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Forum Discussion
Router stopped working for no reason
This morning, I noticed Wifi AND direct Ethernet connections had no internet access from my RBRE960 router. I checked the Xfinity app, it said the modem was online and fine. There was nothing in the ...
To answer everyone's questions:
FURRYe38 I submitted a support ticket!
How many days was it online before this happened this morning? 7+
Only thing I can think of is enable debug logging on the RBR at start up and if it happens again, see if you can save off the logs. ---> I couldn't access either the router admin web page or any running lan/wan capture logs when it happened. So that probably won't be useful.
CrimpOn I could not get access to the debug page - I tried that. The network was completely down!
Ok, Ya hoping that NG can figure this out. Should not happen. Only thing I can think of is you've seen odd behaviors since you installed the XS series switch. 🤔
It could also be related to higher speeds - I used to be 1GB now it's 2GB. Probably not a ton of customers running at that speed on Comcast (which they have clearly had challenges with). Also, if they can't/don't test a ton of long-term issues, that would fit in - it ran perfectly for 7+ days.
Let's be honest here, there's potentially bunch of issues - pointing to firmware code that needs some serious walk-throughs, code audits, updates where later open source versions are available, etc.
What we have seen:
1- IPv6 issues - just Comcast maybe? Related to using Comcast DNS servers? (that has gone away by using Google DNS servers)
2 - Power cycle of the RBS then RBR, or just reboots will frequently require second power cycles of satellites (850 and 960 series) due to hop count being 0/blank so nothing can connect to it.
3 - system comes up unstable with 2 RBSs with ethernet connected backhaul - solution is often to let an RBS sync wirelessly then move it into position for wired backhaul
4 - adding a switch (XS508) and moving RBSs over to that switch, using their 2.5G ports, caused WiFi speeds to drop to 10% of their normal speeds starting 24 hours later.
5 - IPv6 requires about 125MB extra memory on the RBR - happens to some customers, most do not see this. Related to issue #1?
6 - FURRYe38 haven't you seen memory and CPU usage creep/increase that doesn't go back down?
Anything else?
One last thought - over time it seems some users really have the issues - weird ones. You can identify them by browsing through the forum. I think I am in that camp too. My opinion, I think these are topology based - who the ISP is, how the backhaul network is set up, maybe the plan (speed), maybe other issues. It could also be mid-split enabled technology on Comcast, which is new and still being tweaked on their end. That started around here, early last fall.
For me it seems to be related to higher 1GB/2GB+ speeds, Comcast, and multiple wired back-haul.
ISP could be a big part of it, and even within the same ISP the networks are very different in different parts of the country - maybe even in different neighborhoods. For Comcast, they have mid-split enabled, low latency, DOCSIS 3, 3.1, 4, and different parts implemented to support these different technologies. That makes it hard to test against a particular ISP, there is no standard configuration.
If it was me at Netgear, I would probably review my firmware carefully, and develop a test version that logs/captures more info to determine why things fail and to correct it. Then ask some of these affected users if they would run a diagnostic version of FW, that captures/logs info to narrow down the problems. Maybe they have some work to do, to upgrade their firmware first, and if that doesn't make things more stable then try the diagnostic firmware. If they don't do something like this, it's hard to imagine they can find problems that only hit a small percentage of users after a number of days.
My .02