Netgear Nighthawk M5 MR5200 WAN issue

[rylos]

And here you are right. And here there is something to be fixed by netgear. Mr5200 with dchp disabled and ip passtrough enable will first release a local IP address, and after 10-60 seconds, will release the external public address.

Currently I can see this thing realtime on my OpenWRT router at home, wan is temporarly assigned 192.168.x.5 and after 10-60 seconds the real external IP is leased and passed, so wan change address accordingly. This will work for 2-3-4 days, than wan loses the address and baaam, mr5200 is connected to lte but not serving connection.

Very buggy.

On pfsense I can't try the mr5200, but try to let this time pass.

[RonGonz]

the other problem I see is the default 60 second lease time.  That's way too fast for stationary use, I tried sending

option dhcp-lease-time 7220;

but the dhcp server apparently doesn't respect the lease time option.

I set

supersede dhcp-renewal-time 7200

That does seem to have slowed down the local dhclient.

[RonGonz]

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@rylos wrote:

And here you are right. And here there is something to be fixed by netgear. Mr5200 with dchp disabled and ip passtrough enable will first release a local IP address, and after 10-60 seconds, will release the external public address.

Currently I can see this thing realtime on my OpenWRT router at home, wan is temporarly assigned 192.168.x.5 and after 10-60 seconds the real external IP is leased and passed, so wan change address accordingly. This will work for 2-3-4 days, than wan loses the address and baaam, mr5200 is connected to lte but not serving connection.

Very buggy.

You are right, so there are two distinct problems that may or may not be related:

1. the first is the rfc1918 ip address assignment: I think what might be happening is that on Reboot the local device dhcp service starts and assigns an rfc1918 ip, then later in the startup process the dhcp server is killed and that allows the remote dhcp server to assign the address.
2. the second is that when the unit does disconnect or loses the wan address, apparently it can't recover gracefully and pass thru a new dhcp lease. Very strange behavior indeed.

Kindest Regards

P.S. The next thing NetGear needs to fix is this terrible forum software, the editor is absolutely horrendous!

[hughhalf]

Appreciate all the answers and insights here folks, truly. Gives me a few things to check into over the Christmas break.

All the very best to all for the holidays!

Cheers,
Hugh

[NoV1m]

Hello there

Seems like there isn’t any solution yet to this problem. Is it a problem on all M5? Should I get a replacement? Does other 5G netgear routers have this issue? Would love to have more informations about all this.

Thank you

[rylos]

Hey, is a solution to this problem so hard? MR1100 is working fine for me and MR5200 is loosing wan ip address over the lan port after 2-3 days max. This device is a costly paperweight for now...

[BeresfordBear]

Having same problem with pass through to Orbi which is what I want to assign washcloth etc

[Wdrummel]

Same problem....

Paperweight...

[devilabit]

I also have this issue but for me it is happening very frequently and I have to reset to router every hour or switch apn's. Please provide an update on this issue Netgear.

[salwoo]

As one of the users... I just can tell you that IP passthrough is not working in MR5200. Disabling this function and using a data-only sim just can mitigate but not fix the problem. I reboot my Mr5200 from at least once a day to once in a few days after disabling it. hope it can help. And seems no more update after the official reply in Nov 2021, hope that they still working on this issue.

[RonGonz]

@JohnPengany update on this WAN connectivity issue, seems like it's a firmware DHCP issue?

[Thierry33510]

Hello,

Same problem after 2 days i lost the ethernet port connection on My M5200 with my Orbi system.

All firmware is up to date with an orange france SIM card. 

Do you have any quick solution to resolve the problem and can I connected remotely to M5 to resolve the problem as I'm travelling actually.

Thank you in advance for your answer. 

Thierry

[JohnPeng]

---

@Thierry33510 wrote:

Hello,

Same problem after 2 days i lost the ethernet port connection on My M5200 with my Orbi system.

All firmware is up to date with an orange france SIM card. 

Do you have any quick solution to resolve the problem and can I connected remotely to M5 to resolve the problem as I'm travelling actually.

Thank you in advance for your answer. 

Thierry

---

The WAN port stability issue hasn't been fully resolved yet. Targeting to address it in the next release.

There is no way to remotely connect back to reset the device for now. But here are 2 suggestions to work around the issue temperarily.

1. When the WAN port is down, most likely the WiFi and WWAN connection are still working normally. You can set up a smart power plug connecting to M5's WiFi and power the device as well. If the WAN port is down, you can remote reset the power to the device by reset the smart power plug. 

This workaround may be more ideal for remote setup since even more advanced home router may sometimes need to reset in order to resolve some connectivity issues.

2. For M5 device, with the latest FW upgrade, it support Netgear Insight Pro service, which allows the user to remotey connect to the M5 as long as M5 has WWAN data connection. It is subscription based service. For one device, the monthly subscription is around 2 dollars depending on the region. You can refer to the link below for details.

https://www.netgear.com/business/services/insight/subscription/

Please make sure you subscribe to Insight Pro service and turn on monthly subscription.

Thanks

[Rob_t_g]

Is there an ETA for the frmware relase to rectify this issue ? 

[nasgulch]

Same issue here in Switzerland with M5 on Swisscom Service. Latest FW, IP passthrough to UDM. Random drops of WAN connectivity.

A fix would be nice.

[ritzki]

Same issue here in Germany! When can we expect a solution? It has been over a year now.

[iKaruS_Bungle]

I to have had persistent and ongoing wan outages (reported to Netgear mid December), but I don't use IP passthrough.

The outages are random (sometimes 3-4 days between drop-outs, and sometimes multiple dropouts in a single day, but usually up for 2 days before a reboot is needed).

Sometimes both the web interface and the M5's wifi are inaccessible (usually requiring two reboots before the system recovers completely), but usually a single reboot through the web interface is adequate to restore the WAN link when the internet is down. Sometimes the internet is down, despite the router reporting that it has a 4G connection (per Netgear advice, I've locked the router to 4G, and set ethernet standby to disabled).

I don't believe that a carrier idle time-out is the cause of my problems, as I have had outages occur during conference calls and VPN sessions during the day, and where I have configured a device to send ping traffic every 5 minutes (to be fair, most outages _do_ occur overnight, but I've long given up creating artificial traffic to see if this helps). 

I don't have the option to move to a data only SIM (contract lock-in.... 4G is my only home internet option), but definitely going to explore the factory reset option discussed earlier in this thread. Still amazed that there is no syslog logging facility to assist with troubleshooting.

Finally, I would say that my M1 router was way more reliable than the M5, and may yet be put back into production. Not sure what I would do with the M5 (I couldn't in good conscience resell something I knew to be unreliable, and I can't return the unit).

[edit:typos, clarity]

[rylos]

1 YEAR passed and this issue is not resolved. I just trashed my money for this thing. Thank you netgear, I will make you a real good marketing campaign.

[iKaruS_Bungle]

Following up on the factory reset (post 67 in this thread).  It has not resolved the internet outage issue.

[salwoo]

Seems no update from Netgear team (even the progress update), I have switched to Linksys fgw3000. Sometimes the WAN will drop, but it will recover within 30 sec.

[RonGonz]

@JohnPenghas Netgear made any progress, are there any updates on this issue?  When can we expect a firmware update with some more reliable operation for Netgear's flagship Mobile Router?

[pistachio]

Same here, random deconnection of the WAN port. IP passthrough worse than router.

(setup : Mr5200 is hooked to a sinology 2600 on its WAN part, and my DSL router on the secondary LAN for the Synology for fallback ... and it fallbacks a lot)

Having a fixed DHCP may have helped here in my case to force the DHCP of the Synology ... but well IP passthrough should work....

For now very disappointed in the product stability, especially for the price (750 euros here in France), but not really any other solution.

[pistachio]

Trying a few days experiment by connecting to the sinology router through USB .... unfortunately the sinology USB seems limited to around 80Mbps ... but better than nothing if it stays on (The MR5200 can get me between 200 and 300Mbps where I live) vs the daily or more than daily disconnection du to loosing the ethernet from the MR5200.

[Blanca_O]

Hi pistachio,

I have sent you a message. Please check your inbox.

Regards,
Blanca
Community Team

[rylos]

I've MR5200 international version with firmware 12.04.12 connected to wan port of my OpenWRT router, in ip-passtrhough mode. Ethernet connection is often lost and entire modem functionality is lost. I've been waiting for a beta/release firmware from months.....to fix this.