Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

dfilip
Guide

BR500 Rebooting Itself

I've noticed that my BR500 occasionally reboots itself.  Has anyone else noticed this?

 

It started doing this after I did the following (not sure which, if any, contributed): upgraded firmware to 5.5.0, connected to Insight for $, configured Insight VPN connection for $.  These were all done to get a working VPN connection for a business trip, but the VPN connection was only used a few times several weeks ago, and the reboots occur when I am not connected to VPN (haven't used it in over a month).  Not sure if any of this matters, but figured that I would document it, since I didn't see the reboots before any of these changes.

 

The symptoms, which appear to be random, are:

 

1) I lose connection to the Internet from my network, although initially all the LEDs on the BR500 look good.

 

2) After a few seconds, the Internet LED on the BR500 changes from green to orange.

 

3) After a few more seconds, all of the LEDs on the BR500 turn off for a few seconds, then the power LED turns orange, then the Internet LED turns orange ... usual visual indication that the BR500 is booting.

 

4) After several more seconds, all LEDs return to normal state, Internet starts blinking green, and I have Internet connectivity again.

 

5) Looking at the BR500 logs from the console, the first entry is always [Initialized, firmware version: V5.X.X.X]

 

Noticing that firmware 5.6 was out, I've since upgraded to V5.6.0.1, but am still seeing occasional and random reboots.

 

Has anyone else experienced anything like this with the BR500?

 

Model: BR500|Insight Instant VPN Router
Message 1 of 19

Accepted Solutions
dfilip
Guide

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

[Sorry to cross-post, but I made the error of splitting and overlaping my problems across two different threads here, and I want to accept this as my solution to both].

 

Just an FYI to anyone else who experiences any of this: I have disconnected my BR500 from the Insight service, rebooted the router, and the VPN messages have stopped (obviously!), the "NAT loopback" is allowing my LAN to reliably take advantage of port forwarding (sub-second connection again, before was either hanging or taking 10+ seconds to connect), and my router has stopped randomly rebooting itself.  Also, I am no longer seeing the sporadic high-CPU (sporadically 30 - 60+ percent) on the BR500.

 

Of course I no longer have any VPN (as ports 12973 (TUN) and 12974 (TAP) hang, even when the Open VPN service is enabled, which is the only reason why I enabled Insight + Instant VPN).  But having a stable, reliable, working router is much more important to me.

 

Another user on this forum shared that Netgear had suggested disconnecting from Insight as a possible solution to the random reboots, which is why I am sharing this, in the hope that it may help others.

 

No promises, your milage may vary, void where prohibited by law, etc., but for anyone who is at their wits end and frustrated with the BR500, as I was, this maybe a possible solution to regain stability if you can live without the Insight service.

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Message 19 of 19

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warsawtech
Tutor

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

I've noticed this in mine. In the last 4 weeks it's rebooted itself twice and when it did it returned to factory defaults. I'm on Firmware 5.6.0.1

It's getting a little bit tiring for me as I have 10 clients I'm wanting to put these in, but with the continued issues I hesitate. When you can't reach it in the Insight cloud you really can't restore the config unless you're onsite. Clients are from 10 miles to 1200 miles from our office. Trying to walk people through blowing the config back on the router is next to impossible.

I'm hoping Netgear can get a stable firmware to fix this behavior

Model: BR500|Insight Instant VPN Router
Message 2 of 19
dfilip
Guide

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Ah, very intersting ... mine has probably rebooted itself about +/- 6  times that I've noticed ... might have rebooted more times that I didn't notice since the outage only lasts a couple of minutes ... over the past 8 weeks, on both 5.5.0.1 and 5.6.0.1, and only one time did it reset back factory defaults ... which was a WTF moment for me, but fortunately I had a recent config backup that I could reload.  Though I certainly understand your concern about remote support.

 

Just curious, have you contacted NETGEAR about it?  Yeah, I know it is difficult to get support for problems that are not happening RIGHT THIS MOMEMENT with them, but just to report the incidents?  And yes, they will want you to reset your devices to factor defaults, reload the latest firmware, reload your configuration, rinse, repeat, etc.  However, since I know that other people are experiencing this as well, I may open a ticket.  Even if you have already,  I might want to reference your ticket # (which you can send me in a private message, if you don't want to post it here).  Thanks.

 

 

Message 3 of 19
warsawtech
Tutor

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Actually the latest instance occurred this AM. I was going to put in another ticket, but hadn't got to it today. Thought I'd check out the community to see if others were experiencing this issue. Funny thing is I'm a Netgear Powershift Partner and I still get fricking India for support. After 5 transfers I sometimes finally get an english speaking person. I see from what you said about reset, update firmware again reboot and rinse, then repeat.......oh I forgot the critical thing...Please upload your logs to hear the dreaded, "We don't see the problem in the logs" or you don't know what your doing so leave us alone.

I had high hopes when I saw Netgear come out with a new router and I really love Insight. I've been installing numerous switches with Insight and some of their new WAP.

Model: BR500|Insight Instant VPN Router
Message 4 of 19
dfilip
Guide

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Ok, I'll submit a ticket ... feel free to submit your ticket number(s) to me through a private message, so that I can at least request -- not sure if they'll do it -- be added to the ticket.

 

Yes, know what you mean about India ... at times, I have called and had to say "have a nice day", hang up, and then call back once or twice until I got someone that I could understand.  Some might say that is our problem ... 😞 ... but when dealing with technical issues, clarity of communications is paramount.  I'm putting this in writing so that NETGEAR management might read this and understand our frustation.

 

Also, I've been through the "standard play book" so many times, my advice to you and others is: do the factory reset, reload the latest firmware, reload your configuration, and THEN open a ticket, letting them know that you just did all of that (and really do it!).  That allows you to short-circuit the "standard play book" and jump straight to the real problem.

 

Oh, so far I have not done that with the BR500, but I had a FVS318G, and later upgraded to a FVS318Gv2, both of which I loved when they worked, but both tended to become unstable and hang or freeze after about +/- 2 years.  I replaced each one once under "free ProSafe" coverage, but having "free overnight shipping replacement" (as you got with ProSafe) doesn't feel like a privilige when you have to deal with failing hardware and loss of Internet access.

 

I am hoping for better luck with the BR500 ... and I stuck with NETGEAR only because I generally like their software and feature set ... until the BR500 was released -- I got mine in March -- assuming it would have AT LEAST the same capaiblites as the FVS318Gv2 ... and was surprised to learn that it didn't ... but encouraged that we're getting new features with every firmware release.  So I am still cautiously optmistic.

 

 

 

 

Message 5 of 19
warsawtech
Tutor

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

I was told by my rep back in February that a firmware update was pending that would turn Port 1 into a second WAN port which would really fit my needs. I loved the FVS318Gv2 also FVS336G dual WAN which I have 6 still in use.

I'll file a ticket tomorrow and shoot you a PM with the ticket number.

-Henry

Model: BR500|Insight Instant VPN Router
Message 6 of 19
warsawtech
Tutor

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

I have to apo;ogize I didn't get a ticket in yet, but going to today. Yesterday the unit reset itself 2x out of the blue.

==Henry

Model: BR500|Insight Instant VPN Router
Message 7 of 19
warsawtech
Tutor

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

I was a few days late in submitting a ticket and the my 90 days were up. Out of desperation I went ahead and purchased a one year service contract. One phone call and I had a RMA and another one coming.

Tricky way to get money out of clients since things hadn't been right for quite awhile.

Model: BR500|Insight Instant VPN Router
Message 8 of 19
MrJoshW
NETGEAR Expert

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Hello,

 

Let me send you a private message on this issue.

Message 9 of 19
jdrch
Apprentice

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Same problem here. This thing can't seem to stay on for longer than a week without crashing. Posted about it on Reddit.

Message 10 of 19
jdrch
Apprentice

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

UPDATE: Filed a support ticket to start a paper trail. Tech said they had one other case of this on file and it was from a previous firmware version. Solution for now is to remove the device from Insight and see what happens from there.

Of course, removing a device from a service it's named after to fix a serious issue doesn't say much good about the device or service.

Message 11 of 19
dfilip
Guide

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Actually, I started having the reboot problem right after I signed up for the Insight service service for $$$ and purchased a VPN license for $$$.  I would love to remove my router from Insight, but I can't figure out how?  When I login to Insight, I see the account status is 'Active', but when I click on My Devices I just get options for upgrading my subscrition or buying device credits.

 

I also have a message every minute showing up in my logs that I think is related to this: '[VPN] vppnctl: vpn enabled', as I have OpenVPN turned off and have not configured IPSec.

 

Any ideas on how to remove my device from Insight?  I only added it because I could not get OpenVPN working, and never wanted Insight to begin with.

 

Message 12 of 19
dfilip
Guide

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Never mind ... I *think* the problem was that I had previously (back in April?) purchased VPN for $$$ but just signed up for Insight Trial ... so I just seleced Insight Trial, and was able to see my device, and then remove it from Insight.  Fingers crossed hopefully this will help.

 

I also am no longer getting a 'VPN connected' message in the logs every minute.

 

I do have a problem where by sometimes my port forwards are being delayed (10 - 20 seconds) or blocked entirely from my LAN.  This was supposedly fixed in the 5.6.0.1 firmware:

 

  • Fixes the issue where the NAT loopback was blocked by firewall. This release allows the NAT loopback to go through the firewall.

and I thought was working reliably until recently, but now I'm having sporadic problems with it (it always works relaibly from the WAN, and connects sub-second from the WAN across about 6 forwarded ports, but from my LAN, it sometimes connects immediately, and sometimes is delayed 10-20 seconds, and sometimes never connects).

 

Message 13 of 19
jdrch
Apprentice

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself


@dfilip wrote:

Never mind ... I *think* the problem was that I had previously (back in April?) purchased VPN for $$$ but just signed up for Insight Trial ... so I just seleced Insight Trial, and was able to see my device, and then remove it from Insight.  Fingers crossed hopefully this will help.

 

I also am no longer getting a 'VPN connected' message in the logs every minute.

 

I do have a problem where by sometimes my port forwards are being delayed (10 - 20 seconds) or blocked entirely from my LAN.  This was supposedly fixed in the 5.6.0.1 firmware:

 

  • Fixes the issue where the NAT loopback was blocked by firewall. This release allows the NAT loopback to go through the firewall.

and I thought was working reliably until recently, but now I'm having sporadic problems with it (it always works relaibly from the WAN, and connects sub-second from the WAN across about 6 forwarded ports, but from my LAN, it sometimes connects immediately, and sometimes is delayed 10-20 seconds, and sometimes never connects).

 


Use UPnP for port forwarding if you can. Thankfully that's one thing Netgear is generally very good at implementing. I was getting the "VPN connected" log entry too, which made 0 sense since no VPN was active at the time. Unless Insight works by silently using a VPN to connect to the router, which would be astoundingly bad engineering.

Message 14 of 19
warsawtech
Tutor

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

Since I put in the replacement BR500 it's been humming along with no issues. The night I was getting ready to switch it out I logged into the old router and CPU was pegged at 100%. I rebooted it for fun and it reset itself again. But Netgear contacted me for case# so they can pull it and send it to engineering

Model: BR500|Insight Instant VPN Router
Message 15 of 19
jdrch
Apprentice

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

I'm already looking at pfSense appliances. If I can't get the rebooting issues resolved this piece of junk is going on Ebay.

 

BTW, the Netgear unmanaged gigabit switches I have work just flawlessly. I'm really surprised the BR500's software is so garbage, because the hardware specs are impressive.

Message 16 of 19
MrJoshW
NETGEAR Expert

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

In regards to the port forwarding being delayed. Is it certain hosts on the lan that are getting delayed/rejected? Or is it any hosts you are attempting to connect to? Are you able to get a packet capture from wan to lan so we can see what happens when an outside connection is trying to connect to a host on the lan?

Message 17 of 19
dfilip
Guide

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

It was any hosts ... and ports ... but only when connecting from the LAN to the BR500 external IP, whereas from the WAN to the BR500 external IP worked fine.

 

But I think now all is good again ... everything seems to be working again with "NAT loopback", such that I can reliably connect to all of the ports and all of the hosts that I have port forwarding on.

 

I removed the BR500 from my Insight account, the once-per-minute VPN messages have stopped, the LAN port forwarding seems to be working again, and so far no random reboots or high CPU usage ... fingers crossed! 😉 

Message 18 of 19
dfilip
Guide

Re: BR500 Rebooting Itself

[Sorry to cross-post, but I made the error of splitting and overlaping my problems across two different threads here, and I want to accept this as my solution to both].

 

Just an FYI to anyone else who experiences any of this: I have disconnected my BR500 from the Insight service, rebooted the router, and the VPN messages have stopped (obviously!), the "NAT loopback" is allowing my LAN to reliably take advantage of port forwarding (sub-second connection again, before was either hanging or taking 10+ seconds to connect), and my router has stopped randomly rebooting itself.  Also, I am no longer seeing the sporadic high-CPU (sporadically 30 - 60+ percent) on the BR500.

 

Of course I no longer have any VPN (as ports 12973 (TUN) and 12974 (TAP) hang, even when the Open VPN service is enabled, which is the only reason why I enabled Insight + Instant VPN).  But having a stable, reliable, working router is much more important to me.

 

Another user on this forum shared that Netgear had suggested disconnecting from Insight as a possible solution to the random reboots, which is why I am sharing this, in the hope that it may help others.

 

No promises, your milage may vary, void where prohibited by law, etc., but for anyone who is at their wits end and frustrated with the BR500, as I was, this maybe a possible solution to regain stability if you can live without the Insight service.

Message 19 of 19
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