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FVS-318N; FVS-318Gv2 and Arris
User SamirD may have found a correlation in this long saga of the FVS-318N and FVS-318Gv2 not managing a cold boot. It may have something to do with being connected to an Arris modem; one easy 'fix' is to run the unit behind a router.
So maybe people who have experienced the cold boot issue could report what make of cable modem they are using, and maybe SamirD could chime in with more details.
Very interesting that a router in between is getting these units working correctly.
And it's not the cable modem, but the configuration of the head-end equipment by the isp, typically made by Arris.
Does anyone have a Frys nearby? This $20 managed switch might be able to act as the filter and allow the 318G to work normally:
Or order it from newegg:
These managed switches should be able to 'filter' the packets even if they aren't using any other managed switch options. Cheap fix to the problem.
51 Replies
Thought I should try again the trick of not connecting the FVS-318N directly to the cable modem, but have a router in-between; and indeed the FVS-318N comes up and stays up when not directly connected to the Arris.
Not a solution, I know, but hopefully enough to help Netgear track things down.
Might also explain why not everyone is having problems with these units.
Thank you for putting this out there. :) So let me explain some of the theory and my experience that led me to this conclusion.
Back in the mid 2000s, I purchased my first vpn router, the cisco rv016. Attached to it were three 8/512k cable internet connections.
Everything worked well for years until the rv016 kept dropping one of the cable connections. After consulting with Cisco, the said that the rv016 is defective. So I bought another rv016--and it did the same thing.
This led me to investigate a bit and I found out that my isp had just upgraded to new head end equipment--specifically the Arris C4. One of the 'features' on this new head end was the ability to monitor if there was something connected to the user's cable modem (by sending a NACK packet if my memory serves me correctly). But that setting can be set ridulously high--100 packets/sec high in my case. So the rv016 saw that as some sort of attack and would disconnect that wan and/or reboot. It would continuously rotate because it was trying to provide some sort of access in the midst of this mess.
After over a month of sending logs to both Cisco and my isp, I was fed up and came up with my own solution--get some cheap routers and put them in between the cable modem and the rv016 to 'filter' these packets. And it worked.
Fast forward to today, and it seems the same solution works on the FVS318N and FVS318Gv2 when it is having uptime issues. Perhaps the same cause of the problem? This can be addressed in firmware (or may already be addressed incorrectly) so it isn't a hardware issue for sure.
My FVS318Gv2 exhibits this behavior everytime since the latest firmware update (I am connected to an Arris SB6183 and have been for over a year). On every cold boot it will respond for about 30 minutes and then it stops working. I can still ping it, but I can't sign into the admin pages and the unit stops passing traffic and assigning IP's. I worked through a trouble ticket with Netgear as I thought my unit went bad. Turns out that I have to sign into the web gui before it stops working after a cold boot and do a reboot from within the web gui to get it to work properly again. This works evrytime, but is not acceptable long term as if I'm not around to do it shortly after an unexpected power failure then the only recourse is to have someone physically reboot it and then get into the GUI quickly and do the reboot from within the GUI. Annoying. Not sure what is taking so long for Netgear to fix this.
Just to add that this ha been an issue on the forums since last summer. https://community.netgear.com/t5/Business-Wireless/FVS318N-FVS318Gv2-Firmware-4-3-3-8/td-p/1092233
Any update from Netgear on when this will actually be fixed so that we don't need to do the Reboot through the GUI band-aid?
- You'd have to go back 2 versions. Problem is that the last two updates include major security updates that upon removal makes the router vulnerable to major security holes being explored in the wild.
I've seen the problem more than 2 version back; but one reason I'm very reluctant to try is that there is a version that requires tftp to update and I don't want to do that again.
- You may be right. it started after I had to do the tftp update.
I saw the bug long before I had the tftp issue.
- I didn't. It worked fine for a year. After finally getting it updated I started noticing after power failure that it would need to get rebooted multiple times. I opened a ticket with Netgear thinking I had faulty hardware. After doing another firmware update and still having it fail after power outage I stumbled upon the trick of doing a soft boot through the GUI after power failure. At that point it was noted that it was not a hardware failure do no RMA.....To this day only fix is to sign into router shortly after power failure and to do the GUI reboot in order for it too operate properly.
"To this day only fix is to sign into router shortly after power failure and to do the GUI reboot in order for it too operate properly"
So there is no firmware version that can survive a cold boot? Guess I'll just run mine behind a 'real' router (which allows the FVS-318N to cold boot), until they fix the issue.
- Yeah. You'd think they would of released a firmware update by now. Truthfully has led me to recommend against buying Netgear.
- I also have installed it. Had to install it with telnet through CLI as SSL errors kept me from updating it through the GUI. Nothing in release notes that says it would fix our problem. I'll report back results.
From the release notes
Bug Fixes:
* Fixed the device crash issue
looks promsing, as the original problem was a crash after about 5 mins
Some more detail that may help
On a cold boot, after about 5 mins (on 4.3.5-3) one can surf the internet for a short time; this does not last long and it comes back up permanently at around 12 mins.
This may help a lot of people who see it fail and don't wait.
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