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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 frustrating issues that pop up intermittently across my network that are extremely frustrating and causing me to consider taking the unit back.
I am continuing to have intermittent DNS errors across multiple devices and different web browsers. I basically receive some sort of name resolution error based on the system (have seen in on Windows 10, my work win7 device, a Rasberry Pi device, even once on my Nintendo switch). This has occured on mahcines both on WiFi and connected via ethernet. All I have to do is refresh the browser and it usually connects immediately. I have upgraded the router and satellites up to V3.2.15.25 and still facing the same issue. I downgraded back to my old Nighthawk router, and didn't see the same issue, so it's definately the router. I shifted the DNS from my ISP (Spectrum gigabit) to google DNS, and faced the same issue. It certainly isn't constant, but maybe happens once every 15-30 minutes. I leave my Raspberry Pi on because it runs a bulletin board display that refreshes every five minutes, and I come back to it and see a DNS error 1-2 times a day.
As of a few weeks ago, I'm not also getting WiFi issues with multiple different iOS devices (5 different ones). I will pick up a device and try to connect to the internet, and it times out even though it is connected to the wifi. I can turn on Airplane mode for a split second and turn it back off, and when it reconnects back to the WiFi I can connect to the internet just fine.
I have tried to powercycle everything and even tried to reset and rebuild the router setup, and still run into the same issues. Any advice you can offer here would be greatly appreciated!
578 Replies
- I have 2 net connections at home one is Virgin Media UK with the new HUB 4 in modem only mode, the second I tried was a BT Adsl and Sam again
I know you all talk about DNS but am I right in thinking the WiFi dropouts are related or is yet another issue ? Anybody know
I’ve missed the Amazon return also so I’ll play the game with NETGEAR and then worst case pop them in the loft till it gets fixed or eBay them
As per my last post I don’t plan to buy anything else my ZYXEL MUlti X 3 node system was faultless for 2 years so it’s back in only benefit NETGEAR brought me was slightly faster WiFi on some devices and NETGEAR armourI feel like it's related, when I have the dropouts, the first thing I see is the DNS error, then that machine experiences an outage for several minutes. Also, while it's happening, I'm still able to reach other machines on the network, but unable to ping the router.
Tobamory wrote:
I have 2 net connections at home one is Virgin Media UK with the new HUB 4 in modem only mode, the second I tried was a BT Adsl and Sam again
I know you all talk about DNS but am I right in thinking the WiFi dropouts are related or is yet another issue ? Anybody know
I’ve missed the Amazon return also so I’ll play the game with NETGEAR and then worst case pop them in the loft till it gets fixed or eBay them
As per my last post I don’t plan to buy anything else my ZYXEL MUlti X 3 node system was faultless for 2 years so it’s back in only benefit NETGEAR brought me was slightly faster WiFi on some devices and NETGEAR armourMy system is working well now with the Virgin Media hub in router mode (wifi disabled), and the Orbi system running in AP mode. No dropouts, no DNS issues. Yes it's a workaround but it'll let you use your Orbi system if that's what you want.
What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet or more is recommended in between RBR and RBS to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected.
https://kb.netgear.com/31029/Where-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satelliteAny Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?
Would be related to a different issue with wifi dropouts.
Tobamory wrote:
I have 2 net connections at home one is Virgin Media UK with the new HUB 4 in modem only mode, the second I tried was a BT Adsl and Sam again
I know you all talk about DNS but am I right in thinking the WiFi dropouts are related or is yet another issue ? Anybody know
I’ve missed the Amazon return also so I’ll play the game with NETGEAR and then worst case pop them in the loft till it gets fixed or eBay them
As per my last post I don’t plan to buy anything else my ZYXEL MUlti X 3 node system was faultless for 2 years so it’s back in only benefit NETGEAR brought me was slightly faster WiFi on some devices and NETGEAR armourThis is a puzzling issue, as I have several (more than 25) RBK753 systems running in router mode, as the only router connected to different ISPs and personal owned modems.
Not one system experiences any DND errors. They all run smooth.
I did have one system, that was connected to WOW network, that had DNS errors that turned out to be, the modem was being directed to West Point Ga servers, when the customer is in Tampa Bay. As soon as WOW reflashed the modem and rerouted to the proper DNS servers, the issue was gone. However, most of the time, my setups are configured to use 3rd party DNS servers, instead of the normal 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1.
I don't have any affiliation with Netgear, other than to use their product. We chose the orbi system because of its speed and reliability. And for the record, their spport is no worse than the competitors.
I agree with Furry. Constantly posting over and over, the dis-satisfaction with the product, and threatening to return it, doesn't help the issue. If you purchase a product and are unhappy with it, return it, sell it, give it away and find something that works for you.
Orbi is not really for novices. There are other user friendly mesh systems on the market, that are more plug and play.
It has been over 8 months since this issue has been reported, and still no resolution from Netgear.
Maybe it is time for the community to submit reviews on Amazon and elsewhere to warn potential buyers, and to help get the attention of Netgear so they can make fixing this a priority.
- Totally agree.
Have just posted negative review on Amazon highlighting the extra charge for security, lack of parental controls and buggy firmware.
Netgear tech support suggested the following. Has anyone tried this, and does it solve the problem?
1. Login to orbilogin.com
2. On the left click Internet, and scroll down to the DNS section.
3. Change the Domain Server (DNS) Setting:
From: Get Automatically From ISP
To: Use These DNS Servers.
Then enter the Google DNS addresses: Primary DNS 8.8.8.8 and Secondary DNS 8.8.4.4
4. Press the Apply button
OOWS wrote:Netgear tech support suggested the following. Has anyone tried this, and does it solve the problem?
Yes, I've tried setting the DNS server IP addresses in the Orbi using orbilogin.com and it doesn't fix the intermittent DNS issue. It's also been tried earlier in this thread.
No changing the DNS configuration is not the solution. The DNS servers (i.e. Google / Cloudflare) etc. are not the problem. The problem is the actual Netgear DNS server/firmware. So you can be changing your DNS configuration all day, it won't fix a thing.
You can think of this as a car. If the engine is broken. You can swap the benzine for another type of benzine. The engine still remains broken. Now Netgear should fix this engine, instead they just say please try a different type of benzine as the benzine you now use might not be good for the engine. So as a user you are spending a lot of time changing and trying out different types of benzines. Which in the end, is actually wasting your time. As the problem still is: the engine is broken.
Correct.
This isn't browser related or DNS Server related.
This is my experience:
if you look up a website... for example go to whitepages.com
the initial lookup is a miss.... then the browser refreshes automatically, and resolves.
This is almost like the local DNS cache on the router is returning info and then retrying resolution.... it's not in the local cache on the router... so it fails. then goes out and resolves.
If you go to that same website again, on any other device or browser, there's no dns lookup miss.
So I'm thinking this is an issue at the router, doing the initial DNS lookup... somehow the router is giving a response to the request... which causes the error screen, but then immediately resolves it and pushes the result again to the client.
That's my interpretation, anyway.
This happens for me across devices, and across browsers
I, too am experiencing this DNS proxy/resolver/caching issue ever since Sunday, which was the first day of DST. I have DST enabled and using Netgear for NTP server. I turned off DST and changed the NTP to be time.windows.com to see if this helps. I've had this Orbi RBR40 now for about 2-3 years and have never had anything like this happen. Extremely frustrating that Netgear allows DHCP option 60 and 61 but nothing for a simple hand out of DNS server IPs. I even factory reset and that didn't help. My old Linksys allows me to specify DNS servers in DHCP!
Please visit and post about this over in the Orbi AC forum for your model Orbi:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/bd-p/Orbi
Others have mentioned doing a factory reset and changing NTP settings resolve this on the Orbi AC system:
Thank you.
ericd77 wrote:I, too am experiencing this DNS proxy/resolver/caching issue ever since Sunday, which was the first day of DST. I have DST enabled and using Netgear for NTP server. I turned off DST and changed the NTP to be time.windows.com to see if this helps. I've had this Orbi RBR40 now for about 2-3 years and have never had anything like this happen. Extremely frustrating that Netgear allows DHCP option 60 and 61 but nothing for a simple hand out of DNS server IPs. I even factory reset and that didn't help. My old Linksys allows me to specify DNS servers in DHCP!
Shocked there's no updates on this. Just setup an RBK753 today, having this issue and to see it was reported July last year and is still not fixed is quite alarming. Considering returning them...
I think it's simply unacceptable to be having these (basic) issues especially at this pricepoint. It's only logical for people to discuss alternatives as this information is useful to people like in my case where I am currently contemplating returning them if it's not fixed very soon. I'm not bashing the product because the system is exemplary in terms of its actual performance and coverage from what I've tested so far, so it is frustrating when such a simple problem dampens what is otherwise an excellent product.
Exactly, and I do still own the Orbi AX. The Orbi AX is very minimalistic and that is ok, wifi coverage is great on it. However, the DNS issues are a real trouble. I am not sure what Netgear did with the DNS. However what I notice on the Asus XT8 is that you get way more options to control the DNS settings. You can even control the DNS settings for an individual device it seems.
What I also notice is a difference on how DNS is handled. I have an external domain that is directed to a NAS on the intranet. With the Orbi AX the route is as follows: Home laptop (on home netwerk) > go to externaldomain.com > Orbi AX > ISP Router > Internet > Back to ISP router > Orbi AX > NAS (on home netwerk). With the Asus XT8: Home laptop (on home netwerk) > go to externaldomain.com > Asus XT8 > NAS (on home netwerk). Which makes a lot of sense. I guess the XT8 will cache DNS. While the Orbi AX can't even do the basics right and fails every now and then.
In any case with the Asus XT8 I have not experienced the DNS errors (as expected).
Yeah, as I've posted (don't remember where), I've owned most every brand of wifi router, and they've ALL had quirks/problems here and there - including Asus (the most recent brand just before getting back into NG). It seems like NG's 'prowess,' and more imprtantly, support, has declined since I was last into NG stuff. So much so that when it's time to switch up (again), I don't think it will ever be another NG product.
Have also had varied experiences here. I used the Velop MX5300 system and that had major problems with the one node on wireless completely not accepted connections from WiFi devices, Nest WiFi was okay but compared to the AX systems the speeds were quite substantially slower. In terms of WiFi 6 mesh it seems there isn't quite the amount of avaialble options yet as there has been with WiFi 5.
Updated manually to the latest firmware update and the issue seems to still persist. Spoke to Netgear support and so far the agent I spoke to said they are completely unaware of this entire issue. Had completely no WiFi access on some devices this morning either.
May not be anything, but are you using ipv6?
Any suggestions for a different top tier mesh system? Unfortunately I purchased my orbi rbr850 system before reading these forums and discovered 17 pages of users documenting a bug with STONE ZERO support from netgear. Sadly I am also having these same issues and I am at the end of my rope with troubleshooting. Absolutely disrespectful that this is a $1000 product with no support and is incapable of working.
- It's a firmware issue that affects all users running these Orbi AX in router mode.
Not to put a tinfoil hat on. But it's really strange that a user with no real posts. Post a comment regarding this issue. With an immediate thumps up from Furrye38 (who seems to be working for Netgear).
Netgear should fix the Firmware / DNS issue. They already did it for the Orbi AX pro series one year ago.
Stop this nonsense and fix the Firmware.You can see from my other posts I am not a fan of Netgear anymore (never buying a Netgear product again). That being said, I never experienced the DNS issue except for a couple of times that I'm not 100% sure if that what it truly was. I switched to AP mode after my Asus router because of Orbi's truly s*cky controls, QOS ability, and the fact that I'm not going to pay Netgear for services that I can get for free with my Asus (AiProtection - parental controls are free too, but I don't need that). As an aside, no DNS issues with my Asus router.
So glad I've read this thread. Thankfully I can correct my mistake now. Received my 853 system yesterday and it's going straight back. Not even opening the box, straight back. I'm not going to buy a stand alone router to fix built in problems of the Orbi nor try the work arounds to fix what shouldn't be a problem. Not even going to see if my hardware is good, straight back. What blows my mind more than anything is the lack of NG involvement here. I've used many NG products over the years and have been generally pleased. I'm not going to put up with inherent bugs right out of the box though. Return.
Thats your choice to not try your system. Not everyone sees this problem. Mines working well. Even on recent FW.
NG IS aware of this problem for those that are effected by it.
Good Luck.
With the latest firmware and using the 6to4 Tunnel option under the router admin settings, I had no issues.
However, Google Search started popping up a "6to4 Tunnel detected - This is being deprecated warning with a forced captcha puzzle to complete each time.
"We have detected you are using a 6to4 tunnel. 6to4 is deprecated and will be shutdown shortly."
My ISP doesn't support direct IP6 connections, so I disabled the 6to4 Tunnel to get rid of the Google deprecation warning and went back to an IP4 connection.
As soon as doing so, DNS errors started appearing again. So it's clearly only IP4 connections affected (or affected the most).
If you can't do IP6 with your ISP, currently I can not recommend this router Mesh. They won't bother fix it.
