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I tried updating the firmware, and was ready to throw in the towel. It looks like disabling Netgear ARMOR did the trick for me. I really had no interest in it and was just using it as I still had a bit left of my free year.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Yep, pretty sure it was the same issue with my RBR850. I went down a whole rabbithole of investigation + testing, and the problem hasn't returned since I disabled Netgear Armor.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Thanks for the reply and information. Apologies for the upcoming rant, it is not directed at you personally, but Netgear.
I'm happy it's going to be fixed in future updates, but I expected better from Netgear. Armor is a paid for service, and this problem apparently started at least 18 months ago so I would argue that users have been patient. Within that 18 months Netgear have released firmware updates that have *removed* functionality and debugging abilities from the user, making this problem even harder to diagnose. I understand what they say is their reasoning for it, but I don't respect it. This is on top of their lack of communication around the issue, as well as the fact that users have to pay for a support contract for the luxury of submitting a ticket for help.
At the earliest opportunity, I will be putting my Orbi directly in the bin and replacing it with something I can at least debug properly.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Well this one was a hard find. I tried to reproduce it but couldn't. However my Armor had long expired. It was only by another user that posted they happened to disable Armor and found it stopped the crashing. So this was a hard one to find.
I recommend giving new FW another chance when it comes out. I think you'll like it. No sure when though. I presume hopefully soon this year. Be patient.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
My bad. Turns out you can still enable telnet on the latest firmware on the Orbi because cve-2022-38452 still isn't patched. Yay for users being able to properly control the device they bought. Boo for it being insecure (I am aware of PSV-2022-0186 where Netgear absolves themselves of responsibility ...).
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Started happening today with my 960s running latest firmware and Netgear armor.
I'm pretty sure armor needs to be tweaked to not shutdown thinking the large downloads are a dos attack.
I cancelled my armor and will just setup pfsense, but Netgear really needs to get it in gear I found post more than 2 years old reporting this and no fix other than turning off paid services.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
That's good to hear!
I've been debugging it myself too, not gotten as far as I'd like, but managed to permanently reenable SSH on the rbr850 and get at some logs. It looked like after a large/high speed download, some WiFi devices were constantly being disconnected:
Tue Aug 1 23:33:22 2023 kern.err kernel: [70484.068266] Tue Aug 1 23:33:23 2023 kern.info udhcpd: sending ACK to 192.168.10.113 Tue Aug 1 23:33:33 2023 kern.info udhcpd: sendOffer client is already in lease table assign IP 0x730AA8C0 Tue Aug 1 23:33:33 2023 kern.info udhcpd: sending OFFER of 192.168.10.115 ... repeat.
I'm worried that the new update will lock me out of being able to figure some of this out myself. Can you say as to whether it will still allow users to be admin of their router?
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Running the latest update on my 1600 dollars of orbi garbage. Issue is still there. I have to shut off armer anytime we download updates on xboxs or PS5.
Working in IT and seeing how they've limited the debugging ability already I fear this will have to be sold on ebay at a loss. And I won't be recommending the orbi product to anyone going forward.
Firmware updates take way to long to be released and seem to take away features with every release.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Sorry, that's not what I meant. Web UI gives some access, but I'm talking about being able to use the CLI.
I'm hoping that access will remain, considering it's built on OpenWRT anyway? Seems a bit off for Netgear to take a piece of open source software, modify it and sell it, not update it (Chaos Calmer, what the rbr850 is based on was released in 2016), and then lock down the access to the CLI so users don't have the ability to debug or fix it? Is it my hardware or not? 🤷
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
I've been testing Armor on my 960 series and downloads are working with Armor enabled.
The issue has been fixed. NG is just testing the FW all around to ensure it's working. It's in beta and this is a good thing now. Were helping NG find any other issues before NG releases the FW which historically has had bad results for end users. So taking a bit more time in testing is good. So you'll need to be patient and wait for the new FW to get released. If not, find something else.
Running the latest update on my 1600 dollars of orbi garbage. Issue is still there. I have to shut off armer anytime we download updates on xboxs or PS5.
Working in IT and seeing how they've limited the debugging ability already I fear this will have to be sold on ebay at a loss. And I won't be recommending the orbi product to anyone going forward.
Firmware updates take way to long to be released and seem to take away features with every release.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
NG closed the Telnet feature due to security reasons back in 2020 for all Orbi AX systems. Was some mention of going to SSH for more secure use. No idea IF or WHEN that would come about. I would not look forward to that for a while if NG does decide to put that forward.
NG has fixed the Armor issue causing the system to crash with large file downloads. I've been along with a few others have been checking this as I did bring this to NGs attention and so far, all is good.
Just once NG is ready, NG will officially release the FW. I hopeful sometime in the next couple of months. NG did put up a beta offer in the Orbi AX community which now as been closed. So if you missed that, then you'll need to be patient. It's coming and good things are there. Especially for IoT devices and WPA3.
@xangma wrote: Sorry, that's not what I meant. Web UI gives some access, but I'm talking about being able to use the CLI.
I'm hoping that access will remain, considering it's built on OpenWRT anyway? Seems a bit off for Netgear to take a piece of open source software, modify it and sell it, not update it (Chaos Calmer, what the rbr850 is based on was released in 2016), and then lock down the access to the CLI so users don't have the ability to debug or fix it? Is it my hardware or not? 🤷
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Fair enough. I'm all for testing software etc. My issue is, the community does that already. It's based on OpenWRT, so I assume what they're testing is all of their modifications to the pre-existing open source software that they've built on.
What are their modifications?
Armor and Circle (or whatever the parental protection stuff is called), which is proprietary software with subscriptions and not required for the router to function. There are open source versions of these, but they don't make Netgear profit.
Probably closed-source code for their hardware to function - fair enough.
And the rest? Disabling a bunch of useful functions the community has developed for OpenWRT.
When I used the (still unpatched for 6 months) CVE to gain telnet access, I saw that dropbear (ssh) was installed, but disabled. Netgear have literally been spending their time on disabling functionality, and rewriting software for financial gain where open-source versions already exist - all when the hardware itself is ridiculously expensive! Why not spend the time on rebasing the firmware to use a version of OpenWRT that isn't 7 years old?
The open source community is literally a free pool of brilliant coders. Netgear clearly value their work because they use it and build on it. I hate how Netgear are using the money from their customers to hire developers to sell worse versions existing code, and then not allow developers to debug or help fix it for them (which again, would be free!). Madness.
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Yes, testing is for what NG does with there stuff before releasing.
Ya we know about certain issues in the core framework. Were trying to get NG to turn that around. Lots goes one deep down and ya, hasn't been changed in a long time from what we have found out by digging deeper. 🙄
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Can Netgear not just offer a way for users to install vanilla OpenWRT on the hardware they own? I'd much rather use software that is up to date, more secure, and actually maintained, than buggy, old, and needlessly modified versions of it.
There's an EU directive requiring phone companies to maintain security patches, how come Netgear gets away with focusing on software development for profit instead of fixing bugs and exploits ... It's just tiring 😞
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
Have no idea. I presume they choose not too. I know other Mfrs allow for 3rd party FW and some NH routers have some support for these routers. MESH systems are different and are more complex so I presume NG chooses to keep this closed to 3rd party FW. I only know of one who finally started supporting Orbi 50 series a few years ago. Took a while. Voxel. But he seems limited to keeping to one branch of FW and doesn't work with anything beyond that for the 50 series. I believe there maybe some new code that may prevent him from using new stuff from NG or he doesn't want to deal with the hassles of newer stuff from NG. He hasn't picked up Orbi AX as of yet and no idea if he plans too. Also seen issues at the GPL level as well.
I believe there is some security development in the mix. How much and what actually gets done or updated, we'll never know. Any security issues and information is here:
Re: Orbi RBR750 with Armor crashes with large downloads
I'll most likely be listing mine on eBay soon, I bought it for the parental controls feature... Well that was broke for 4 months would not show up in the app or online, then 2 months of devices not showing up in the devices list, and now since 2022, and back as far as 2020 people have been reporting these issues. I guess the good reviews are from people buying overpriced hardware and never doing big downloads
Several of my coworkers are running the new Asus 6e routers with open source firmware and satellites with no issues at all, orbi needs to step up their game for what they are charging.
Outdated firmware and broken products at the top price of consumer grade hardware is a bad sign for them.
