Final 6.2.1 update causing LAN instability/sluggishness

scravatt wrote:
Lesson learned...don't update firmware just because it says it's released...wait a few weeks and read the forums to see if people are having issues.

My thoughts exactly. Didn't have too many issues with upgrades before, since I bought the RN back in 2013, so we must give Netgear some credit. I was getting used to blindly accepting an update, as soon as it came out. But after this experience I will start following a policy that served me well over the years: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". For me, Netgear needs to rewin my trust in the quality of the OS upgrades first. And judging by comments in this and other threads, I'm not alone in this. But then, if no one upgrades, how are we going to find the issues....?

The models RN 312 and higher are marketed as a "Business Desktop Series". Although I'm using a RN516 for "just" a hobby project (gone wild), I get very frustrated when my website on the RN goes down for the outside world. A lot of time and money has been spend to get the system to do what I want and creating the content. The web-site name is approached as somewhat of a brand-name. Any down-time leaves a bad impression to the outside world. If used in a business critical situation (with or without a website), you really cannot afford days of down-time. You would need (near to) 24/7 availablity.

Most of the time went into talking on this fourm, problem analysis, fixing and testing. Initially I even assumed the problem was with my router, as I had one break before. So a lot of time was spent with the ISP helpdesk, resulting in a new router being sent. In this case, the ISP had no part in the problem and the router was not at fault. I went as far as borrowing a same make and model router from a friend to verify if the problem was with the router. After several tests, we found the other router presented exactly the same issues, so that was ruled out as the root cause and made me turn my attention to the RN. The router also handles fixed telephony. So during two days I was not reachable on the fixed line. Not to pleased with that either.

scravatt wrote:
Hoping there will be an easy fix for everyone affected.

Yes, I my view, Netgear now needs to provide a fix for this ASAP. Similar comments have already been made in this thread. You can't have an ReadyNAS OS that freezes up routers and switches by flooding a network with packets (suspected root cause).

Guess it all depends on what you call an "easy fix". If you are not afraid to work on the command line via SSH (and risking voiding the warranty), it's just two commands and only takes 5 minutes and the problems are solved (at least for me they were on a stand-alone RN516). But, in good Netgear tradition, I make no guarantees nor warranties of any kind if you use the SSH command line. The risk is all yours :)

Having said that, this fix works for me:

- Look for the installed versions of connman:

apt-cache showpkg connman

- Provided 1.26-netgear1 is listed, you can then downgrade from 1.27-netgear1 to 1.26-netgear1

sudo apt-get install connman=1.26-netgear1

- Details and full screen output above.