Feedback for R7000 New firmware 1.0.9.18

Apprentice

Dec 28, 2017

I'm on the cusp of ditching Netgear and returning some Netgear EX6120 extenders I recently bought. It's a race between Netgear's ability to fix this problem completely in the coming days, the availability of sale prices on alternative solutions from competing companies, and my patience with this problem even if sales don't come. I'm not betting on Netgear. in this race. Why should I? Have they shown any competence or willingness to support their products?

If Netgear doesn't start communicating soon - they act as if this problem doesn't exist - I'll just move on. So will any others that I can influence, and I do so regularly. If Netgear can't be bothered to even reply with some coherent acknowledgement of the problem, they don't deserve our business again.

I'm researching mesh network options. Netgear Orbi seems highly rated, but of course I'll dismiss it out of hand. Netgear simply doesn't support it's products, so buying Orbi is like gambling on flushing that money down the toilet. Does anyone have any opinion or experience with Eero? If I get by with an R7000 and one EX6120 extender today, can I expect the Eero coverage to be better, worse, or about the same?

Now, a little more info to satisfy the small sliver of hope that this problem might yet get solved and save us from having to all spend more money immediately....

I've been running 1.0.9.18 since a day or two after its release. Plenty of 2.4 GHz drops, even after I disabled the guest network.

Without rebooting the router, I've been stable for at least 24 hours after having done nothing in particular. It may have been longer - I was not home and simply didn't check often. I still think there's a chance this issue is not purely a firmware problem, and may have an environmental component.

It looks like the jury is out with 1.0.9.20. If instability of the 2.4GHz connections resurfaces, and I think it likely will, I'll upgrade to that firmware immediately.

mzguy
Apprentice
Dec 28, 2017
AtoZ wrote:
mzguy...earlier post from someone said he did a complete overhaul and used advanced tomato. The problem persisted. Honestly, .18 lasted 5 days for me and im on day 3 of hotfix. And im not hopeful. I feel, at this point, netgear broke their own gear. I truly dont know what else anyone can do. I, being a soho user, am out of patience and time. If the hotfix fails, i already picked out the next router. Something in a nice triband sounds good.
Thanks for the nice summary. Version .18 lasted less than a few hours for me, so that was an easy one to dismiss. In the absence of complete stability or a clear statement from Netgear, one would be insane to be hopeful, and insane to ever buy a Netgear product again! Based on reports here, it appears that Netgear indeed broke its own gear, or is completely susceptible to some type of environmental factor where other brands aren't. I'm out of patience and time too. I'm doing only easy fixes at this point, and waiting for the problem to get worse, or a sale to come for a competitor. For me to stay with Netgear, they have to really fall on the sword and issue a clear statement indicating they screwed up, they understand the problem, including why it persisted across firmware that was otherwise fine for months, and offer an immediate working solution.

If Netgear permanently broke thousands of devices through an error, they should immediately reach out and offer compensation. That's what a good company would do. Some companies only respond to public or legal pressure though. If they keep this up, I'm confident that one or both of those will arrive at their doorstep before too long. I wrote a long post almost 2 weeks ago, urging Netgear to step up and start communicating. Instead we just get firmware updates every few days for "security issues".
- AtoZ
  Apprentice
  Dec 28, 2017
  Just was reading up on a company with touchscreen routers. Also see they have good customer service. I like the idea of going to the router directly and it has alexa support as well for home automation setups. This may work better for most of my clients anyway.
  - brdoddsjr
    Apprentice
    Dec 28, 2017
    I'm one of the guys running stable on the .20 Hot Fix. To add color, I only had .18 drop my 2.4 devices twice. Once 30 hours into .18 when my lease renewed but it didn't look like any of my 2.4 devices connected. The logs told be nothing. Given what I've seen I think the radio didn't turn on. I rebooted and everything came up. Lasted 4 hours and dropped my 2.4 devices again. Rebooted and ran stable for a day.
    
    I noticed the Hot Fix and installed it for giggles. I've been up 5 days rock solid on the .20 Hot Fix. My lease renews tonight so it all my devices connect on the renewal, I'm going to call it a day and call it successful.
    
    I'm doing nothing special on the router from a config or wifi standpoint. Other than a couple reseerved IPs and port forwarding I'm on standard setup wizard config.
    
    I have a bunch of IoT devices in my house, all on the 2.4 radio. I've been testing them and literally bought one of each manufacture to evaluate them. So I have everything from Hue, to everything on Amazon, and a couple from China Grabber. Some of these devices are wonky and misbehave, so for them to be stable, the wifi envorinment has to be really stable.
    
    This is just info to whom it may concern.
    
    Sorry to the folks struggling with this. It's bad enough to have the supplier go dark, but to have such a broad range of symptoms on the forums is frustrating.
    
    One story about Netgear. They futzed with the arlo base station firmware on the R7000 and eventually pulled it. To thier credit they sent me free hardware solve my problem. But, they were dark the first week.

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Feedback for R7000 New firmware 1.0.9.18