Re: Router wifi settings gone after power outage

Retired_Member · ‎2020-02-29

@myersw Good advice for protection and persistent Internet access. Not a resolution, and shouldn't be suggested in place of the fact a hardware or software issue is occurring with these routers. The most severe issue is the security vulnerability which is created. The Wi-Fi is wide open for anyone to connect when the device settings are lost. There is a large number of users which wouln't even think to check the security was still enabled (or know to). Then anyone can connect and their private network is compromised.

Imagine if you were to move your router to another room, you will literally be walking with your router, cables and UPS all in tow! Nonsense... and please take a picture.

The UPS is essential though!

senoch · ‎2020-03-02

I just had the same issue. I merely powered off my router, then turned it back on. All my settings were gone and the SSID's were back to default and 'Open'. It took me hours to change my settings back, and then re-connect all my home WIFI devices - lights, plugs, etc.

Has anyone seen a solution? Is there a firmware update. I never had this problem before with other routers.

DarrenM · ‎2020-03-02

Hello senoch

You may need to contact support if your router is still under warranty.

https://www.netgear.com/support/contact.aspx

DarrenM

antinode · ‎2020-03-02

> [...] It took me hours to change my settings back, [...]

Visit http://netgear.com/support , put in your model number, and look
for Documentation. Get the User Manual. Look for "Manage the Router
Configuration File". Should be minutes, not hours.

> [...] and then re-connect all my home WIFI devices - lights, plugs,
> etc.

Other than restoring the wireless-network credentials on the router,
what's there to do?

Until that happy day when someone solves the real problem (and I
wouldn't hold my breath), I'd certainly try to employ the settings
save-and-restore feature.

wiiNinja · ‎2020-03-02

@senoch Sounds like you and I both rely on a router for home automation. This was a deal breaker for me. I returned my Netgear router and went with another brand. Imagine you're on vacation, and there's a power outage in your house. When power returns, all the settings are wiped and you cannot reach the devices in your house to see what's going on, until you return from your vacation and restore the settings. Even if your house never experiences power outages, you'll still have to reboot the router every now and then to let it start afresh; no device is ever bug-free. If you're ok with these scenarios, just do the workaround of save-and-restore settings. If not, return the dang thing to let Netgear know that this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

hell0world · ‎2020-03-23

Just confirming that I have the same issue. Furthermore, attempting to restore a backup configuration results in a reset of the settings as well. Has anyone else had experienced that?

Is there no solution for this?

senoch · ‎2020-03-23

One change I have made is to shut off smart connect which has caused me other issues. I’m afraid to reset my router now because it caused me so much work resetting my WiFi home devices. I may just put a UPS on my router. I’ve never had a problem like this with other routers.

hell0world · ‎2020-03-23

Interesting. I've not used Smart Connect. It's off by default. Which means that if I'd been using it and the router inevitably reset itself again, it would be yet another setting I'd have to toggle back on. Heh.

UPS is a good idea, but it doesn't fix the root of the issue. You shouldn't have to get a UPS, to address an issue that shouldn't be happening in the first place.

Ideally I'd like Netgear to address and - if possible - patch this with a firmware.

A quick search suggests that this is not an unknown issue by now.

What a headache.

hell0world · ‎2020-03-23

I've been talking with tech support.
 
Re-flashing the latest firmware appears to have fixed it. Also, tech told me that Netgear is aware of this issue, as I am not the first user to call with a similar complaint. So, that's that.

UPDATE: I spoke too soon. Restoring the config file worked once only after the firmware re-flash. However I was able to replicate the problem. So nothing is fixed. This is pretty frustrating.

senoch · ‎2020-03-23

Thanks for your help. Hopefully they will be able to fix it since you know how to cause the issue.

SlaveUnit · ‎2020-03-28

My r7800 just started doing the same thing about a week ago. Although I use a cfg backup file, it's very annoying that if I unplug it for even a few seconds it loses its settings.

hell0world · ‎2020-03-28

I'm guessing you're able to successfully restore the router settings from the cfg file when this happens? Because I can't even do that, which is indeed very annoying.

BTW, when I called tech support and explained this issue, one of the things the tech said was to not unplug the router...lol

SlaveUnit · ‎2020-03-28

Yes I can do the restore. It's still annoying since you have to go through setting up your security questions, password and agreements before getting to the restore portion.

Also if the power drops while I'm away for work, my wife and/or kids will have no clue how to get things going again. It's a joke that they told you not to unplug it.

hell0world · ‎2020-04-09

I thought you might appreciate an update on the situation.

So the first time I called tech support I was sold a subsription to GearHead support to get further help. Reluctantly, I bought it. Mind you, my router is still within the one year warranty, but out of the 90-day phone support period. Cool.

After the upsell, tech tried - unsuccessfully - to diagnose and fix the problem. After some basic troubleshooting, she had me re-flash the firmware on the router. It didn't work. She then said there was nothing wrong with my router and that I should call GearHead support if I want further help. Yay, time wasted.

A few days later I called GearHead. Tech was knowledgable and helpful: she understood the issue, had me replicate it to verification, and promptly set up an RMA order. New unit works just like it's supposed to. If you unplug it, it retains your settings in its flash memory. Feels good.

And that's it. I could have spent less money doing this had the first tech fully informed me of the GearHead support price tiers (she left out the pay-per-incident option), which I thought was dishonest. It's over now.:

xman111 · ‎2020-04-10

@hell0world wrote:

A few days later I called GearHead. Tech was knowledgable and helpful: she understood the issue, had me replicate it to verification, and promptly set up an RMA order. New unit works just like it's supposed to. If you unplug it, it retains your settings in its flash memory. Feels good.

Are you saying that this is a hardware issue and new firmware will not fix the problem?
That really sucks! My r7800 started having the same problem a few weeks ago - whenever I reboot, either by powercycle or software reboot, it looses its configuration settings.

hell0world · ‎2020-04-11

I can't say if it's a hardware issue with any certainty. If I were to speculate: I think this is an issue Netgear has recognized and is working on a fix via a firmware patch. Meanwhile RMA appears to be the only way to remedy the issue for the user.
Anecdotally, this looks to be affecting a significant chunk of the Nighthawk routers. I wonder how widespread the issue is.

microchip8 · ‎2020-04-11

According to some investigation on the SNBForums, at least for the R7800, units that use a Macronix chip tend to lose their settings upon reboot/power out. Those that use a Micron or Spansion/SkyHigh Memory (venture between Cypress & SK Hynix) do not suffer this issue. But this is only related to NVRAM settings. Not all settings are stored in it. Some are just plain files

labatt · ‎2020-04-11

@microchip8 wrote:
According to some investigation on the SNBForums, at least for the R7800, units that use a Macronix chip tend to lose their settings upon reboot/power out. Those that use a Micron or Spansion/SkyHigh Memory (venture between Cypress & SK Hynix) do not suffer this issue. But this is only related to NVRAM settings. Not all settings are stored in it. Some are just plain files

Knowing this seems to scratch the one Netgear router I would recommend off of my list leaving ZERO Netgear routers I would recommend. Should not have to play russian roulette when buying a r7800. Hum wonder what chip this one has.

microchip8 · ‎2020-04-13

Well, Macronix could have had a bad batch of chips that ended up in some R7800s or other models. There are thousands (dare I say millions?) of NG routers sold and only a handful of people complain about this issue. My own R7800 uses a SkyHigh chip so I'm not affected by this problem

wiiNinja · ‎2020-04-13

I personally think the issue is more widespread than just a handful. There are people who will just take the default settings and go with it, in which case, they will never know that settings were lost due to a power cycle. There are also people who encountered the problem and ended up in one of these forums, lost faith, and returned the product without doing a post. I'm sure there are also people who just "live with it", or found an automated solution to automatically restore settings when power failure is detected (perhaps Selenium or other web automation tools can be used to automate this). I just know that if I google "netgear lost settings", I find several threads with various models being mentioned.

labatt · ‎2020-04-13

@microchip8 wrote:
There are thousands (dare I say millions?) of NG routers sold and only a handful of people complain about this issue. My own R7800 uses a SkyHigh chip so I'm not affected by this problem

What you say maybe true. I suspect it is like suggested, some folks just give up and roll with the defaults. Others never power cycle after config so they are fine especially if on UPS. I suspect there are a number, large (?) who knows, that just chuck in bin and move on to another vendor. I personally would not put up with it and since Netgear will not cross ship an RMA I would just chuck in bin, or better yet take to my electronics recycle place. One thing I will not tolerate in my house is tech that has issues that cannot be resolved. I have fun trying to figure out issues, its when it is something that is not fixable that I chuck it. If I were chucking in bin, I would not buy another from that vendor.

I would think that a reputable company would notify folks who purchased the router that theirs is in a defective range. Am sure they can tell by serial number what the probability is. From what I can tell from other things Netgear has done recently, things like dropping features that people bought their router for to put in their money grab Armor, that they really do not care about the customer. Wonder how many chucked the router when the feature they relied on was removed. That would do it for me. Look at the mess the firmware is in and has been for over a year, maybe two now?

hokieinidaho · ‎2020-04-24

For those of you recommending being on a UPS, or backing up your settings....read on.

I woke up this morning to find our network down. Couldn't log into router. Rebooted. All wifi still down, logged in from wired connection. Took my login like others have stated, but all settings gone, factory SSIDs, but worse yet, SSID broadcast enabled with NO SECURITY. Same thing you've been reading. I tried restoring setting from a backup. FAILED.

I ended up trying to download new firmware (minor version upgrade from what I was on), failed first 2 attempts, succeeded third time. Afterwards, tried to restore backup settings again. Failed. SSID still wide open and broadcasting. Immediately shut that down, so I could get my settings applied. Tried to use smart connect, and asked "are you sure that you do not want any wireless security on your network?" - which all 3 radios had WPA-PSK selected. Then I got an error saying the 2.4 and 5Ghz SSID aren't the same, so SMART CONNECT will be disabled (they WERE the same). Then I was immediatley prompted to log back in (wasn't idle or anything). Logged back in, started SSID setup again, this time cleared SMART CONNECT, and typed in all fields manually, which oddly enough it allowed the same SSID name across the 3 radios without smart connect enabled. Applied, successful. Then Turned SMART CONNECT back on, applied, successful.

Lost all of my other settings, device naming, and the like. An hour and 20 minutes later, having missed my treadmill time I'm sitting here wondering if Netgear will be in my list of future purchases. No router should EVER default to open SSID or any other open security after any type of fault, blip, or reset.

Oh, and the UPS never lost power - UPS been up all night.

xman111 · ‎2020-05-19

I RMA'ed my R7800 because of the lost configuration settings issue on reboot/powercycle.

I setup the new R7800 and it seems to work fine. The settings remain after reboot and powercycle.
I just hope my new model doesn't have the bad NVRAM chipset that broke after 10 months.

(I can't be 100% sure that it is the NVRAM problem but the SNBForums thread pointed out by @microchip8 and the R7800 entry on OpenWRT strongly suggests it.)

The OpenWRT device page for the R7800 https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/r7800 says

There are some models, which have broken NANDs. when flashing the Kernel, some (mostly one) blocks are skipped. As a result, the start of the root-partition (called "ubi" in this model) comes later.

OpenWRT knows about this problem and they have a workaround. You would think that Netgear would do the same.

The RMA process was not easy.
The support wanted me to pay for 6 months of support for $79.99 to diagnose the problem since my 60 days of free support expired. I still had two months on the 1 year warranty.
I refused to pay since if I would rather use that money to buy a new router.
After haggling, I agreed to pay $50 if they fixed my lost configuration settings issue. If they didn't, I would pay nothing and get the RMA.

I went through about 1 hour of resetting the R7800 with a paperclip, reloading flashing the firmware, re-entering the my configuration, etc. Nothing solved the lost configuration on reboot problem.
Finally, they agreed it was a hardware problem and I got my RMA.

In a more perfect world, Netgear support would have simply asked for my serial number, seen I had the bad NVRAM chipset, and gave me a RMA.

hokieinidaho · ‎2020-07-07

Well, once again, my router went dark, and I had to power cycle it again, only to have it come up wide open again. This is totally unacceptable. I haggled with a support engineer (more of a salesman) wanting me to buy support option with lots of promises, I asked for it in writing, and eventually got disconnected.

I will never buy another Netgear product if I can help it. Totally unacceptable for a device to have such a bad securty fault - and you would think they'd want to avoid the branding damage and get them replaced.

SlaveUnit · ‎2020-07-07

I agree that this whole situation is disappointing and I will definitely not be wasting my money with Netgear unless something is done.