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WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Added 2 Amcrest (2MP-841 and 3MP-956) cameras to my 2.4GHz network and about every 12 (or less) hours, my WiFi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) loses internet. Keep in mind that WiFi cameras are on the 2.4GHz WiFi ...
Final 24 hour test with my original Arris modem was successful. I'm going to summarize the final changes and mark this as an accepted solution.
For Amcrest cameras on the WiFi network, the symptom was that the R6700v2 would lose internet DNS after about 12 hours with 2 cameras running. I lost it after about 24 hours with just 1 camera running. I tried wired connections to the cameras instead of wireless, I tried various NAS settings, I tried a different cable modem. In the end, the issue seemed to be that the R6700 did not like the Amcrest auto DNS Settings. Amcrest by default sets the preferred DNS to the routers address and the secondard DNS to 1.0.0.1. This doesn't seem unusual to me because I believe the R6700 is proxying DNS, so having the router IP as the preferred DNS for clients seems normal. Anyway, the fix is to set your Amcrest camera for static IP (not DHCP) AND static DNS. This means you pick an IP address for the camera, then most home networks are /24 which is a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Default gateway for most homes should be set to the router's IP address which is 192.168.##.1 where you fill in ## with your actual address. Preferred DNS, you can pick that. Your ISP provides that or you can pick a common one. I picked Google, so I used 8.8.8.8. Last field is the secondard DNS which again for Google is 8.8.4.4.
I also had a Synology NAS in my setup. I decided to go static on that too for both IP and DNS, again using Google's DNS. Not sure that made a difference. I also had the R6700 set up with reserved IP addresses for both cameras so the static settings I programmed into the cameras wouldn't be assigned by DHCP to other clients if the cameras were offline. Lastly was that I diabled the P2P checkbox in the Amcrest cameras which of course disables use of their mobile app and cloud service. I'm not sure that this made a difference, but this is how I wanted the cameras configured anyway, so I unchecked it during troubleshooting and never re-enabled it.
In summary, this simple setting was big time annoying to troubleshoot. It took me almost 2 weeks to figure it out because of the 12 to 24 hr lag time in symptoms appearing. Netgear can dispute this, but I believe this is a Netgear issue. Amcrest tech support thinks that too. I am running the Aug 2017 version of R6700v2 firmware which is V1.1.0.42_1.0.1. I am hopeful that they will release an update to fix this problem.
Internet access stopped working again this evening and I did a bit more troubleshooting, and I think I found the problem. On the PC that lost access I checked the DNS server that it got from the router's DHCP... it was the router IP. Looking at the router status page I could see the ISP DNS server addresses. As a test I tried to ping www.google.com and it failed, but I couldsuccessfully ping my ISP DNS. I then found that I could resolve www.google.com if I directed the query to the ISP DNS... e.g. 'nslookup www.google.com <isp dns>'. Once I got the IP for google, I could ping that too.
So in a nutshell, my internet access is working just fine. The Netgear router's DNS is getting hosed up. Time to toss the ball back in Netgear's court.
I'll have to try the nslookup again later today. The same problem happened to me again last night even with the Nighthawk WAN connected to my old routers LAN and the Nighthawk set to static IP and static DNS. I also received a reply from Netgear support last night, but it was just basic WiFi troubleshooting (change 2GHz to Ch11 and Change 5GHZ to CH161). Unless they are trying to tell me that this is the workaround for their DNS defect, then they are so far just wasting my time with basic WiFi troubleshooting by sending me to the least occupued spectrum. I clearly explained the issue in my ticket, but it's like they don't understand when I tell them that the WiFi LAN connection is rock solid. Very frustrating.
I'm sure the first level support gives a similar if not the identical initial response to everyone that reports a connectivity problem. I just submitted my case update with the details about DNS. We'll see what they say later today.
If /when the problem happens next I will test to see if the DNS port is open (nmap -p U:53 192.168.1.1). I'm curious if it's still listening for DNS requests or just failing to service to them.
My wife also had a good idea when I mentioned about how you said the problem started when you added cameras. It might be worth a try to fire up the old ASUS router and move just the cameras on to that, to see if the Netgear DNS remains stable. Even if that's true, Netgear still needs to fix the DNS but it could be a suitable workaround... especially since there doesn't seem to be a way to configure Netgear's DHCP to hand out the ISP DNS address instead of the router IP.
Netgear DNS did not remain stable under those conditions based on a test last week. I moved just the 2 cameras and the NAS to the old router (on a completely different subnet), then connected the WAN port of that router to a LAN port on the nighthawk and the same DNS issue happens on the nighthawk. I also had it where the old router was connected on the same subnet using old router LAN port to Nighthawk LAN port connection (where the Nighthawk is still facing the Internet side) and the same DNS problem occured. At this point, I've tried so many things, it's getting crazy to track. It's not a trivial thing to move your operations back n forth between routers while keeping a perfect log of all of your actions so you know what changes were made. I'm sure you already know this, but Netgear did release a new version of firmware this morning for the R6700v2. I installed that at the same time that I tried the support ticket suggestions of using CH11 and CH161. Been running for about 6 hours so far, but I'm expecitng to lost Internet within the next few hours or sometime before bedtime. Hopefully not. The firmware lists nothing but "big fixes and security updates" as the content, so maybe the DNS fix is in there.
I have it. This isn't necessarily a WiFi issue. From what I can tell, all ports on the router will eventually lose their DNS. The WiFi seems to lose it first. What happens is that your computer shows the little WiFi signal with the "!" symbol. Android shows something similar. When that happens, web pages display: "This site can't be reached...www.google.com's server DNS address could not be found....DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_ CONFIG." When I get this message, I can go into my TCP/Pv4 properties, leave the IP address as automatic, but change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (which is Google) or whatever DNS servers you want to use and as soon as I select "Ok", the web site loads immediately. If I go into the Nighthawk and release, then renew my Internet connection, then the router will start handing out the right DNS once again. to the other computers that are still set to automatically obtain their DNS. Unfortunately, V1.1.0.42_1.0.1 firmware released today does not seem to solve the issue. I'll update the Netgear ticket, bu the ball is definitely in their court. This isn't some obscure setting in the router. It's one of the two most important functions on the router. Step 1, get an Internet IP, Step 2, get DNS servers. They need to fix this.