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

[Retired_Member]

Hi MarkMorton72,
It seems like good news for us that you managed to have Circle turned on and no more Internet disconnection randomly.
Mind to confirm that you have:
1. Turned on Circle
2. Disabled Traffic Meter
3. Firmware on 2.5.1.8
4. Disabled Armor

[MarkMorton72]

Hi, 

More details are in the previous post (earlier in this thread) but to answer here:

1. Circle is ON and actively used (3 kids)
2. Traffic Meter is OFF (and has been since restart 17 days ago)
3. Firmware is 2.5.1.8 on all Orbis (1 x RBR50 and 3 x RBS50)
4. Armor is OFF (and has never been enabled)

The only difference from when this failed before (and has only failed once) is traffic meter is off. YMMV.

Mark

[Retired_Member]

I'm going to give it a try as well and hoping to have the issue resolved for now and still able to use Circle as most of us have kid at home while we are working from home, wouldn't want to have disconnected Zoom meetings and VPN connections.

[PSUHammer]

I never had Traffic Meter enabled and my other settings match yours.  I still have issues with Circle.  Maybe they changed something at the server level?

I will try re-enabling to see if there are changes.

[someyumguy]

Same here.  I never had traffic meter enabled and running v2.5.1.8 and still having the same issue.

Must be something else......

[PSUHammer]

I can confirm that the suggestion above does NOT resolve the issue.  I re-enabled Circle and verified that traffic meter was off.  Within an hour, all devices on my network dropped Internet access.

Traffic meter shouldn't impact Internet connectivity as it is logging at the Orbi appliance.  This issue seems to be DNS related if I had to guess.  

[Smge1lc]

Can I get a quick poll of how many devices you have online?  My portal says I have 4 satellites and 64 devices.  I have many smart home and wifi camera devices.

Shutting off circle has kept everything relatively stable.  However, I picked up my son's ipad that he barely uses to surf safari, and I am able to get Google related websites, including Youtube, but not amazon.com or others.  Strange.

[Smge1lc]

So my kids started complaining again about internet issues so I reset and their games started working again, but my firetv and echo dots would not connect. Then I remembered that when I reboot my server, I turned on upnp for some dumb reason. When I recalled that, I shut it off, then reset and it all works again. Why upnp? Anyway one more troubleshooting point for anyone interested.

[Retired_Member]

Update from my previous post, disabling Traffic Meter does not resolve the issue, still having Internet down issue. Seems like it needs a fix in the new firmware.

[PSUHammer]

Agreed.  At this point, users are just stabbing in the dark.  The developers need to look at the code base for the prior firmware and compare what changed with the current firmware to see if there are any smoking guns or potential impacts.  

[Smge1lc]

So I've been at this rational that if it ain't broke.... Any way it is broke, so is it time for vexels firmware? Anyone try it from where we are and then have to have change to vessel be the cure? Thanks for taking one for the team.

[got_root]

@Christian_R Do you have any updates for us on the investigation of Netgear Product Team? You have commented in https://community.netgear.com/t5/Circle-Smart-Parental-Controls/Circle-connectivity-interruption-on-... mentioning the investigation!

[Christian_R]

Hi got_root,

We do not have an update at this time. Our engineering team is continuing to investigate on the issue. 

Thank you for understanding,

Christian 

[dont_overthink]

I'm having the same issue as everyone.  Enable Circle, internet drops within an hour.  I have narrowed it down to DNS.  I can ping/load pages by IP address, but DNS does not resolve.    Netgear, how many people are working on this? Circle is complete junk.  I purchased the Orbi's specifically for it. Convenientl the issue didnt start until the return period ended.  I'm just glad I didnt purchase the subscription for Circle it yet.

My setup: RBR40 (firmware V2.5.1.16) with 2 RBW20 (firmware V2.5.0.2) Satellites.

[PSUHammer]

I will say that Circle has it's quirks but works pretty well for what it does (DNS filtering).  Profiles require some initial setup and some devices need to be researched, but once that is all done, you can manage screen time for your kids pretty easily.

It worked great until the latest Netgear firmware release.

[dont_overthink]

You are correct, I did not mean to sounds like Circle itself was bad, only it's integration with Netgear.  It worked for a few months, until recently.  Now it's unusable.  Netgear should be providing customers daily updates on the issue until it is resolved.  This has all the makings of a class action lawsuit.

[PSUHammer]

Anyone try the latest firmware?  I will now.

[someyumguy]

which version is that?  

Model Name Device Name Current Version Status Router RBR50 RBR50 V2.5.1.8 No new firmware version available. Satellite RBS40V Orbi Satellite-1 V2.5.1.2 No new firmware version available.

[dont_overthink]

New firmware is 2.5.1.16.  It didnt show up for me in the admin console as an update, you need to download and install it it manually.  https://www.netgear.com/support/product/RBR50.aspx#download

I updated mine a few days ago but did not test circle yet, was waiting for the weekend because I cant have the internet dropping in the middle of a work day.  The release notes say it only includes a fix to the attached devies list, I noticed some new device icons.  Because that is more important than actual router functionality...

[PSUHammer]

Yes, you need to manually download it.  I enabled Circle last night after updating to that firmware and so far so good!!!

The change log doesn't mention Circle, but they may have snuck something in.

[Smge1lc]

Interesting as mine is 2.5.1.8 which would seem to be more recent than 2.5.1.16. so the latter is newer?

[PSUHammer]

Yes, higher numbers almost always indicate newer releases.

[PSUHammer]

I have had a few random disconnects today.  Not all devices.  Going to keep watching this.

[chenyun]

I came here to search a solution of my circle silently getting turned off occasionally and found this topic. Now I just realized that my internet does work better without intermittent dropping off in these past few days. Now I realized it was because my Circle was somehow turned off. Turning it back on today, and yes, within one hour, my kids jumped and claimed WiFi gone again!

Strange thing is that my firmware version is quite old: v2.3.5.26. I thought Orbi updates firmware automatically. Tried to update firmware by clicking “checking for updates” multiple times and it always returned back saying “something wrong...”. I guess I have the third issue to deal with Orbi.

[Smge1lc]

My only successful fix was to start fresh with a reset and forget network command through the orbi app.  

That said, I just added 2 to my 2 satellites, and I get some latency in getting some devices to connect, primarily TV devices like roku, firetv, samsung.

There seems to be a new firmware out, and I am waiting for some reviews prior to the upgrade.  Upgrades too seem not to work automatically.  I have to download then do a manual update.