Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Fiveiron
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Unfortunately no.  I've been "escalated" to level 2 engineering for the past 5 months and the only responses I get from Netgear is to disable Circle because it's garbage.  I've demanded my money back but was told they've given me a "solution".  300 bucks wasted.  I will never again buy anything made by Netgear, complete garbage.  

Message 26 of 49
Piupolino
Guide

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Another one joining the group with the same Orbi problems described in this group and a usefull (and expensive) Netgear support.

Model: RBR20|Orbi AC2200 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 27 of 49
PSUHammer
Luminary

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

It seemed to be working fine for me until the 2.5.1.8 firmware then something broke that started kiling Internet connectivity to the router itself instead of specifc devices configured in Circle.  I understand that Circle uses ARP spoofing which may be now misconfigured or causing issue with Netgear's capabilities as of a recent firmware.

Message 28 of 49
Thekraken
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Recently had to enable Disney Circle on my netgear RBK50.... and experiencing the same random disconnection from the internet. This was enable 4 days ago. First day it happened, i thought it was an ISP thing...the second day, it happened again, then i jumped on the router and ran a speed test. The speed test returned results indicating there was still internet. So i rebooted the router, everything was fine.

 

Day 3, i decided to turn off the Disney circle for a day, and that day i had no internet disconnection...

Day 4, I turn on Disney Circle and experienced another disconnect. I waited, didn't reboot my router, i ran a speed test from the Orbi, and it returned the stats for normal speed, After a few minutes my internet connect restored.

 

It seems like lots of people are having problems also. My router has the latest firmware V2.5.1.8AU

 

What a pain.. hope Netgear resolves this soon.

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 29 of 49
Thekraken
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

I noticed that this issue was raised in June 2019... we're in June 2020... so just wondering if anyone from Netgear is looking at this forum and actively trying to resolve this issue? or is it just a forumn so the community can just help eachother out?

 

Trying to determine if I should bother waiting for a fix or just think about potentially buying new wireless system from another brand that can allow parents to lock down kids internet access.


@Thekraken wrote:

Recently had to enable Disney Circle on my netgear RBK50.... and experiencing the same random disconnection from the internet. This was enable 4 days ago. First day it happened, i thought it was an ISP thing...the second day, it happened again, then i jumped on the router and ran a speed test. The speed test returned results indicating there was still internet. So i rebooted the router, everything was fine.

 

Day 3, i decided to turn off the Disney circle for a day, and that day i had no internet disconnection...

Day 4, I turn on Disney Circle and experienced another disconnect. I waited, didn't reboot my router, i ran a speed test from the Orbi, and it returned the stats for normal speed, After a few minutes my internet connect restored.

 

It seems like lots of people are having problems also. My router has the latest firmware V2.5.1.8AU

 

What a pain.. hope Netgear resolves this soon.


 

Message 30 of 49
Piupolino
Guide

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

So, this is what I did:

 

- Factory reset of the router and all satelites.

- Factory reset the modem.

- Unistall Orbi App and Circle App

- Reinstalled everything but during installation, only intalled the router. I only added the satelites the next day, when I realized the connection was stable

- I used the factory SSID, I decided not to change it

- Withouth resetting the modem, the old parameter of the router were not erased. Don't ask me why. The factory reset only worked with the model reset.

- Installed the Apps again.

- After 3 months trying everything these steps solved my problem.

 

Good luck!

 

Model: RBR20|Orbi AC2200 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 31 of 49
PSUHammer
Luminary

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Ok, but what firmware are you on?

 

The last firmware update broke Circle for me while it was working fine in prior months.  I think this issue is a combination of a 3rd party feature set integrated with Netgear firmware.  My opinion of Netgear (and many network commercial companies) is that their development cycles are very slow.  They don't seem agile and they don't address issues very quickly.  Pehaps this will change over time, but issues like this which should get attention quickly seem to sit.

 

Perhaps they are not staffed properly or perhaps they don't have good change management and QA testing.  Who knows?  I do know that I wouldn't hold your breath on a fix based on prior experiences with their firmware release cycles.

 

That all said, I did just notice this page for the first time and it does list the Circle app as a known issue:

https://status.netgear.com/orbi

Message 32 of 49

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Thanks, PSUHammer, for the link. So, maybe, just maybe, Netgear is actually working on the problem since they are acknowledging it exists.

Message 33 of 49

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

I agree, Netgear/Circle will most likely never fix this.  In the last 2 months I have been advising family, friends, web forums, parent groups, etc to NOT purchase Netgear products for parental control.  With more people/family home and online, and the world/media losing any sense of morality, this is ever increasing as a critical service.  The personal thanks I've gotten (4 to date) for saving someone from making the wrong purchase is beginning to make up for the $300 I flushed down the drain...

Message 34 of 49
PSUHammer
Luminary

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

It really is mesmerizing that now, of all times, this is when the ball gets dropped.  When kids were home from school, now going into summer, and with people relying on internet and streaming so much.

 

My wife and I are looking at alternatives now, but they are all more expensive.  Even Circle's new dedicated device and plan are much more pricey.

 

Apparently Norton has a decent product.

Message 35 of 49

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

A stopgap that can be used is a filtered DNS service like openDNS's family shield.  It filters out adult content but doesnt give any custom filtering or per-device options.  Just set your Orbi DNS settings to 208.67.222.123 & 208.67.220.123. You can also just set it per device instead of on the router itself.  And it's free.

Message 36 of 49
PSUHammer
Luminary

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

I am handling content filtering another way.  I use Circle to manage Internet times by device.  

Message 37 of 49
Thekraken
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Thanks Piupolino

 
 
 
 
I will give reset to factory settings a try
 
 
Message 38 of 49
Thekraken
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Thanks for the status link PSUHammer.

 

i wonder if we have to log an incident ticket so it gets registered? Maybe Netgear doesn't worry too much about what's in the forums and like all companies are only concerned when problems are registered as incidents and then the have to resolve these problems within SLA?

 

according to the status site, there's been no incidents raised the past 2 days..... so there is no problem.

Message 39 of 49
Fiveiron
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

So, I've had an incident ticket open for this issue for about 6 months and Netgear has effectively given up helping me. They send me a note once a month saying they are waiting for a level 2 engineer to look at it. Their solution until then? Completely disable Circle. I asked for a refund and they said it's out of warranty and they gave me a "solution". IMHO, Netgear is trying to sweep this under the rug and move on. I wish someone would start a class action lawsuits as I know there are hundreds of us in this boat.
Message 40 of 49

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

I agree with the class action lawsuit.  Send the details over to an attorney that handles them, and if they think they have a case they will press ahead.  Of course, we all would each receive a check for like 34 cents, with all of the money going to cover the attorney's fees (as almost all class action's go), but the point would be to punish Netgear for their false claims and refusal to resolve.

Message 41 of 49
Thekraken
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Hi All

 

Took Piupolino's suggest to do a factory reset on my Orbi system, and things seem to be working fine. Previously, it was a daily occurance that I had a drop out. After the factory reset it's been 5 days and I haven't had the same kind of drop out, although I had another strange router freeze (different behaviour from previous) and not sure what caused that.

 

So it went like this.

1. Update Router and Sat to the latest firmware version: V2.5.1.16

2. performed factory reset on both Router and Sat.

3. Reconfigured everything, connecting the Sat to the Router as well.

4. Set new SSID ( just because i wanted to)

5. Kept most settings as default on router:

 

Notes: 

* operating in Router Mode

 * the only settings I've changed compared to pre-factory reset is below. These are just best practice settings for the ORbi setup I have.

settings.png

 

Like I said, it's working well, so hope it helps.

Message 42 of 49
Thekraken
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Hi Everyone

 

Update:

 

After running a few weeks, the problem still occured, although much less frequent than i experienced before. I've decided to turn it off completely. 

 

I noticed there's a new Version 2.5.1.32 recently released. Will try this and see if anything changes, although the release notes does not mention addressing this issue.

Message 43 of 49
Javaboss
Aspirant

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Hi All,

 

I don't suppose there has been any resolution to the Circle debacle? I've had my Orbi for about 6 months and was wondering why wifi kept dropping out randomly for some devices every few days.  It's been exasperated by working at home recently and children being home more.  

 

After reading pages and pages of fixes on the internet - I've set bridge mode on my DSL modem, changed the wan_lease settings... you name it.... I finally turned Circle off as a last resort - and bingo - it's fixed.

 

The trouble is I now have no parental controls - except Apple's on the kids devices.

 

Having Circle was a big selling point for me when choosing the Orbi.  It's astounding that it's been over a year and it's still not working (note I am now running the V2.7.0.70 firmware - but none of the others worked properly either!).

 

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 44 of 49
Thekraken
Tutor

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Yeah unfortunately it’s not fixed. I disable circle and only enable it I have to, and definitely not during working hours.

As you can see Netgear and Disney are either incompetent or don’t give a damn about their customers. Even their support is no responsive.

I now advise people to not buy netgear Orbi or anything with Netgear, if they require something like Disney Circle or if they ever hope for any support for the product they buy, because both are pretty cr@p!

My next wireless kit won’t be a Netgear anything, I’ll take my chance with another brand because it can’t get worse.
Message 45 of 49
PSUHammer
Luminary

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

For what it is worth, the recent (few months ago) firmware updates have resolved all my Circle issues.  If you haven't already, you may want to get the latest firmware and factory reset your devices.  See what happens.

Message 46 of 49

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi


@Thekraken wrote:
Yeah unfortunately it’s not fixed. I disable circle and only enable it I have to, and definitely not during working hours.

As you can see Netgear and Disney are either incompetent or don’t give a damn about their customers. Even their support is no responsive.

I now advise people to not buy netgear Orbi or anything with Netgear, if they require something like Disney Circle or if they ever hope for any support for the product they buy, because both are pretty cr@p!

My next wireless kit won’t be a Netgear anything, I’ll take my chance with another brand because it can’t get worse.

First off, Disney is no longer associated with this product. It was a co-marketing effort, and Disney bailed on this long ago, so quit pointing the finger at Disney. As for advising people not to purchase Orbi because of service/support, YMMV. 

 

Two months ago, I updated. ZERO issues since then. ZERO. But I made certain to insure that I had no conflicts that could cause problems between the modem and the Orbi system. 

Message 47 of 49
Javaboss
Aspirant

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

So... an update:

 

1) I did a full factory reset

2) Switched my DSL modem/router 7490 into bridge mode (https://www.edpnet.be/en/support/installation-and-usage/internet/manage-fritz!box/how-do-i-configure...)

3) As I have Sky Q I have changed for 2.4HGz channel to 13 and the 5Ghz channel to 44 (using a wifi scanner these channel were free)

4) Enabld implicit beam forming

5) Changed wan_lease to 1200

6) Switch ntp to 0.uk.pool.ntp.org (had some issues syncing sometimes with the default)

 

I haven't had a wifi drop out since.

 

I still have a problem where my Hikvision 4 camera CCTV system crashes everytime I turn on any kind of intrusion detection *and* notifications.  If you don't have those on it's fine... record, playback... box rock stable.  However, turn on intrusion dectection *and* notifcations and within 12 hours the NVR has crashed.  First, the app slows down and won't replay footage and then finally *boom* NVR* reboot.

 

The CCTV guys kindly came and swapped out the NVR for me - but it's still the same.... I bet it's the damned Orbi... 🙂 When I get time I'm going to rip it out and just use the Fritzbox for wifi and see if the CCTV works properly then.  Somehow I think it will fix my issue... then I'll have to try the Orbi in AP mode...

 

 

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 48 of 49

Re: Circle Continually loses connection/settings Orbi

Hikvision. You may as well just hand over all your personal info to the Chinese Communist Party.

Message 49 of 49
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