RS500 — Nighthawk BE12000 WiFi 7 Tri-Band Router Protection Engine Problems

Hi,

Unfortunately, I'm 2 weeks past the measly 90 days of support for my RS500 - Nighthawk BE12000 router, so I'm posting here instead, trying to prompt Netgear to actually create firmware that works reliably.

So, the current problem: It keeps dropping connections on both of our new iPhones, Ting sensor, Roomba, a Dell laptop, and an iPad Pro, in addition to most of our SmartHome devices at one time or another.  Most of the time, it's an authentication problem, even though I know the password is correct.  Unfortunately, several devices don't say the exact cause of the problem.  When this happens, it's impossible to reconnect the devices to the WiFi without rebooting the router, and even then, it's still iffy.  The 3 Ethernet connections being used don't seem to have a problem.  We have fiber cable to the modem, and the connection between that and the router is using the cable that came with the router.  Can't blame anything on the connections.

Here's the information regarding my router:

Hardware Version - RS500

Firmware Version - V1.0.5.12

GUI Language Version - V1.0.0.454

Protection Engine Version - 2.2.214.4/1.0.0.2124

Operation Mode - Router

CPU Load - CPU1: 10.89% CPU2: 11.11% CPU3: 9.00% CPU4: 16.16%

Memory Usage (Used/Total) - 633MB/2018MB

Flash Usage (Used/Total) - 430MB/512MB

System Uptime - 04:59:59

LAN Port - MAC Address - xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

IP Address - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

DHCP Server - On

IP Subnet Mask - 255.255.255.0

DHCP Lease Time - 24 Hours

I tried turning off the 6 GHz radio, but that didn't help.

Next, I changed Security from WPA2-Personal(AES) + WPA3-Personal to WPA2-Personal(AES) on both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz networks.  That didn't help either.

In researching on the Internet, I read that a LOT of people have the exact same problems that I'm having, and the Protection Engine is the most likely culprit.  I disabled it, and all of a sudden, everything is working as expected.  After the first 24 hours, I re-enabled WPA2-Personal(AES) + WPA3-Personal security on both the 2.4 GHZ and 5 GHz networks.  Still no problems.  A day later, I re-enabled the 6 GHz network, and everything is still working OK.

Therefore, using a bit of deductive reasoning, I have concluded that the Netgear Protection Engine is not working properly.  I do NOT want to leave this feature disabled for security reasons and I paid for it and expect it to work, but we need to have fast, RELIABLE, WiFi available throughout our home at all times.  Unfortunately, this Netgear product is NOT providing reliable WiFi connections when the Protection Engine is enabled.

This is just the latest issue.  Originally, when I purchased this router, it upgraded itself to firmware v.1.0.1.90.  Using the web based interface, I immediately noticed that NO Devices showed up on the Devices page.  After spending over 20 hours working with Netgear to find a solution, I tried downgrading to v.1.0.1.74.  Netgear did absolutely NOTHING to troubleshoot this problem, and I did it all on my own.  They had me try all sorts of BS things even though they could have easily duplicated the problem themselves.  I told them what I found regarding the firmware downgrade, but they didn't seem to care.  Netgear eventually wanted my configuration file.  NOT!!!  It contains information regarding our entire network including the router password.  They closed the case without a resolution.

So, v.1.0.1.74 is humming along just fine for a while, and then all of a sudden, the WAN uplink speed was only 100 Mbps, confirmed by my Internet provider.  Not even close to acceptable!!  Turns out that Netgear new about it, and already had a fix via v.1.0.5.12.  I installed it, and it appeared to work fine for a while, and then all of a sudden, devices kept disconnecting and wouldn't reconnect.  That's the latest issue, as described above.

Can Netgear ever make a firmware version that doesn't have bugs in its basic functionality!?!?!  I've never seen such a POS router before in my life!! The hardware may be good, but the firmware totally sucks!  In less than 3 months, I've had 3 different firmware versions, and all 3 had a different problem that affected its usefulness. I used to use LinkSys routers, and they always just worked without any issues; ever.  Why can't Netgear do the same??

So, does anyone have any useful suggestions other than hoping Netgear creates a new firmware version that accidentally fixes this problem and doesn't create a totally new problem?  Maybe a version that actually works this time?  Perhaps I should sell this overly priced Netgear paperweight really cheap and use the money to buy a new TP-Link router that actually works as expected!

Thanks!!