cyberprashant wrote:
MacrossMike and others having the router auto-upgrade issues despite telnet block: See my tips on Page 12 of this thread and as well the original telnet post on page 5. What may be different in my setup is that I'm in AP mode AND I have a DD-WRT netgear wndr4300 ahead of the orbi that is running Access restriction --> WAN --> Access restriction for : downloads.netgear.com --> not sure if the the dd-wrt router is preventing upgrades but I'm well over 10 days with no auto-upgrading occuring. If you're able to have another router ahead of the orbi and put the Orbi in AP mode and still perform the telnet block, perhaps that is the trick whereas others are reporting it keeps auto-updating despite all attempts to downgrade permanently.

So in my setup : Cable modem --> Border router running DD-wrt --> ORBI

Well, have I just had some strange stuff happening...decided to try AP mode, using another Netgear router with the wireless turned off as my main, wired-only router, to see if I could get 2.4GHz. wireless turned off on the Orbi without worrying about auto-update. And I put in the restriction for the "download" domain mentioned above on the main router, to see if that would help the Orbi to not auto-update. The Orbi was on the latest at that point, so I figured I would set it up in AP mode and then flash the previous firmware. Not a smart move...I got it working fine in AP mode, and then it fell apart before I could flash the Orbi back to the previous firmware. It appeared that the satellite was still in contact with the router, but the router was showing magenta. After a few minutes, they were both showing magenta. I could log into the satellite for a while, but not the router, so the router was basically isolated. Not a great situation, totally nonfunctional...so went to Plan B. This was the first problem that I've had with the latest firmware, AP mode not working properly, and it made the Orbi unusable.

Plan B: Reset the Orbi router and satellite, and got them up in router mode. Reloaded my saved settings, that worked fine. At that point, I flashed the previous firmware, and again went to AP mode once everything stabilized. The router and saltellite are even now working fine with the previous firmware release in AP mode. However, I found that one can't turn off 2.4GHz. wireless on the Orbi in AP mode, the Advanced Wireless settings screen would not display, don't know if that's typical for an AP or not...So I flipped the Orbi back to router mode and turned off the 2.4GHz. wireless in router mode. Then back to AP mode, where the "Advanced Status" still showed the 2.4GHz. wireless turned off. And it's working fine as an AP.

Okay, now the bottom line. Even though the Orbi's "Advanced Status" shows that the 2.4GHz. wireless is off in AP mode, Wi-Fi Analyzer on my clients shows that the Orbi's 2.4GHz. wireless is on. Not only is it on, but it's using 40MHz. channel width, taking over half of the 2.4GHz. band. So, for all the time that I've spent on this, about half a day in total, lots of times waiting for the Orbi to come up after each thing I've had to do to it, I've accomplished absolutely nothing. Other than to verify that the latest firmware doesn't work in AP mode for me. And that I can't turn off 2.4GHz. wireless on the Orbi no matter what I do.

I can also tell that it's only a matter of time before this thing will auto-update, since it has the purple "a new firmware upgrade is available, click here to get it" thing on the "Advanced Status" page. If the Orbi can see that firmware, it'll apply it when it's darn good and ready :-). Pretty sure of that.

So I'm going back to regular router mode and wait for the auto-update that's coming. I should start a pool to guess when it'll auto-update.

Not happy. Hoping that Netgear pulls their firmware together so that this thing is more usable.

Orbi System: Disable automatic firmware updates