Re: Nighthawk MR5200 (M5) - We need your feedback!

JohnPeng · ‎2022-01-11

Sorry for replying late. The M5 NAS will not work with new Verizon SIM since new Verizon SIM requires on device activation. That is not supported by the device. But some Verizon customers did make the device work with their already-activated Verizon SIM card.

Thanks

BH-C · ‎2022-01-12

Hi @RonGonz, when your issue happened, was that only Ethernet connected devices could not go to the Internet? For WiFi clients connected to the M5 directly (not to another router which connected to the M5 through Ethernet), could they access the Internet?

@RonGonz wrote:
Hi,

I am purchase MR 5200, I am using in IP Passthrough Mode.

If the device loses connection, I am unable to renew the DHCP lease.

Also I have noticed that during Boot Up, the device wants to assign a RFC1918 IP, but the local DHCP server is already disabled.

So it is not stable device to use as for LTE Failover.

Please contact me via Support Ticket for Details.

Chipster27 · ‎2022-01-12

Got it, thank you! I was able to activate the sim using my old device, then put the sim in my 5200 and it works.

JohnPeng · ‎2022-01-12

@Chipster27 wrote:
Got it, thank you! I was able to activate the sim using my old device, then put the sim in my 5200 and it works.

Glad to know this works for you!

Thanks

cyberfox · ‎2022-01-13

Hi,

I have a MR5200 and it connects and works great. However, I do want to monitor the router remotely. Check battery status, connected devices and data usage. I have tried all possible options accessing the router from external IP, but it simply will not work. Port forwarding, DMZ will not let me access the gateway IP from an external IP for web admin interface. I have changed the gateway IP. No luck. I have called the network operator, changed APN to a public APN (No firewalls). Still I am unable to even ping the router.

Can you help me access the MR5200 from outside the LAN?

JohnPeng · ‎2022-01-13

@cyberfox wrote:

Hi,

I have a MR5200 and it connects and works great. However, I do want to monitor the router remotely. Check battery status, connected devices and data usage. I have tried all possible options accessing the router from external IP, but it simply will not work. Port forwarding, DMZ will not let me access the gateway IP from an external IP for web admin interface. I have changed the gateway IP. No luck. I have called the network operator, changed APN to a public APN (No firewalls). Still I am unable to even ping the router.

Can you help me access the MR5200 from outside the LAN?

This is not supprted by the carriers due to security risks. But some carriers do support the special plan for enterprise customers with VPN support, which will assign a fixed IP to M5 and allow the customer to access the network behind M5.

Netgear has its own remote management service that can be enabled on M5 as a subscription, which is called Insight Pro. You can check and see whether the service can meet your needs.

Thanks

cyberfox · ‎2022-01-13

It is supported by the carrier. I do not need a fixed IP as DDNS takes care of the IP changes. I do have the public IP for the M5. According to the carrier the APN I am using is not behind any firewalls or CGNAT. The problem is the router not letting me under any settings access it from outside the LAN.

I have confirmed that I have a serial number prefix that are eligible for Insight. I have tried to enroll the serial number to the service, but the router shows up under 'My other devices' and I am unable to control it or manage it. It does not work.

JohnPeng · ‎2022-01-13

@cyberfox wrote:

It is supported by the carrier. I do not need a fixed IP as DDNS takes care of the IP changes. I do have the public IP for the M5. According to the carrier the APN I am using is not behind any firewalls or CGNAT. The problem is the router not letting me under any settings access it from outside the LAN.

I have confirmed that I have a serial number prefix that are eligible for Insight. I have tried to enroll the serial number to the service, but the router shows up under 'My other devices' and I am unable to control it or manage it. It does not work.

Could you please let me know your carrier and your device SKU/FW version?

I can help to set you up for Insight Pro to work. As for direct remote access with carrier network, I don't think it can work easily, or we don't need to create the Insight Pro service.

Thanks

cyberfox · ‎2022-01-13

Carrier: Telenor

SKU: MR5200-100EUS

FW: NTGX55_12.04.12.00

Serial prefix: 6B2

I am on a Insight Premium trial now, but as long as it does not work.

JohnPeng · ‎2022-01-13

Ok. Let me help to get your insight issue resolved. Your device should be have Insight enabled. We need to find out why.

Who is your contact to set up your Insight Premium trial? You can email me with the screenshot at jopeng@netgear.com. Seems the community doesn't support photo attachment.

Thanks

@cyberfox wrote:

Carrier: Telenor

SKU: MR5200-100EUS

FW: NTGX55_12.04.12.00

Serial prefix: 6B2

I am on a Insight Premium trial now, but as long as it does not work.

cyberfox · ‎2022-01-14

For the record:

The only way to get access to the MR5200 remotely is to sign up for Insight PRO. Then when you are in the cloud portal, go to account management and add credit card info and enable monthly billing. When this is enabled you can add the serial number for the MR5200 in the portal for remote management. If you are only managing the MR5200 it will cost you $1.8 a month. Works pretty well and you can use the Insight app for monitoring if it is is connected, clients connected etc.

jslcom · ‎2022-01-26

Hello all,

I've been using my MR5200 for several months and it's been pretty good. I recently tried using the data offloading feature, but it seems to have a quirk that affects my use case. I have successfully configured data offloading via Ethernet, but when the Ethernet connectivity goes away, the MR5200 does not switch back to mobile broadband. Just to be clear, the Ethernet PHY connection is still up, but the gateway is no longer reachable. If I physically unplug the Ethernet cable, the MR5200 will properly switch to mobile broadband, but apparently it will never switch unless the hardware PHY link is broken. I experimented with short DHCP lease times (such as two minutes) to see if the router would figure out that it no longer had a connection when the lease expired. Nope! It just keeps trying anyway.

Interestingly, when the Ethernet gateway stops responding, the MR5200 does send ICMP host unreachble messages back to the client, and even more interestingly, after the DHCP lease expires, the MR5200 begins sending ICMP net unreachable messages (instead of host unreachable messages). So the MR5200 obviously knows that it no longer has a gateway to offload to, but it doesn't care as long as the PHY is up. I would call this brain dead behavior on the part of the MR5200, and perhaps also on the part of the embedded developers who implemented the MR5200 data offloading feature.

Can I someday expect a product firmware update to address this issue?

RonGonz · ‎2022-01-26

Great Post! Wasn't aware of these issues myself, but thank you for pointing this out.

@jslcom wrote:

Interestingly, when the Ethernet gateway stops responding, the MR5200 does send ICMP host unreachble messages back to the client, and even more interestingly, after the DHCP lease expires, the MR5200 begins sending ICMP net unreachable messages (instead of host unreachable messages). So the MR5200 obviously knows that it no longer has a gateway to offload to, but it doesn't care as long as the PHY is up.

It's probably the underlying networking TCP/IP stack that is doing this.

@jslcom wrote:
I would call this brain dead behavior on the part of the MR5200, and perhaps also on the part of the embedded developers who implemented the MR5200 data offloading feature.

Either the functionality has simply not been implemented (which is weird because you would think this device would go through some kind of QA testing suite to confirm proper basic operation before being released), or the existing functionality that was implemented is b0rk3n and QA testing missed it. Either way doesn't look very flattering on the Product Manager / Engineering team.

JohnPeng · ‎2022-01-26

@jslcom wrote:

Hello all,

I've been using my MR5200 for several months and it's been pretty good. I recently tried using the data offloading feature, but it seems to have a quirk that affects my use case. I have successfully configured data offloading via Ethernet, but when the Ethernet connectivity goes away, the MR5200 does not switch back to mobile broadband. Just to be clear, the Ethernet PHY connection is still up, but the gateway is no longer reachable. If I physically unplug the Ethernet cable, the MR5200 will properly switch to mobile broadband, but apparently it will never switch unless the hardware PHY link is broken. I experimented with short DHCP lease times (such as two minutes) to see if the router would figure out that it no longer had a connection when the lease expired. Nope! It just keeps trying anyway.

Interestingly, when the Ethernet gateway stops responding, the MR5200 does send ICMP host unreachble messages back to the client, and even more interestingly, after the DHCP lease expires, the MR5200 begins sending ICMP net unreachable messages (instead of host unreachable messages). So the MR5200 obviously knows that it no longer has a gateway to offload to, but it doesn't care as long as the PHY is up. I would call this brain dead behavior on the part of the MR5200, and perhaps also on the part of the embedded developers who implemented the MR5200 data offloading feature.

Can I someday expect a product firmware update to address this issue?

Thanks for the detailed analysis! Definitely, it will help us to find the solution for this WAN port stability issue as reported in another thread on this topic.

nasgulch · ‎2022-01-29

I got myself a 5200 because my M2's work flawlessly for 2 years.

I am having the following issue. Which does not exist with the M2's.

Using Swisscom as a provider here in CH with a public IP adress, My router is assigned the adress 178.x.x.x as shown in the first image below. Strangely enough the unit reports a private IP which comes from nowhere as shown in second image. The M5 is on latest FW 12_0412_00.

What is worse, when using IP Passthrough, the private adress is forwarded!!!

Swisscom provided public IP

Any input is appreciated

Erik

nasgulch · ‎2022-01-31

Solved.

Problem was on my end with the wrong APN settings

TeeJay74 · ‎2022-02-01

Hi,

I am talking about MR5200-100EUS and iits firrmware versions. Many of users would like to see shorter firmware update interval with less changes and faster delivery rather than current way of doing things which seems to be trying to fix everything at once(in my opinion not realistic) and then releasing a firmware. As no software is ever perfect, It would be a good thing to split problems into smaller pieces and fixing them swiftly which could allow faster fimware delivery.

Br,TeeJay74

ScotchK · ‎2022-02-01

In reply to @iKaruS_Bungle I had issues where the MR5100 where kept saying "Mobile Broadband Disconnected". Then through testing we foind oout it was randomly hooked up to another carrier, not my own. Then it would show that it was connected, but when you went to use internet it didnt work. I took it back to the shop and they replaced it.

I have a new device, now one day old, and the 5G has dropped out unexpectedly mid video meeting. My mobile phone with same carrier, stayed connected for me to finish the 2nd half of the meeting.

I will post this in anpther thread for MR5100 as somone has suggested there is a separate thread for that. Cheers.

JohnPeng · ‎2022-02-01

@ScotchK wrote:

In reply to @iKaruS_Bungle I had issues where the MR5100 where kept saying "Mobile Broadband Disconnected". Then through testing we foind oout it was randomly hooked up to another carrier, not my own. Then it would show that it was connected, but when you went to use internet it didnt work. I took it back to the shop and they replaced it.

I have a new device, now one day old, and the 5G has dropped out unexpectedly mid video meeting. My mobile phone with same carrier, stayed connected for me to finish the 2nd half of the meeting.

I will post this in anpther thread for MR5100 as somone has suggested there is a separate thread for that. Cheers.

Could you please let me know which carrier you are using and what is your phone's brand and model?

If possible, please help to capture a model.json file and send it to me via private message.

- Logon to the webui (http://192.168.1.1 ) as an administrator
- Navigate to URL http://192.168.1.1/model.json via the same browser window
- Capture the results (by selecting all + copy) and send it back

Thanks

steveXXX · ‎2022-02-10

Hello,

I have had my MR5200 for several weeks now and I LOVE it!

When it works, it works very well:

If I believe one of the apps on my phone, this is from a 100Mbps cell.

When working the status page shows:

Unfortunately anywhere from 10 minutes to several days it goes into this state, and the network no longer works:

Doing a "Reset" doesn't seem to clear it, but a complete "Shutdown" followed by a power cycle (10 seconds off) does.

tia,

Steve

steveXXX · ‎2022-02-10

Heres

No idea where my photos went, they were visible in my "compose" window...

Are there rules about max file sizes or extensiuon types?

Edit:

Nevermind, they showed up a little later... guess its a buffering thing...

Steve

JohnPeng · ‎2022-02-10

I can tell you are located at a cell edge based on the signal level shown on your device.

The device handover between 5G and WCDMA is controlled by the network based on the signal level reported by the device. You can try to move your device to find a better location.

In my home, I got the issue as you reported here. Power cycle or factory reset the device may make the device gets on 5G network. If the device falls back to WCDMA, it may stuck in 3G.

Please try set the device to LTA All in Badn Region and check whether you can get on LTE only network at your location.

Thanks

@steveXXX wrote:

Hello,

I have had my MR5200 for several weeks now and I LOVE it!

When it works, it works very well:

If I believe one of the apps on my phone, this is from a 100Mbps cell.

When working the status page shows:

Unfortunately anywhere from 10 minutes to several days it goes into this state, and the network no longer works:

Doing a "Reset" doesn't seem to clear it, but a complete "Shutdown" followed by a power cycle (10 seconds off) does.

tia,

Steve

steveXXX · ‎2022-02-10

Did that, now see -95dBm and Network status: LTE

Thruput takes a big hit:

Guess its now a case of wait and see...

steveXXX · ‎2022-02-10

@JohnPeng wrote:
I can tell you are located at a cell edge based on the signal level shown on your device.

The device handover between 5G and WCDMA is controlled by the network based on the signal level reported by the device. You can try to move your device to find a better location.

In my home, I got the issue as you reported here. Power cycle or factory reset the device may make the device gets on 5G network. If the device falls back to WCDMA, it may stuck in 3G.

Please try set the device to LTA All in Badn Region and check whether you can get on LTE only network at your location.

On its own, the M5 is little better than my phone, about 5-10 Mbps downloads.

After I added a: "MIMO 4G/5G Log Periodic Antenna Kit by Waveform"

my downloads increased dramatically to 60-90 Mbps!

I just set the Cellular value to: "LTE and NR5G", getting my faster downloads back.

Will this setting prevent the M5 from falling back to WCDMA and getting stuck in 3G?

tia,

Steve

JohnPeng · ‎2022-02-10

On its own, the M5 is little better than my phone, about 5-10 Mbps downloads.

After I added a: "MIMO 4G/5G Log Periodic Antenna Kit by Waveform"

my downloads increased dramatically to 60-90 Mbps!

I just set the Cellular value to: "LTE and NR5G", getting my faster downloads back.

Will this setting prevent the M5 from falling back to WCDMA and getting stuck in 3G?

tia,

Steve

Yes. Set to LTE and NR5G will prevent the device from falling back to 3G. The drawback for this setting is that if you lose coverage for LTE and 5G, the device will stuck in Searching.