free filtering service). However it seems to be working well from what I can see on the forums and I guess i'd rather have something than nothing. Nothing is all Netgear have been able to provide me.
One very disatisfied Netgear customer.