Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
It has become impossible to manage the router. The routing is working fine otherwise. All clients are being serviced. Indeed, I am using it now to post this. Bandwidth and latency are very good. No issues there.
However, no matter from which machine or browser, Netgear router admin will bounce back to the login screen on about the 3rd menu click. (Chromebook, Windows, Chrome, Opera, IE all tried)
This behavior started recently with no apparent cause (had not just changed anything). I have been unable, despite numerous tries, to get anything done or to even see what the problem might be.
I have tried disconnecting from the WAN completely and using a cable, but it still comes back with 'checking the internet connection' (why? there isn't one) and then logs me out. I can, at most, touch 3 menu items before it does this. This is not enough to get anywhere.
How can I stop these rapid fire logouts that make it impossible to manage this router?
It has become impossible to manage the router. The routing is working fine otherwise. All clients are being serviced. Indeed, I am using it now to post this. Bandwidth and latency are very good. No issues there.
What firmware version do you have on the device?
A number is more useful than "the latest". (It may not be by the time people read this.) There can also be newer versions, or "hot fixes", that do not show up if you check for new firmware in the browser interface.
It might also help if you told people what the modem is in front of this router, if there is one. The model number could be useful. Is it, by any chance, also a router, with a set of LAN ports on the back?
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
I did manage to quickly sneak in an update, so it is now V1.0.4.6. It had the same problem before and after the update.
For the purposes of debugging I completely disconnected the router from anything else, but it still exhibited this behavior. Which struck me as the most odd thing of all. I was logged in using the local login, and it still kicked me out saying it was checking the internet connection. As is the fact that everything else about this router is working fine.
I tried different machines. One Windows 10, the other Windows 7 (which it is, hooray, not able to update), and Chrombooks. Same issue.
It is also the same issue regardless of how attached: cable or wireless. So the OS really isn't a strong factor here.
It might also help if you told people what the modem is in front of this router, if there is one. The model number could be useful. Is it, by any chance, also a router, with a set of LAN ports on the back?
If you have a modem/router on the network, that could be vying with your WAC124 to manage the network.
Where did the A6200|802.11ac Dual Band WiFi USB Adapter in the footer in your latest message come from?
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
I have no idea where that footnote came from. I didn't add it, to my knowledge, but possibly some of these irritating accelerator keys dropped it in there by accident. Ignore it.
I know nothing about this device, except that when I saw in its User Manual that it seemed to want Internet access for management authentication, I decided that I was unlikely ever to buy one.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
It took me a tedious dozen or so attempts, but I finally got it running for long enough to peek at the logs.
The sequence of note is that it says "login" from xxx
then a few seconds later "login failed" from xxx
where xxx is my machine
This corresponds to me logging in, trying to do something, then getting logged out in the middle of doing it. Nothing, to my knowledge has attempted to login or out except for my initial login.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
> [...] Nothing, to my knowledge has attempted to login or out except > for my initial login.
I still know nothing, but I can imagine some problems being caused by the two sets of credentials used to access the management web site on these devices (NETGEAR account e-mail address v. "admin"). Combine that with the multiple names/addresses which can be used in the URL to specify it, and many things are possible. If a web browser saves one set of credentials, say, during the initial set-up (with Internet access), and then, at a later time (without Internet access), the WACxxx expects the other set, then the browser could auto-fill the wrong credentials for later authentications.
No bets, but I'd ensure that the browser has no (or, at least, no unexpected) saved "Logins and Passwords" (Firefox terminology) for any of the names and/or IP addresses which might be use to access this thing.
Of course, it's also possible that there's a bug in the fine Netgear router firmware.
Does the behavior change if it has an Internet connection?
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
I make it point of not saving admin passwords, so nothing saved there. But will investigate the possibility of an errant browser a little more to see if anything comes of that.
No difference to behavior under any conditions I have tried. With/without internet, local/remote login.
There was a brief period when it stayed logged in for 10 minutes or so, but no particular cause that I could think of. Shortly after that, the logouts were back with a vengeance, giving me barely a few seconds before logging me out.
I thought I did answer that: I completely disconnected the router from the network. No wires or anything else into it except the PC.
That tells us that you have tried disconnecting the router from the modem as a debug check. It tells us nothing about the modem you use. Knowing that can be a guide to troubleshooting.
A network is, as the same suggests, a network. It is a set of interconnected devices. Their settings depend on what they see on the network.
It may be irrelevant, but it helps to build up a complete picture of what is on a network.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
Although not terribly useful, I started wireshark to see if anything unusual was going on. It doesn't seem so. What I see is that out of the blue, not related to anything in particular, the router goes and fetches sso.html
It seems, overall, that the timeout interval has shrunk to an unusably short value. It was always extremely short compared to other routers.
I further presume that the execution of this is lazy. It waits for something else, such as a key click, before it triggers the login timeout check. This explanation of a very short timeout (about 10 seconds), would be consistent with the findings to date.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
Out of warranty, so no luck there.
You have a good question there about the sso.html. I didn't note that directly as I should have.
I was more interested by when it occurred.
I recall all those requests go to something like accounts.netgear.com
Yes, it seems to be any 3rd menu item or thereabouts. Doesn't seem to matter which one, and I think the governing factor may be how long it takes me to get to the 3rd click.
As to the other poster regarding the dislike of going to the net to login... Totally agree. It is a royal pain that slows the process down. Also the logout times were never very long, which was another frustration -- trying to set up troublesome devices like TVs that don't quite work right was irksome. Playing login whackamole with the devices.
Also the logout times were never very long, which was another frustration -- trying to set up troublesome devices like TVs that don't quite work right was irksome. Playing login whackamole with the devices.
Does that mean that you see the same behaviour when trying to use a TV's own setup process? So it isn't just the browser GUI for the router?
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
Not sure what the solution in the link was, because what I see is the original problem followed by a post saying 'glad it is working' Can you identify the thread's post number that gives the solution? All I was able to see was discussion of the problem. None of the links to the solution went to a solution. The one indicator was that the problem was fixed in a given release, but mine was updated beyond that.
I used TV as an example. The point is that setting anything up becomes a difficult process when things are logging itself out every time you turn around. The same is true if you are trying to monitor something and/or isolate a problem. Frequent logouts make life very difficult (and have no useful role in security -- just have to head that one off here -- it is the equivalent of wearing 10 seat belts. Just because 1 is good, 10 is not better. Similarly for very fast timeouts. I also detect a sense of arrogance in some of the Netgear responses on this particular issue, suggesting a very narrow interpretation of clients needs and requirements)
As per the original problem, it seems we do not have a solution. At this point, my main option is to trash the router. This would mean that my very long association with netgear is coming to an end. Netgear were my go-to provider for routers. I would like to bring that router back to life if possible, but that optimism is fading.
The Netgear router is still routing fine, but it is impossible to login long enough to get anything done. Today, it logged me out before even getting past the first menu. So the problem is getting worse, not better. Since starting this thread, I have brought up a new router and am transferring clients to it. That is actually going pretty well.
Is there anything else anyone can think of before ditching Netgear altogether?
It is a pretty major design flaw to have a system that prevents its own administration from working properly. Given that it was posted a while back, it seems nobody cares. This is not a small issue about button placement, it is the whole admin failing to work. How more serious does a problem have to be for the right people to take an interest?
It also brings into question what other design choices were made that may be fundamentally flawed.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
To this question "Do you have an account on mynetgear.com with your WAC124 device registered?" Yes.
My tentative guess is clock skew, but it would be a really poor design if that were the issue. That is, the design did not anticipate that the router clock might drift and end up shutting out admin as a consequence. When I tried to check the time on the router, I got nothing because time is not displayed on any of the pages I can get to within the time limit. And, this is just speculation because I really don't know what is going on in there.
The next item on the router foodchain is another Netgear router (Nighthawk). That, so far, is behaving fine.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
Clocks are fine. I briefly managed to get into the NTP page and they accurate to the second.
How, then, does one mess up a token to the point that it requires a re-login within a few seconds?
If the clock is right, and the token has a reasonable validity, what is the mechanism by which this thing keeps logging out?
I looked into the code a little and started experimenting with current_date. It seems that I can set this in the url to get a little more time out of it. I cannot figure out the relationship yet, but a few minutes into the future will allow me to ping about 6 menu items before it logs out. Values well into the future seem to be counter productive.
Could be coincidences, anything is possible, but so far got 2 successful runs out of it using approx 4 minutes into the future. That better than I have managed for the past week.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
So this little trick of buying myself a little more time on the logins allowed me to find out some more about what was going on.
The status indicators contained errors. For example, it showed one wired device and another wireless device as attached when they were not. Refreshing did not change things.
It is clearly confused about something or other. This is fine, if it wasn't for this awful login business which seems to be fundamentally flawed. Not being able to stay logged in makes it near impossible to administer and find the problem. At this point, it seems more of a Netgear having hiccuped than a configuration issue. (2 reasons: 1 because nothing had changed recently, and 2, everything else is working fine). Either way, wherever the problem is, being able to get into administration to figure it out ought to be the most basic thing that absolutely has to work -- always.
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
> How, then, does one mess up a token to the point that it requires a > re-login within a few seconds?
If fiddling with the time changes the behavior, then I'd wonder about timezone/DST confusion. I seem to recall seeing complaints here about both NTP and timezone/DST problems on various models/firmware versions.
> [...] being able to get into administration to figure it out ought to > be the most basic thing that absolutely has to work -- always.
"always" is another of those tricky "time" concepts. If all you need to use this thing is a simple time machine, then what kind of whiner are you?
Have you tried any different/older firmware versions?
Re: Admin won't stay logged in for more than a dozen seconds
OK. Here's what I did. I don't know why this worked, or if it would work for anyone else, but I will add it here for the record. And for anyone desperate enough to want to try anything.
Where the only thing I changed was to add the ¤t_date= item.
This was set to 3 minutes into the future each time I logged in.
This gave me about an extra 30 seconds of login time. This extra time was just enough to bounce around and see problems, to shut things down and clear apparent errors. Without this hack, I had no chance of seeing anything, it just logged out far too fast. Both the fast logouts and this extended one were employed over many many cycles, so it was not a fluke.
After the cleanups, it is now allowing the usual admin operations. Whatever the problem was, it had persisted for about a week.
Note there is an apparently malformed todo= item. That is not a typo. Someone else can look into that one.
