wrote:
It could be the pushed Android auto-updates to Chromecast, Google Play Services etc have fixed it in your case.
Beat me to it. That is the most obvious explanation.
Google fixed it and the problem went away.
Great evidence that this was the fault all along.
One of those bugs that the original firmware should have been able to handle, but not something that will have come up before Google crapped on everyone.
The moment someone posted here about the TP-Link engineer diagnosing Google being the cause it immediately made sense, it always seemed there was an external factor to the issue given it started around the same time on routers of varying ages and different firmwares.
My D7000's 2.4Ghz has been up nearly a week now and after moving the 2.4ghz devices back onto it, is still running normally. On the same firmware in December, the 2.4Ghz network was barely up for minutes.
Since there's potential for different wifi issues, I think it's worth specifying exactly what this particular issue is.
Symptoms - the problem started around late November at which point for those affected, 2.4Ghz wifi would stop allowing devices to connect. Some devices may report an authentication issue others simply won't connect, Windows will report it was unable to connect to the network. 5Ghz, ethernet and the WAN connections will still function normally and 2.4Ghz will be restored after the D7000 is restarted.
Cause - An update to Google Play services on Android phones and tablets was pushed out around late November, this update had a bug which when the Android device was woken up, it would cause it to flood the wireless network with data trying to connect to a Chromecast which would then cause the router to shut down the 2.4ghz network. The longer the Android device is asleep, the bigger the data flood. It's not entirely clear if the Chromecast and Google Home products would also generate these floods, it is possible for the problem to occur if there are no Chromecasts or Google Home products active on the network.
Solution - Netgear currently have a beta firmware v64 with the fix to stop the router shutting down, we should hopefully see this available soon. For those that have these exact symptoms and it's still happening, check any Android devices by opening Settings, go to Apps, scroll down to Google Play Services, open it and check the version number. 11.9.74 or newer means the device doesn't have the wifi bug whlie 11.9.73 or older (within a couple of versions) means it has the wifi bug. Unfortunately there is no direct way to upgrade the Google Play Services, I've found devices that are shut down completely are slower to pick up the update while those on 24/7 picked it up reasonably quickly so any devices without the update I'd recommend leaving the device on. Once the Android devices are all updated, the 2.4ghz network should then work normally again even without the Netgear fix.
