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Forum Discussion
XR500 - Hue Bridge and Shield Built-in Chrome Cast Wired Issues
Hi all, I am having some weird problems with my new XR500.
Scenario: I have an nvidia shield connected via ethernet to the router. I am not able to cast to this device via the built in chromecast, nor am I able to use android TV to control or the shield TV app to control it. Everything else works as normal.
If I switch the nvidia shield to wireless, and have my android phone with the control apps on the wireless network all of the above functionality works fine.
Second scenario: Phillips Hue bridge does not work when connected via ethernet to the router, my android app is able to see the IP but when I hit the button to pair and connect it just expires. The Hue does not have a wireless connection but the Shield issue has led me to believeit is related.
I have toggled just about every wireless setting possible on the router, including enabling/separating 2.5/5ghz bands, disabling smart connect and a variety of other check boxes in advanced settings, nothing fixes the issues. I have another wireless standalone chromecast and a google home that both work fine on wireless regardless of setting.
Another point - I can "cast" from my wired desktop PC to the wired Nvidia Shield. This also leads me to believe there is an issue with ethernet > wired connectivity/sharing with this router.
I have tested all these settings an my old router (nighthawk r700) and don't have this issue. Looking forward to any and all help with this matter, thanks!
37 Replies
- Weird that it only occurs via ethernet and not wireless. In Settings > WAN Setup untick 'Disable IGMP Proxying'. Have you enabled DMZ or done any manual Port Forwarding/Triggering or disabled UPnP?
Do you use PPPoE or VLAN?
Netduma-Fraser wrote:
Weird that it only occurs via ethernet and not wireless. In Settings > WAN Setup untick 'Disable IGMP Proxying'. Have you enabled DMZ or done any manual Port Forwarding/Triggering or disabled UPnP?
Do you use PPPoE or VLAN?Thanks for the quick reply,
I tested enabled/disabled "DisableIGMP Proxying", no change.
I have ports forwarded for my plex server and webserver, no triggering or anything out of the ordinary here.
UPnP is enabled, I haven't messed with the defaults for these settings.
- Disable QoS completely, does that resolve the issue?
It may be the ports you forwared are required for those devices are required for nvidia and phillips but unlikely if they work via wifi. I'd recommend calling Netgear support if QoS disabled doesn't fix it.
Netduma-Fraser wrote:
Weird that it only occurs via ethernet and not wireless. In Settings > WAN Setup untick 'Disable IGMP Proxying'.How is the WAN IGMP Proxy involved ? What the OP does describe is all ICMP Multicast on the (W)LAN, respectively between the radio interfaces (all three), the 10 GbE port, the two GbE ports optionally supporting aggregation, and all the other GbE ports. The WAN IGMP proxy would serve for different purposes, typically for provider IPTV applications.
schumaku wrote:
Netduma-Fraser wrote:
Weird that it only occurs via ethernet and not wireless. In Settings > WAN Setup untick 'Disable IGMP Proxying'.How is the WAN IGMP Proxy involved ? What the OP does describe is all ICMP Multicast on the (W)LAN, respectively between the radio interfaces (all three), the 10 GbE port, the two GbE ports optionally supporting aggregation, and all the other GbE ports. The WAN IGMP proxy would serve for different purposes, typically for provider IPTV applications.
Would switching up the ethernet ports I use make a difference? I haven't tried different ones, I didn't realize they were different speed interfaces.
Same as the original poster, I cannot connect to Philips Hue Bridges with this router.
I had an R7000 and had everything set up. Have been using the XR500 for a few months, never needed to do anything wth the lights, so have not tried the bridge software since I upgraded.
The other day I tried to add another light and I could not connect to my bridge anymore. I even bought a second hue bridge thinking it was broken, but same result.
I took both bridges to the person I gave my R7000 to, both worked just fine with that router.
I am on the latest firmware for the XR500 (2.3.2.32). Also like the original poster I am PPPoE/VLAN 201, UPnP is enabled.
The bridge is definitely visible on the network. Can see it on the device manager page. The Philips Hue app finds it on the network as well. The app will not connect to it though. Connecting to it involves pushing a button on the top of it so whatever it is trying to do at that point is what is failing. App has a timer, tells you push the button, eventually it just times out. (Worked first time on R7000, with both bridges.)
Incredibly frustrating.
One more thing to add, the hue bridge is communicating just fine over the internet.
Philips has a web page where you register the bridge. This requires the same pattern as the app is trying to do. You go to the website, hit the Add Brige button, it tells you to push the button on the bridge. This works just fine.
Thanks for adding to the post! I think we can officially say there are bugs with connectivity with this router now? I thought it was just me for a while.
I wanted to add, I talked to netgear support yesterday, they had me do ping tests across devices. Everything pings with no issues. They determined it was a "hardware issue" and had me go replace the device via the store I bought it at.
I tried the new device today and immediately updated firmware, factory reset, and encountered the same exact issues in the original post. If any Netduma people are still checking this post I hope this information helps. I opened another ticket with netgear support today with the above info.
It is the wireless that is causing the issues, whatever those might be.
Found an app for Windows that supposedly syncs your lights to music or something -- didn't care what it did, just wanted to see if it would connect to the bridge. My main computer is connected via wireless due to the distance to the only fiber port in my apartment. Using this app, failed just like all the other times on Android phone and iPad.
I went out and bought a USB-ethernet adapter. Installed the same software on my surface tablet (windows 10 again), used the adapter to plug it directly into the router. It connected to the bridge without any trouble.
Tried using the usb/ethernet adapter on my phone (never tried to plug a phone directly into ethernet), worked through, phone showed it was using the ethernet connection. Tried the Hue setup application on the phone, with the phone hard wired, and it connected to the bridge without any trouble.
- Okay that's an interesting on, make sure you've got these done: Smart Connect disabled
Advanced Settings > Advanced Wireless > Disable Beamforming and MU-MIMO, ensure HT160 is disabled also.
If that doesn't work let me know and I'll have one more suggestion which I can PM to you.Looking at my settings, HT160 is disabled, but I do have those other two options enabled. I will be out all day, but I'll try your suggestions later tonight Fraser. Appreciate your troubleshooting help.
- Can you tell me the USB adapter you bought? I'm a little confused how you got it working, you have a dongle on your PC and one on your router?
Hey Kelton,
The adapter I bought is just a standard USB 3.0 to gigabit ethernet adapter. I got it at BestBuy, is made by Insignia (like $25 or so).
Just got it to test whether not being on the wireless would make a difference and it did. I wouldn't really say it is working, because it is a fair bit of effort to get the Hue app working like that -- at least for me, having to be wired to the router and I have to take the phone out of the case because the USB-C to USB-A adapter that came with the phone doesn't fit with the case on.
The computer I used it on was again just for a test, my Surface tablet is not my main PC. It's just hard to do tests on my main PC because it is so far from the router itself. When things get to the "Push the button" stage, I have to run as fast as I can down to the bridge before things time out. With the Surface I can just sit next to the router and bridge.
So I CAN set things up, but I can't really maintain anything because in a general sense, my phone still won't connect. However, it is set up enough for now that I can at least get by. I can control the lights again via Alexa -- I only really ever used the Hue app for initial setup. Things like Apple Homekit, or even controlling brightness/colors, I still cannot do without physically attaching devices to the router.
So I'm still looking for the cause and resolution, but I'm not longer sitting around in the dark!
I am giving up on this router as well. Looking back through forum posts, I saw a similar complaint to this back in March (7 months ago). That person's solution? Return the router. 7 months and the router still doesn't work with these devices over wifi? Philips Hue? No. Chromechast? No. HomeKit? No.
As a test it seems like pretty much any other router? Works fine.
Unfortunately, I am way past my return date as well. I set up my devices using an R7000 and didn't need to reconnect to the one app I used until I added a new light -- only to find it would not work.
I admit, I'm a little pissed. $300 is a lot of money to waste. Yeah, the router is nice, I like the firmware, but it is definitely flawed when it comes to IOT over wifi. Seems like pretty basic functionality (that works with ever other router). Maybe NetGear should invest the $50 it takes to test this out for themselves.
I do appreciate the time you spent trying to get it working with me Fraser.
This has left me very unlikely to even try another NetGear router and I definitely cannot recommend this particular router. If you don't care about using any smart devices with apps for your tablet/phone, then this is a nice router. If you do care about that, look elsewhere.
- It's really unfortunate I liked the router alot too. My ticket is still open but they called me over 10 times and repeatedly acted like it was impossible to reproduce the multiple detailed test cases and different devices the issues occurs with.
I think a language barrier is partly at fault as their level 1 techs can hardly understand what I told them as far as I know. I will continue to post here if they contact me with updates but it has been a few weeks now unfortunately. I hope they released an update for this issue soon! I can't believe how few people use this type of functionality, I thought it would be much more common.- The funny part about the Hue hub is it has to be something in the XR500s 2.4 wifi that's keeping the hub from finishing the handshake with the App. Because when I had the XR500 running i could plug in another router as an AP.... the hue bridge would connect instantly through the second router and control everything just fine from the App.
As soon as I removed the AP and ran off the XR500 it would time out at the Hue bridge push button connection to the App
There is a "feature" called “Port Separation”,“AP isolation” or “Isolation enable” in some routers. It disallows WiFI to access devices connected to the Ethernet (little bit like a VLAN). It sounds like this router has this feature enabled, not sure it can be disabled somewhere..
The app has various mechanisms to discover the bridge (mDNS, network scan, cloud look-up). The reason the bridge is found can be due to IGMP proxying or cloud look-up.
When the button is pressed, the app starts polling the bridge while trying to create a user-account. The fact that this fails indicates that the app cannot connect to the bridge.
If someone from Netgear likes to do some troubleshooting, feel free to contact me.
