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Forum Discussion

henry45's avatar
henry45
Initiate
Jan 24, 2022

R7000 - no firmware update available

I've had two reminders telling me firmware needs to be updated. I finally navigated to the router site and I'm told my current version was Firmware Version V1.0.11.126_10.2.112.  Yesterday I downloa...
Portwey84's avatar
Portwey84
Virtuoso
Jan 24, 2022

henry45  You're giving the impression that you aren't familiar with the procedure for upgrading the firmware for the R7000 AC1900 router, is this correct? The chk file is the file used to initiate the firmware update. You upload it from wherever it is you saved it to when you downloaded it, most people save it to the desktop for easy finding. I'd recommend using the browser GUI to upgrade the firmware. You can do it via the Netgear Nighthawk App, but personally, I always do it over ethernet rather than trusting your luck over WiFi

 

There should be no reason not to believe Netgear's own published firmware download page. There's no purporting, v.130 is the latest download:

 

https://www.netgear.com/support/product/r7000.aspx#download

 

Auto updates, never worked on my R7000 so I disabled it long ago. You're lucky you're getting reminders to upgrade the firmware, I don't even get that any more and my router is registered with Netgear to my email address.

 

If you take the time to actually read through some of the latest threads on the forum, you'll see the latest firmware version is a very hot topic at the moment.

  • microchip8's avatar
    microchip8
    Master
    Jan 24, 2022

    You have to unzip the file you downloaded and use the .chk file to flash the router. It's best done using the Web UI at http://routerlogin.net or http://192.168.1.1. Do not use WiFi for flashing or any apps on Smartphone. That's just looking for problems.

     

    Firmware update notifications is broken since a long time ago. Some get the correct notifications, others don't or don't get any at all. Do not trust it.

    • sktn77a's avatar
      sktn77a
      Virtuoso
      Jan 24, 2022

      The firmware autocheck and autoupdate feature of the routers doesn't always see the latest file on the netgear website.  I think they do this deliberately so they can't be accused of autobricking your router - they want people to manually beta test the firmware before they autoupdate it!

  • henry45's avatar
    henry45
    Initiate
    Jan 25, 2022

    I'd like to thank the 3 of you for your input. Each of you provided some useful informaiton but Portwey84 was the most helpful. 

    I had no problem downloading and extracting the update ZIP from the site which was done before I posted to the Commuity. 

    I have not updated firmware on this year-old router before but have updated many other devices without as much grief as this one. The User's Manual didn't seem to have good suggestions beyond strict do 1, 2, 3, etc. There was no clue as to the use of the .chk file.or other 'error' messages that popped up. 

    I was finally able to get thru the update process today with a number of wrong guesses on the way. To me it is far from strightforward. 

    Thanks for the heads up about the auto-update process. I tend to prefer the 'let me do it manually' option so I know what's going on.