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RBR850 OpenVPN After Factory Reset
I've had my setup of an RBR850 & 2 RBS750 satellites for a few years now. Have mostly worked great. I also have OpenVPN using DDNS working just fine so I could occasionally connect from my iPhone to do some tasks on some machines on my network.
Yesterday, I picked up a new iPhone and while setting it up - noticed I could not access the Orbi mobile app. I discovered I could not access routerlogin.net or the management IP either - even though both wired & wireless services were functioning just fine.
So, I reluctantly bit the bullet and did a factor reset on the router. I could not find a recent config backup unfortunately. I have everything setup and working EXCEPT the OpenVPN.
I am trying to access it from cellular networks that used to work prior to the factory reset.
I have tried multiple devices.
I have tried using both the DNS hostname and the IP address.
I have verified the DDNS hostname is resolving & responding to ping.
I have tried using OpenDNS & Google DNS for the router DNS - and tried using the default DNS entries in the VPN config file and tried using those servers - but still no joy.
The OpenVPN logs just give "Server poll timeout" and a bunch attempt to connect. Nothing specific to help me troubleshoot it.
My router is using 172.16.0.xxx addressing scheme.
I'm technical - and very frusted I cannot figure out what is preventing my connections from being successful.
The devices are on firmware 7.2.7.15_5.1.16.
I've got fiber coming into a Nokia ONT (which I've rebooted) and my RBR850 comes directly off of it.
As I said - it all worked just fine prior to having to "factory reset".
Anyone have any ideas? Happy to provide more info & continue troubleshooting.
Thanks for your participation in this thread. So, I did some review this morning and finally got it to work.
I ended up turning off UPNP (since I have a couple of port forwards set) and, turned off DMZ for a particular IP address.And poof - it started working. Surprising to me, because neither of the VPN UDP ports were included in any of the above - unless the DMZ caused the conflict?
I'm pretty sure I turned UPNP off and tested it previously - but, maybe I didn't give it enough time. Who knows. Happy its working now though and I'm making notes & a backup for future reference.
6 Replies
Thanks for your participation in this thread. So, I did some review this morning and finally got it to work.
I ended up turning off UPNP (since I have a couple of port forwards set) and, turned off DMZ for a particular IP address.And poof - it started working. Surprising to me, because neither of the VPN UDP ports were included in any of the above - unless the DMZ caused the conflict?
I'm pretty sure I turned UPNP off and tested it previously - but, maybe I didn't give it enough time. Who knows. Happy its working now though and I'm making notes & a backup for future reference.It is annoying that Netgear provides no diagnostic information on the router for OpenVPN.
I connected from an Android phone just now and found that the log file on the OpenVPN Connect client includes a LOT of steps:
[Jul 29, 2025, 14:02:11] EVENT: CANCELLED [Jul 29, 2025, 14:02:11] EVENT: DISCONNECTED [Jul 29, 2025, 14:02:11] Tunnel bytes per CPU second: 0 [Jul 29, 2025, 14:02:11] ----- OpenVPN Stop ----- [Jul 29, 2025, 14:02:11] EVENT: CORE_THREAD_DONE [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] ----- OpenVPN Start ----- [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: CORE_THREAD_ACTIVE [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] OpenVPN core 3.11.1(3.git::fbda4753:RelWithDebInfo) android arm64 64-bit PT_PROXY [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Frame=512/2112/512 mssfix-ctrl=1250 [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] NOTE: This configuration contains options that were not used: [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Unsupported option (ignored) [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] 0 [resolv-retry] [infinite] [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] 1 [persist-key] [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] 2 [persist-tun] [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: RESOLVE [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Contacting 172.249.112.236:12973 via UDP [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: WAIT [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Connecting to [bednarhouse.mynetgear.com]:12973 (172.249.112.236) via UDP [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: CONNECTING [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Tunnel Options:V4,dev-type tun,link-mtu 1558,tun-mtu 1500,proto UDPv4,comp-lzo,cipher AES-128-CBC,auth SHA1,keysize 128,key-method 2,tls-client [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Creds: UsernameEmpty/PasswordEmpty [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Sending Peer Info: IV_VER=3.11.1 IV_PLAT=android IV_NCP=2 IV_TCPNL=1 IV_PROTO=8094 IV_MTU=1600 IV_CIPHERS=AES-128-CBC:AES-192-CBC:AES-256-CBC:AES-128-GCM:AES-192-GCM:AES-256-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305 IV_LZO=1 IV_AUTO_SESS=1 IV_GUI_VER=net.openvpn.connect.android_3.7.1-10568 IV_SSO=webauth,crtext [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] SSL Handshake: peer certificate: CN=server, 1024 bit RSA, cipher: ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH Au=RSA Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Session is ACTIVE [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Sending PUSH_REQUEST to server... [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: GET_CONFIG [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] OPTIONS: 0 [dhcp-option] [DNS] [192.168.1.1] 1 [route-gateway] [192.168.2.1] 2 [topology] [subnet] 3 [ping] [10] 4 [ping-restart] [120] 5 [redirect-gateway] [def1] 6 [ifconfig] [192.168.2.2] [255.255.255.0] 7 [peer-id] [0] 8 [cipher] [AES-256-GCM] 9 [block-ipv6] 10 [block-ipv4] [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] PROTOCOL OPTIONS: key-derivation: OpenVPN PRF compress: LZO data channel: cipher AES-256-GCM, peer-id 0 [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: ASSIGN_IP [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] Connected via tun [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] LZO-ASYM init swap=0 asym=1 [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: CONNECTED info='xxxxxx.mynetgear.com:12973 (xxx.249.112.236) via /UDP on tun/192.168.2.2/ gw=[192.168.2.1/] mtu=(default)' trans=TO_CONNECTED [Jul 29, 2025, 14:03:57] EVENT: COMPRESSION_ENABLED info='Asymmetric compression enabled. Server may send compressed data. This may be a potential security issue.' trans=TO_DISCONNECTEDYep. I've tried it on multiple iOS devices (my new iPhone and an iPad) and get the same result. I'm perplexed as it seems like its not even hitting the VPN from the client side.
I did confirm w/my ISP that the ONT for the fiber connectivity is in bridge mode & wide open - nothing blocking it.
I've tried all sorts of variations of the .ovpn file - and none of them have yielded a successful connection yet.
I may give a window client a try at some point using a wireless hotspot for internet and see if that gives the same result or not.After the reset and reconfiguration, was the VPN configuration file downloaded again, and you are using the new file rather than the .ovpn file that worked before?
Ha - the details matter, but yes, it is definitely enabled.
Reading the description, nowhere does it say that the OpenVPN feature was enabled after the Factory Reset.
(probably implied, but.... "it never hurts to ask")
