Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

chris_v
Tutor

Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

I am running the latest firmware, V2.3.5.30 and over time our network became almost unusable. I finally decided to spend a day debugging the issue and have discovered that it was Circle causing the problems. It's a great service that I turned on a number of months ago because of all the prompts to do so. However, turning it off has fixed the constant hanging of the router.

 

It doesn't matter in regards to whether devices were managed or unmanaged. The router itself would get itself into a state every 30-120 mins whereby it would drop all internal connections for 5-10 mins. I had a telnet session to the router when this occurred and the router itself still retains the WAN interface and connection to the internet and I could ping any upstream (public) IP.

 

It drove the entire household crazy and since I disabled Circle, not one issue has occurred. Great idea. Fantastic service. Poor execution Netgear. Perhaps Netgear should turn off all of the Circle service prompting in the admin interface and the Orbi app until they have a commercial release available.

 

I have 1x RBR50 + 1x RBS50 in wireless backhaul configuration both on the same firmware.

 

Chris

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 1 of 10
DexterJB
NETGEAR Moderator

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

Hi @chris_v, welcome to the community! I have sent you a message. Please check your inbox.

 

Dexter

Message 2 of 10
BasQue
Aspirant

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

Exactly having the same issue here. 😞
Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 3 of 10
treadpool
Tutor

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

Same problems here. I have the same setup but used wired backhaul. I read somewhere that using Circle plus pihole can be a problem (which I'm doing). I'd love to know what the correct configuration should be, but in an effort to get them to work together I set DNS and DHCP to my pihole. Turns out that didn't make a difference really. I still experience random network outages. Three new devices connected to my Orbi tonight and it almost brought the whole network down - Circle prompted me they joined the network and then everything came to a halt. I turned off Circle and all is better now. 

Message 4 of 10
treadpool
Tutor

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

Can you share the message? It might help others...

Message 5 of 10
chris_v
Tutor

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

So I have been working with Support and we factory reset the router, set it back up, turned on Circle and tested it out. This all worked fine for a couple of weeks but has slowly degraded over time and is now intermittently doing the same thing as previous. I have rebooted the router numerous times but it continues to drop internal connections and get itself into a state. 

 

We will most likely turn Circle back off again as this solution was solid, as sad as it is t lose the functionality of the Circle service. If we find a fix I will update this thread.

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 6 of 10
BasQue
Aspirant

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

Thanks for the update @chris_v .

 

Same here, my problems started after a few weeks after enablng Circle.

I disabled Circle  (and the built-in ORBI parental controls) and the problems immediately disappeared.

 

Hoping for some update soon.

 

 

 

Message 7 of 10
inteller
Apprentice

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

I reported on this junk MONTHS ago.  

 

All you will get is private messages from the bafoons wanting you to be their beta testers.  DON'T DO IT!  They have had a YEAR to fix this garbage!

 

Vote with yout wallet and buy something else that ACTUALLY WORKS!

Message 8 of 10
blaineeous
Aspirant

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

Netgear. This is very frustrating. This is one of the main reasons I bought this product. What is being done to resolve this issue? Transparency is important to us as customers.

Model: RBR20|Orbi AC2200 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 9 of 10
elddum
Aspirant

Re: Enabling Circle breaks Orbi

I have the exact same issue.

 

Just bought the Orbi - selected with the specific purpose of the parental controls and they don't work!

 

I thought that firmware V2.3.5.30 was the latest (according to the inbuilt firware check it is) - but apparently the latest is V2.5.1.16. Does anyone have experience if this hanging from using Circle is fixed in this release (2.5.1.16)?

 

If not, its back for a refund!

 

Thanks!

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 10 of 10
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