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Forum Discussion
Intermittent DNS Errors and WiFi Issues
I have had the Orbi AX6000 for a few months now. While there are many things I love about it (great wifi coverage, great speed, looks nice, software, ease of setup, etc.), there are two very frustra...
I've reached the end of my rope with this DNS issue. I love the performance of the router outside of the DNS issue, and since I can't return it I'm thinking the best route forward is to throw it in AP mode and put another router in. That seems utterly ridculous in my mind to solve such a basic glaring error, but I feel it's cost effective to at least give it a try.
It sounds like others have gone down this route. Can you provide what router you used that behaved well with the Orbi? I'm not looking for something super complex, just stable and won't impact the speed. Would like to avoid Netgear products for that for obvious reasons. Thanks for the help!
I use a peplink Balance 20X as a router. I connected the Orbi AX6000 Router in AP mode in a LAN port and I disabled the internal AP of the peplink. Everything works fine except that the RBR850 reboot around once a day at random times. I have 3 satellites RBS850 and they reboot 2 to 3 a week on average. I still don't understand why the reboots. I am on the firmware V3.2.18.1_1.4.14.
Might post a new topic regarding your mysterious reboots. Maybe we can help you troubleshoot that.
BriceLB wrote:I use a peplink Balance 20X as a router. I connected the Orbi AX6000 Router in AP mode in a LAN port and I disabled the internal AP of the peplink. Everything works fine except that the RBR850 reboot around once a day at random times. I have 3 satellites RBS850 and they reboot 2 to 3 a week on average. I still don't understand why the reboots. I am on the firmware V3.2.18.1_1.4.14.
Wow... long thread.
Guys, DNS issues are basically caused by the location of resolv.conf file. Move it out of /tmp and it'll work perfectly. I too had the same problem and it was fully resolved a few months ago after moving that file and restarting the dnsmasq process while pointing to the new file.
It's a matter of just a bad QA and laziness by Netgear. Call them and demand that they fix it.
And can you explain how to move that file to us?
stsh wrote:Wow... long thread.
Guys, DNS issues are basically caused by the location of resolv.conf file. Move it out of /tmp and it'll work perfectly. I too had the same problem and it was fully resolved a few months ago after moving that file and restarting the dnsmasq process while pointing to the new file.
It's a matter of just a bad QA and laziness by Netgear. Call them and demand that they fix it.
FURRYe38 wrote:And can you explain how to move that file to us?
stsh wrote:Wow... long thread.
Guys, DNS issues are basically caused by the location of resolv.conf file. Move it out of /tmp and it'll work perfectly. I too had the same problem and it was fully resolved a few months ago after moving that file and restarting the dnsmasq process while pointing to the new file.
It's a matter of just a bad QA and laziness by Netgear. Call them and demand that they fix it.
Anyone with basic linux skills should be able to do it.
Send a magic packet to the router to enable telnet. Login using your admin account.
look at the processes and find the dnsmasq. Notice how it points to the /tmp/resolv.conf ???
just copy the resolv.conf to another location. I created one in /tmp/somename/ but anything will work as long as it's not in the actual /tmp
And then strart the dnsmasq process again but poiinting to the newly created file. Kinda like this:
/usr/sbin/dnsmasq -h -n -c 0 -N -i br* -r /tmp/somename/resolv.conf -u root
this should resolve the dns issues until the box is restarted.
If you want the new path to survive restart you'll have to be a bit more creative with a tiny bash script to run on startup and do this for you.
make a file called dnsmasq in /overlay/upper/usr/sbin - it will hide the original from the os. Edit the file and insert a few lines to do what we just did above. Create a directory and a resolv.conf file inside. And add 2 dns servers into your new resolv.conf file
and then start the dnsmasq process.
The basic idea is that when os starts it'll run your new dnsmasq which in turn will make a new resolv.conf and start the real dnsmasq process but using the new conf file. Simple.
There are might be better ways to run a script on startup but this works so why not? But let me reiterate. This is a workaraound for a problem created by the stupidity and laziness of NG. And they should really be the ones to fix this
You able to do that on current recent version of FW? I presume no as NG removed telnet feature a few versions back. Even using the telnet enabler doesn't work anymore.
Work around seems kind complex for those who do not have "basic linux" skills.
you might be correct regarding telnet. I did this a few months ago on an older firmware. Not sure about the new one.
I think v25 was last version that you could enabletelnet and it worked. :smileyembarrassed:
FURRYe38 wrote:I think v25 was last version that you could enabletelnet and it worked. :smileyembarrassed:
guess what. You are correct.
This crap updated itself, most likely a few days ago. This might also be the reason I started having this upnp issue all of a sudden. In any case the dns change is most likely gone and the telnet access is also gone.
At the moment I only see one solution. Unplug the internet to block it from updating itself. Downgrade the router and ap. Enable telnet and change all the nvram parameters related to auto update to disabled. And then do the same as above.
It's just an untested idea but looks like too much pain to go through this. Might be easier to eat the cost and get a decent router from a different vendor.
You can try the following to see if blocking the update services will work:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Firmware-auto-update-domain/m-p/1499659/highlight/true#M22873
stsh wrote:
FURRYe38 wrote:I think v25 was last version that you could enabletelnet and it worked. :smileyembarrassed:
guess what. You are correct.
This crap updated itself, most likely a few days ago. This might also be the reason I started having this upnp issue all of a sudden. In any case the dns change is most likely gone and the telnet access is also gone.
At the moment I only see one solution. Unplug the internet to block it from updating itself. Downgrade the router and ap. Enable telnet and change all the nvram parameters related to auto update to disabled. And then do the same as above.
It's just an untested idea but looks like too much pain to go through this. Might be easier to eat the cost and get a decent router from a different vendor.
Why am I not surprised?
FURRYe38 wrote:You can try the following to see if blocking the update services will work:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Firmware-auto-update-domain/m-p/1499659/highlight/true#M22873
stsh wrote:
FURRYe38 wrote:I think v25 was last version that you could enabletelnet and it worked. :smileyembarrassed:
guess what. You are correct.
This crap updated itself, most likely a few days ago. This might also be the reason I started having this upnp issue all of a sudden. In any case the dns change is most likely gone and the telnet access is also gone.
At the moment I only see one solution. Unplug the internet to block it from updating itself. Downgrade the router and ap. Enable telnet and change all the nvram parameters related to auto update to disabled. And then do the same as above.
It's just an untested idea but looks like too much pain to go through this. Might be easier to eat the cost and get a decent router from a different vendor.
Block only the specific update addresses. Do not block netgear.com as a wild card or to there main site. Just try to block the update addresses to see if that prevents the system from updating. I believe I tried it once and tested it by checking for FW and the RBR displayed a message that "services were not available".
stsh wrote:Why am I not surprised?
FURRYe38 wrote:You can try the following to see if blocking the update services will work:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Firmware-auto-update-domain/m-p/1499659/highlight/true#M22873
stsh wrote:
FURRYe38 wrote:I think v25 was last version that you could enabletelnet and it worked. :smileyembarrassed:
guess what. You are correct.
This crap updated itself, most likely a few days ago. This might also be the reason I started having this upnp issue all of a sudden. In any case the dns change is most likely gone and the telnet access is also gone.
At the moment I only see one solution. Unplug the internet to block it from updating itself. Downgrade the router and ap. Enable telnet and change all the nvram parameters related to auto update to disabled. And then do the same as above.
It's just an untested idea but looks like too much pain to go through this. Might be easier to eat the cost and get a decent router from a different vendor.
I tried. Does not work. The screenshot demonstrates that even blocking netgear.com page does not work. They must have some sort of override for this domain.
Is that on older version of FW? If so, then I get they may have an override. Only other suggestion would be to put a different router in front of the RBR and block those addresses from that router. That would stop that I presume.
stsh wrote:I tried. Does not work. The screenshot demonstrates that even blocking netgear.com page does not work. They must have some sort of override for this domain.
FURRYe38 wrote:Is that on older version of FW? If so, then I get they may have an override. Only other suggestion would be to put a different router in front of the RBR and block those addresses from that router. That would stop that I presume.
stsh wrote:I tried. Does not work. The screenshot demonstrates that even blocking netgear.com page does not work. They must have some sort of override for this domain.
Yes, that's on the older version. apparently you cannot block anything netgear. I'm sure I could come up with some creative way to edit the hosts file or something via telnet but I'm getting really tired of messing with this junk. Adding another box in front of it just to block the updates so we can hack into it to solve a problem sounds like too much effort. Easier choice would be to add a small separate dns server inside the network and not rely on this router for dns at all.
- Just to let everyone know. I switched on the Orbi AX with latest firmware. It still has the DNS error. Based on the whole 'turn on ip v6 to 4 tunnel' I tried that workaround too. That also does not work. Which is to be expected.
Conclusion. Netgear firmware / DNS resolving is still broken.
Only real solution is to ditch the Orbi AX in the bin or put it in to AP mode with a third party router in front of it. Which is the most economical solution if you cannot return the Orbi AX. I am in shock. I have spent the last 4 months trying to debug frequent DNS resolution problems, exactly as described through this thread. I never suspected that the Orbi firmware itself was responsible; I had been running in circles debugging everything else, even building a PiHole to bring DNS lookup under my control. When that didn't solve the problem, I realized that the problem had to be with my RBR850, and ended up finding this thread.
We both run businesses from home and have this problem multiple times per DAY. NetGear's defective product has literally cost us thousands and thousands of dollars in lost productivity.
My new TP link wired router came in the mail today, going to shift the Orbi over to AP mode over the weekend and hopefully put this mess behind me. Will certainly be the last NetGear product I ever purchase.
inZania wrote:I am in shock. I have spent the last 4 months trying to debug frequent DNS resolution problems, exactly as described through this thread. I never suspected that the Orbi firmware itself was responsible; I had been running in circles debugging everything else, even building a PiHole to bring DNS lookup under my control. When that didn't solve the problem, I realized that the problem had to be with my RBR850, and ended up finding this thread.
We both run businesses from home and have this problem multiple times per DAY. NetGear's defective product has literally cost us thousands and thousands of dollars in lost productivity.
pihole definitely solves this problem. Or replacing the builtin router dns with any other functional dns server.
I've added one myself and it is working 100% without any issues.
If it didn't work for you - you must've done something wrong.
