R7000 dropping 5Ghz randomly

I purchased my R7000 router a few years ago and have been mostly running DD-WRT on it.  However, recently, I purchased a dedicated firewall and since have converted the R7000 into an access point.  Since I was not doing anything fancy, I re-flashed the latest native firmware.  Since then, I have had the drop out issue, especially when I was streaming Google Meet.

For a while, I have reverted back to v1.0.9.42_10.2.44 and the router was solid.  Then, I decided to go back to 1.0.11.100, however, after flashing the firmware I did a full reset and reconfigured the router from scratch (not by restoring the backup configuration).  Since then, I have not had any drop out issues and the router is working fine.

I have been running it for 2 weeks since I updated without issues.  I am continuing to monitor the situation, however, since I did a full reset, the router feels solid.  I would recommend doing a full reset after the firmware update.  It seems to have helped me.

I have another R7000 also running as an access point, which I have not yet updated pending a little more time.

In short, I was having issues, but after a full reset, the problems have not come back ... yet. 

Mike_Monroe wrote:
I have the R7000 (ac1900) too. The only way I found to keep the latest updates and still have no random disconnects is to turn on smart connect. I’m not buying another Netgear router after this. It’s ridiculous that it’s not fixed.

The trouble is, for an unknown number of us, it's genuinely never been broken. And still I ask the question, why is it that for some of us, there is nothing wrong with the R7000 AC1900? That is a question that no one on this forum can answer. People can come up with their own ideas, but at the end of the day, some of us just aren't having any problems with the router even using the latest version firmware.

The thing is, we're not all using the same ISP's, we're not all using the same modems, we're spread throughout the world. Some of us have routers that are made in different countries often years apart. No one knows whether the internal hardware is identical to every R7000 AC1900 router ever manufactured. Different people flash firmware using a variety of methods, some wirelessly, some via hardwire and as harsh as it reads, some people undoubtedly don't actually know what they're doing.

Unless Netgear themselves come up with a qualified reason as to why some routers are working as intended and some are not, then this issue with the R7000 will just run and run, and seemingly it's been running on and on like this for years.

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