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Forum Discussion
R8000P - DNS issues after firmware update
For some unknown reason, the automatic firmware update did not work on my R8000P router, and I found that I was one version behind at 1.4.1.68. So I manually updated to 1.4.2.84. After the update, I found that I was having DNS problems on multiple devices. These problems persisted for weeks. I tried specifying different DNS servers, away from my ISP's servers, but the situation did not improve. So, I downgraded the firmware back to 1.4.1.68, and the DNS problems went away.
Has anybody had a similar experience?
26 Replies
quite a few people have posted issues like this across mulitple product lines. So don't feel alone. I'm sure netgear is working on it as we've seen it on multiple products.
Same here. Recently updated to V1.4.2.84_1.3.42. Ever since, I've been consistently getting failures that look like DNS failures. In web surfing, it takes multiple refreshes of the page before it actually connects, then everything is fine. This is glaringly obvious with my Google G Suite sites, which use CNAMEs and thus several DNS look-ups before you actually connect to an IP. My Thunderbird hasn't connected to GMail IMAP at all since the router update; Google tends to have lots of IPs and short DNS TTLs, so I'm guessing this is related. (Nothing has changed with my account or authentication settings to cause this to fail.)
The only addition I would make is that WiFi connected devices seem more susceptible to this than hard-wired devices. Some sites won't work at all if I'm on WiFi, but if I switch to a desktop with a physical cable to the router, the site works much more reliably. (It may still take several refreshes before I can load the site.)
You'll need to downgrade back to what was working for you.
jtdarlington wrote:
Same here. Recently updated to V1.4.2.84_1.3.42. Ever since, I've been consistently getting failures that look like DNS failures. In web surfing, it takes multiple refreshes of the page before it actually connects, then everything is fine. This is glaringly obvious with my Google G Suite sites, which use CNAMEs and thus several DNS look-ups before you actually connect to an IP. My Thunderbird hasn't connected to GMail IMAP at all since the router update; Google tends to have lots of IPs and short DNS TTLs, so I'm guessing this is related. (Nothing has changed with my account or authentication settings to cause this to fail.)
The only addition I would make is that WiFi connected devices seem more susceptible to this than hard-wired devices. Some sites won't work at all if I'm on WiFi, but if I switch to a desktop with a physical cable to the router, the site works much more reliably. (It may still take several refreshes before I can load the site.)
So my choices are a working DNS but massive security flaws, or increased security but DNS doesn't work?
Several more months on and still no fix or new firmware update? For real? They can't even make a firmware version available that's between 1.4.2.68 and 1.4.2.84? This is not good. Is this model officially end of life and there will never be another firmware update or hotfix? Bueller?
What do you mean between .68 and .84? There was probably nothing made or developed for release between those versions so if there was, was not mented for public use.
For now, users should keep to v.68 or .v62 for now. Fixes and FW development doesn't happen over night.
- 68 came out over a year ago. 84 came out 6 months ago and the DNS issues have been getting reported since then. I don’t think 6 months = overnight or that it is unreasonable to expect at least some sort of hot fix to be made available within 6 months, especially when the issue directly impacts your ability to use the internet, which is kind of the main purpose of having a router. Having to use an insecure firmware version for 6 months as the only solution to continue to use this hardware is not a good look.
Yes, I had similar DNS problems.
My solve/resolve tied back into ENABLING IPv6 under the advance settings. See my thread below
Hope this helps you!
Been running the 1.4.3.88 FW for the past several days now. While the DNS issues were lessened, they were still present, and annoying enough that I was strongly considering dropping back down again to the previous FW that I knew "worked" (1.4.1.68). That said, I saw FURRYe38's post about enabling IPv6 and, by George, that somehow worked. I'm not sure how it worked; my ISP seems hard set on sticking with IPv4, so I never bothered enabling it. But once I did, all of the random disconnects appeared to vanish. I'm curious to see if this somehow clears up a seemingly separate issue I've been having with one of my streaming services (or if it is, as I suspect, that the streaming service simply sucks).
This seems like an odd regression, to have this tied to the IPv6 toggle. The DNS service I use uses IPv4 addresses, so I don't see why this would make a difference. The most notable and obvious instances of DNS issues I encountered dealt with either (a) large services like Google or Facebook that have many servers and likely load-balance their domains across multiple IPs, or (b) CNAMEs that "redirect" from one domain to another. In the latter example, I have CNAMEs for a few of my domains that forward to Google services; these were often some of the main "victims" of the DNS issue and required several attempts to get the domain to resolve.
Did you factory reset and setup from scratch after applying the latest v.88 FW and see if DNS issues are present with IPv6 disabled?
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?
Been monitoring my R7960P with v.88 loaded and no DNS issues yet however it's only been 12 hours..
Ya my ISP doesn't support IPv6 either.
jtdarlington wrote:
Been running the 1.4.3.88 FW for the past several days now. While the DNS issues were lessened, they were still present, and annoying enough that I was strongly considering dropping back down again to the previous FW that I knew "worked" (1.4.1.68). That said, I saw FURRYe38's post about enabling IPv6 and, by George, that somehow worked. I'm not sure how it worked; my ISP seems hard set on sticking with IPv4, so I never bothered enabling it. But once I did, all of the random disconnects appeared to vanish. I'm curious to see if this somehow clears up a seemingly separate issue I've been having with one of my streaming services (or if it is, as I suspect, that the streaming service simply sucks).
This seems like an odd regression, to have this tied to the IPv6 toggle. The DNS service I use uses IPv4 addresses, so I don't see why this would make a difference. The most notable and obvious instances of DNS issues I encountered dealt with either (a) large services like Google or Facebook that have many servers and likely load-balance their domains across multiple IPs, or (b) CNAMEs that "redirect" from one domain to another. In the latter example, I have CNAMEs for a few of my domains that forward to Google services; these were often some of the main "victims" of the DNS issue and required several attempts to get the domain to resolve.
- Can confirm setting ipv6 to automatic fixes the issue for me...
After weeks of constantly fiddeling arround with my pihole, windows software/firewall and stuff...
I thought it was a user error....
Also my alexas multiroom does not bugging out after 20 minutes now.
Everything seems to work now. Pihole works and no more reloading webpages... since 1 hour it seems to work.
