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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.
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.
That's exactly my observation. I just noticed the .42 firmware last night and installed that, but given your results I'm no longer optimistic.
We're not the only ones talking about this either. I'm pretty sure at least some of the discussion on this thread is about the same issue: nighthawk r6700v2 losing internet connection periodically
This morning I got a response from L2 support. They advised to downgrade firmware to .34 or .32 to see if the problem goes away. Given that each update includes unspecified security updates I'm not necessarily comfortable staying on older firmware even if it works.
Yeah, downgrading to an older version to help troubleshoot the issue...ok. As a permanent fix. No way.
About 45 minutes ago...after about 12 hours of normal operation since the last manual release/renew the DNS starts getting funky even with manual Google DNS configured on all clients except 1 Android device. I tried a Google search a few minutes ago and DNS was down from my laptop. Looked at my phone and it was down there too. Then about 30 seconds later it came back on both devices.....then dropped again....then came back all in a span of maybe 5 minutes, then stayed up for about 30 then it dropped totally and I had to log into the Nighthawk to release/renew to bring it back. To be clear, I'm saying that DNS dropped on my manual DNS laptop and auto DNS android. It really does look like the router is spewing out something that is killing even a manually configured DNS setting. This time, I had a Wireshark capture going, so I am hoping to get someone to help me look at it to see if the root problem is apparent in the frames that were captured.
My DNS failed twice yesterday on .42 firmware. It lasted about 18 hours between failures. I've downgraded to .34 firmware for today. While I don't consider the downgrades to be an acceptable solution, Netgear support believes it will be useful to know the results of this test.
In my cases when DNS failed I can still configured my ISP DNS manually on my PC to gain internet access.
I am really wondering... does everyone who owns an r6700v2 currently have to reboot it daily?
Don't want to get too excited until I run a few more confirmation experiments, but I changed cable modem to a Netgear C3000, I wired the cameras, and I set manual IP and manual Google DNS via the Amcrest web interface (all at the same time). Worked great (24 hr test). I then changed back to wireless but kept all the same Amcrest IP and DNS settings. Again, worked great (26 hr test). I then kept cameras as Wifi, switched back to Amcrest DHCP and default DNS last night around 8pm and by 6am this morning I wake up and the "Internet"....really just DNS....is down. By the way, I rebooted all boxes between all test periods (cameras, cable modem, and router).
So what is the difference. It's the Amcrest degault gateway or the Amcrest DNS. I can't remember for sure now whether my static Amcrest settings had the Amcrest degault gateway set to the router address like it should or to my NAS IP. My logic there was that I didn't care if Amcrest could see the gateway to get out. I just need it to see my NAS and then I can remote view video from my NAS (and disable Amcrest P2P too which I have done the whole time as I have been experimenting).
So that's what I'm testing right now. C3000 modem, Amcrest Wifi, Amcrest Static IP with my router as Amcrest default gateway and Amcrest DNS set to Google's 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4. Here is the funny thing on Amcrest. When you set it to DHCP, the primary DNS sets to the same as the default gateway, and the secondary DNS sets to 1.0.0.1. I'm assuming this is because, as my neighbor pointed out, that DNS is proxied through most routers, so the router sends its address to the clients their DNS rather than directly passing the ISP provided DNS through to the clients. Of course by this logic, then why wouldn't my laptop work with manually configured DNS? Well, it does for a short period of time after the 10 hour or so point where things just start to get flaky. Not sure why it eventually craps out other than the fact that this is somr sort of flaw in the R6700.
Interesting. I have been thinking all along about how you and I both have Amcrest cameras and a NAS, so perhaps one of these devices may be a trigger. Regardless, it's still a defect of the r6700v2. Is your NAS a QNAP?
My Amcrest cams have been set with static IP's. I haven't looked at their configs but I will check to see how DNS is configured there.