Netgear R8000 firmware

I recently purchased the R8000 for our childcare center as the children need to do Zoom meetings for school.  Several big issues.  First:  Firmware will not upgrade automatically or manually.  I connected via the ethernet port for a hard wired connection, downloaded the new firmware and uploaded.  In all cased, the router said it was updating and re-booting.  Upon re-boot the router still exhibited the "new firmware available" message, and the firmware version showing was the same version that came with it.

Second:  If the internet connection is lost, the router seems to revert to factory settings as if I've done a factory reset.  The same is true if the router gets over-loaded (which can happen with all the Zoom meetings) and it goes back to factory settings.

The problem is that I don't stay in the facility, and I can't baby sit the router or run down there every day to re-upload the stored settings as I live 20 miles away.

I installed an access point with the hopes of dividing the traffic and this seems to have helped a bit on the random overload and loss of Network settings but it still happens if the internet loses connectivity.

I've had many routers over the years; Netgear, D-link, and Linksys but I've never had one revert to factory settings on its own accord.

Is this router simply a piece of junk that needs to be replaced?  Network people have always told me that Netgear made the most reliable routers but I'm not seeing that with this one.

One thing I am sure of is that it's not going to let me update the firmware.

Ideas?  or is it best to just trash this thing.