Circle seems to be randomly killing Internet ingress/egress from my Orbi starting this week

[PSUHammer]

I have an RBR50 with two satellites.  I have had Circle enabled for a number of months now with little issue.  We actually use it quite a bit to limit electronics time for the kids.

Starting this week, we noticed that our wireless network stops working intermittently.  A reboot of the router clears it up for a period of time and normal work resumes.  After the third time of this happening in two days (killing a conference call I was hosting), I decided to look at other causes.  I found that if I disabled Circle parent controls in the Orbi console my Internet comes back and no issues.  I am on the latest firmware for Orbi.

Are there any known issues with Circle at this time?

[Hubba_Bubba · Accepted solution]

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@Hubba_Bubba wrote:

Activated Circle last evening on my RBR50 and RBS50 satellite after updating the firmware to the .32 version. So far, so good. No issues that I've yet to see. 

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Happy to confirm that two months later, that Disney Circle is operating just fine. No problems.

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[Christian_R]

Hi PSUHammer, 

Thanks for posting. I'm curious to see if reverting back to the previous firmware version has any improvements. 

Thanks,

Christian 

[Scorchio]

I have the exact same issue, i came across this Circle thread by accident.  I have been having the issue for a couple of months and it has been getting progressily worse.  To the point that it would happen 2 - 3 times a day, and almost always every morning.  The frustrating thing is one device would loose connectivity whilst another would continue to work.  I initially tried to rule out circle by disabling it in the iPhone App, but the issue persisted, so I went looking elsewhere. I was only today after reading this form that I found the option in the Orbi web app, when i disabled it there, everything that was disconnected came back.

The reason i am posting is becasue am on V2.5.1.8.  I upgraded to that version becasue the previous release (sorry i dont reacall that version) also had disconnect issues and I was hoping an FW upgrade would resolve. I was so frustrated that I replaced my Cable modem with a Netgear CM1100, when that didn't fix the issue. I had the cable company test the network and every thing checked out.  The cable guy told me he had seen disconnects with Netgear routers and told me to try the Arris 8200 which i am presently running.    

I am suspecting this is a DNS resolution issue. If I manualy configure the DNS setting on my laptop to use 8.8.8.8, i can get it to respond again. Whilst in this disconecte state I have been able to run continious pings to the router interface, the default gateway, and external host (by IP) and internal devices that are also disconnected. That all points to DNS issues and i suspect circle is simply using dns filtering to restrict acess.  I have been using circle for 18months with very few issues.   So the question is why did this just start happening and why isn't every circle user experiencing the issue.?

[PSUHammer]

I just don't have time to mess around with firmware downgrades to troubleshoot bugs.  Let Netgear engineers who get paid to figure this out, figure it out.  I will just disable Circle for now.

Thanks all!

[Smge1lc]

Yup, disabled circle on the web and now everything is stable. I added back all my satellites if which I have 4 and they are all running well.

Based on the posts here, this has been an issue for a while with no fixes are comments

Could it be because circle scanned v1?

[Hubba_Bubba]

This is also happening to me. Enable it and it works fine. I'm pointing my devices to OpenDNS and it works great, then suddenly, everything except for a couple of devices (FireTV for example) stops receiving Internet. I log into my modem (an Arris modem) and check Intenet. No problem. I log into Obi. Check Internet. No problem. I disable Circle. Everything comes back on. My Orbi RBR50 and my modem are both updated and I have don't have any dual NAT issues. I can re-enable Circle, and it will be fine for an indeterminite period of time. Since I have security and scheduled commands for device activities that work through the evening, running online scripts is necessary, so I can't leave this on. With an emerging teenager, losing this capability is very concerning. 

[PSUHammer]

Same boat, my friend.  The timing is incredible as we are now a work and school from home household.  So, I need a steady internet connection for both school and work BUT as my pre teen kids are also home, I would love to have the built in time limit profiles of circle for their devices.

Unbelievable....

[MarkMorton72]

Same boat here, posted before with a link to another post I made but it seems to have dissapeared - no cross posting?  Anyway, here's the content as this does appear to be a Circle related issue and should get some attention:

Had this happen for the first time last night and a reboot of the RBR solved the problem.

Running RBR50 and three RBS50 satellites with no problems for over a year - been very impressed with the ORBI.  Not an IT professional but been around this stuff long enough to troubleshoot most stuff.

So, set up is:

• Virgin Media ISP - router in modem mode
• RBR50
• 3x RBS50 all wifi backhaul
• All on V2.5.1.8
• 35-40 devices on the network, mix of wired/wireless
• Disney Circle enabled (paid for version)
• Armour not enabled
• All DHCP; Auto DNS

What I found echos much of what;s above:

• DNS lookup fell apart suddenly
• Some DNS resolution happening (e.g. could resolve news.bbc.co.uk but not https://www.disneyplus.com) - cache working?
• Couldn't change DNS resolver in the ORBI (due to Circle?)
• Manually changed DNS to 4.4.4.4/8.8.8.8 in iPad settings - so bypass router resolver (192.168.1.1) and worked fine (or appeared to)
• Restarting the RBR50 only fixed it and no problems in the last 14 hours

Looks like an issue with the ORBI running out of some internal resource - maybe circle but I think people without circle enabled are having the probelm?

Would be good for someone at netgear to look at this - it's a showstopper when it happens and we're all working from home right now.

[PSUHammer]

Disabling Circle in the Orbi console fixes the issue for me.  A reboot of the router works for a time.  Something triggers the issue again after a while.

[Kjellarne]

Wake up Netgear. Same issue with Circle here. I have used an Asus router with parental control for years without any hiccups. Upgraded to Orbi last week and never had so many issues with disconnected devices . Turning off circle seems to have solved all the disconnection issues. The worst part is that the circle is a subscription service. Extremely dissapointed right now.

[Smge1lc]

Disabling circle worked for a couple days but last night firetv just suddenly dropped off. Checking orbi at 192.168.1.1, found internet was off even though wifi was on with ,0.0.0.0 DNS. Rebooted both orbi and modem, and it repopulated the DNS that I changed from isp to 8.8.8.8.

I did install pi-hole in the last day, and I'm wondering if this could have been the issue. I am not going to point the router DNS to pi-hole and only select devices just so I monitor the stability of my internet/wifi.

[Smge1lc]

Just came home to a house full of my kids complaining that the internet is dead.  Reset, and it works again.  So much for circle as the culprit alone.

Come to think of it, I upgraded the firmware on the rbk20 satellites last night.  I wonder if this is the culprit sans Circle?

[Kjellarne]

Been 100% stable here since deactivation of circle. Have you reduced the lease time via Telnet?

[Retired_Member]

Hey buddy, I have exactly the same issue as you and others that enabled Circle on their router.

I just purchased my Orbi RBK50v2 with 1 satellite on March 2020, everything went well but after enabled Circle, Internet connection went offline a few times a day, it is too annoying that I had to give up using Circle to have a stable Internet connection.

After much of troubleshooting and logged several tickets with the Netgear Support, they took their own sweet time to update the ticket (about after 3-5 days) and notify me that they will call me back, but they did not. I had to call them more than 4 times to finally managed to talk to their L2 support, but still not able to resolved the issue. Finally, I called up Singapore Netgear Distributor for a replacement, got myself a RBK50 but the Internet connection issue that caused by the Circle app still persist.

Believed that I might need to downgrade the firmware and telnet to disable the firmware auto upgrade.

Orbi Firmware: 2.5.1.8

Circle Firmware: 2.0.8.9

Circle App version: 2.1.8 (692)

[Hubba_Bubba]

I also had performed the upgrade to Orbi, prior to activating Circle (paid) so I don't know if the interaction between the prior Orbi firmware and Circle was solid or not. If you do roll this back, please document the steps and respond here with whether or not it stabilizes and is successful. I have had zero issues with Internet service since this was turned off by me. I would really like to reactivate it.

[Nzkev]

Same issue here. All stopped Fri 2 Apr (Thurs 1 April US time) - first with the Circle managed devices with logging and filtering policies. and then the rest. Restart of the orbi worked and Circle came back. 

Now internet access is fine but I can't manage the Policy as Circle app is Unable to find Circle. 

router firmware is unchanged (2.3.5.30) but I note the Circle IOS app has gone from v2.1.6 to v2.1.7 and v2.1.8 in the last week. Could that be the problem?

Added an additional satellite 3 weeks ago - but these problems have only just arisen.

Thanks in advance

[Retired_Member]

Finally I decided not to perform the firmware downgrade and telnet to disable firmware upgrade after reading all the firmware release notes, there are a number of security update that has been added for almost each firmware upgrade.

I had to give Circle a miss for now until there's a firmware that is stable with Circle.

[PSUHammer]

I am canceling my Circle service until this mess is straightened out.  Netgear support is awful.  What is it with companies sucking with support these days?  Almost all of them!  Almost every retail consumer facing tech company has crappy support.  Even the basics like communication over social media.  Awful.

How can a breaking change make it into production firmware?  Testing failure internally.  Bad change management.  Bad software review and release processes.  

[Retired_Member]

Hi PSUHAmmer, you should proceed to cancel the Circle subscription as there isn't any proper support provided by the Netgear Support and Circle Support to resolve the known issue. In fact, no one should pay for a feature or product that does not work as it should / described.

Take a look at how the moderator reply to our question and the Netgear paid support works the same, not solving the problem or answer the question directly to resolve the problem.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Circle-Smart-Parental-Controls/Circle-connectivity-interruption-on-...

[Christian_R]

Hello Community, 

Our product teams are currently looking into the reports of Circle and Orbi. We currently do not have an ETA on the next firmware version or any further details at this moment.

Thank you for your patience,

Christian 

[Hubba_Bubba]

Whatever, man. When your support is contacted to discuss the issue over and over, it's not "these reports".  It's a "known issue". Just at least acknowledge that it exists, you know about it and have determined that it can't be resolved without a firmware fix, and to save countless people (other than the ones here), post it on your website and Facebook so others don't spend countless hours trying to fix something that's not fixable without a firmware update. THAT is what customer service should do. Otherwise, you're going to continue getting slammed here and in social media. I'm sure that the owners of Circle would appreciate you acknowledging and fixing this, too, as it drags down their status in the process.

[someyumguy]

I have complained about this same exact issue since July 2019.  I got 2 cases closed by netgear without any resolution except "We are working on a fix in the next firmware release"

An absolute waste of time and money!

[lyricnz]

I have the same apparent issue. Everything was fine for a couple of years, then (right when we all get locked down with the kids), starts "crashing" every day or two.  Ridiculous.  I replaced the modem, figuring that was the issue, no change. Tried disabling bridge-mode on the new modem, no change. Just found this thread, and turned off Circle, and seems OK so far.

Is there a known-good firmware that doesn't crash?  (I'm on V2.5.1.8).  I feel pretty uncomfortable with the kids on unfiltered internet while they are at home 24/7. This is ON YOU, Netgear!

[got_root]

I am having the same exact issue! Worked great for many months, then a few weeks ago computers randomly started losing internet access multiple times a day and I had to reboot the router every time to fix it. The only thing that finally helped is disabling Circle, which is terrible considering kids are home 24/7 and that is EXACTLY the time when we need all the Circle features. I trusted and purchased Netgear products for many years, but this terrible issue that Netgear is ignoring is making me rethink my loyalties!

[MarkMorton72]

So, after my post 17 days ago, I have not had any more problems - the ORBIs have just been working again, 17 days+ uptime.  The only change I made was to disable traffic counting as I really don't need to care how many TB the kids are going through.

So, busy home with 3 kids on ipad/xbox/switch/smart tv, working from home all day with VPN into work, lots of zoom meetings and CIRCLE enabled- it's a busy set of ORBIs.

I guess we go into circle most nights to "reward" the kids while they are off but other than that, can't think of any different behaviour.

The plot thickens.