In 2018 our company purchased 3 Gigabit Switches with SFP+ports to connect abou 50 devices over a few hundred meters, bundled in pools of 20 and LWL 10 GBit connections between them. Shortly after I opened 3 tickets because all three switches malfunctioned. It was solved by a new firmware, one switch was replaced. Now in early 2022 I had to reboot all switches (yes they were really running for years). All switches came up withou function. One does not route MAC properly. The next only booted after 3 times pöugged out and in. The third one was defective on half of the ports. I opened tickets again. Two of the switches had firmware problems again, I updated them which is a lengthy procedure, I resettet them and programed them from scratch. After this I luckily read the advice that after the firmware upgrade it would be neccessary to restart bthe power at least one time because the switches usually do not boot after the upgrade. Very nice, I again drove into the premises and plugged them out and in. The third switch - which malfunctioned on most ports, was not upgradable and hen my real problems began.
I tried to open another ticket. This time it was not possible because this formerly exchanged switch was not registered. Without registration you are not able to open a ticket.
So I phones Netgear. 5 times. The aganet told me that this S/N is impossible. He must see a photo of the label! This is outstanding. Nevertheless I drove again into the premises, dismounted the switch, made a photo. He gave me the email supportcase@... and I sent the photo. 3 times. Every few days I got a reminder to send the photo. I did it the 4th and 5th time, this time I got a "mail rejected to mail loop" failure.
So after 4 weeks this company I am working for still has no replacement. The other two switches are most likely to fail again after a power shutdown. I can not reach Netgear. Case is impossible because the switch was not registered after the exchange by Netgear. Email is impossible. Phone (5 times) leads to nothing. Today they closed my case "due to missing input".
Case #45841985, an,orthopedic clinic in Germany.
I guess everyone understands why I now will throw all switches away, on my own costs of about 5000€, and say "Never again in my whole life Netgear products".
Eberhard Muecke, IT manager and dsitributor in Germany