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Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Newfiedrool
Virtuoso

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

I noticed on one of your early threads support had you change to cloudflare and all was fine until you changed DNS. 

Hope all goes well with your new router.

Message 51 of 233
mrDisc0
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Hi everyone,

 

I've been also experincing the EXACT same issue.  I've just been dealing with the DNS setting manually via direct on the OS level of the devices I can as a temporary fix.  I've owned the router for over 6+ months without this issue and it just cropped early March 2020.  I am currently on the .114 firmware, which I had upgraded from an older one hoping it would fix the issue.  It did not.  I have made no changes to my network or router or any new devices added in the past 3 months.

 

I'm hoping there is a solve soon, it's kinda crazy for something to crop up completely out of nowhere.

 

Please advise, I am willing to try beta firmwares but as I can see from the message thread - they don't seem to be working out too well.

 

Thanks all.

 

 

 

 

Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 52 of 233
kschroed
Star

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Still stable after factory reset, and adding back minimum configurations changes manually, not from backup.  3 days now but looks like when I enabled Telnet yesterday morning device rebooted, so its technically been rebooted once since my factory reset but not due to issue.  Haven't had any udpates on my support case with netgear since I told them there was no point in my putting my device in AP Only mode. 

Message 53 of 233
Topology
Virtuoso

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

FYI:  Readers of this thread may find it interesting that the issue of intermittent DNS problems appears to have a history, extending back more than five years – see Another DNS problem with Netgear router.

Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 54 of 233
kschroed
Star

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Geeze people asking 5 years ago to pass the configured DNS servers and not use the router for DNS Proxy. One comment saying your feature requested is noted.  Apparently not or they have a rediculously long backlog.  This is such a trivlal standard configuration management software development activity is very sad it hasn't been added. Customers open support cases should get filed as defects or features in some tracking system.  Really highlights the poor software development practices. I've used plenty of netgear products in the past with little issues but will certainly reconsider future purchases. 

Message 55 of 233
rax120_rax80
Apprentice

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Here's the latest update. I factory reset the router, upgraded to .114, and manually made my setting changes rather than re-importing the config. So far I've been running about 14 hours without interruption. I'm stll pessamistic, cuz another person on the forum ran for longer and then had the issue repeat. If this does solve it for at least a few months, it's nice to have a semi-acceptable work around. However, factory resetting your router and manually changing your settings is not a solution. Especially when you have 50 clients to add to the MAC filtering list and QoS to setup for these devices. Netgear needs to address this already. As another member posted, this is an issue going five years back across other platforms. 

 

 

Message 56 of 233
Newfiedrool
Virtuoso

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

QoS needs a bit of refining, I'm surprised you use it to be honest.
a lot of routers need a reset after driver updates not just Netgear. You can get away it but if you spot an issue it has to be done.

There's a fair few routers from other manufacturers that reboot at set intervals or have real nasty buggy firmware too so in the world of routers nothing is bug or hassle free nowadays. 120 though is coming on nicely and let's hope you have solved the issue.

Message 57 of 233
avtella
Prodigy

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Not just with Netgear but even on a pro platform router I’ve found at times simply carrying on without a wipe in instanced ended up being problematic.

What would help is if Netgear allowed us to backup specific parts of the firmware like static IP and or Attached Devices naming/descriptions. That way if we really had to do a clean install it wouldn’t be a huge hassle and you could even port static IPs/descriptions to other routers within the brand.
Message 58 of 233
rax120_rax80
Apprentice

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Yeah, QoS isn't the greatest on these devices... I'm going to move back to a pfsense firewall soon and will basically use this as a dumb WiFi AP. I totally agree about doing a clean wipe as a good practice as well. It's just frustrating that I had the issue repeat after reimporting from a factory reset, which makes me think its a combination of settings that caused the issue. But now I'm unsure with the stabiity I'm having after doing a manually reimport. It would be great if Netgear would support an open API so we could just push our settings from a script or manifest. 

Message 59 of 233
Newfiedrool
Virtuoso

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Hopefully QoS will improve.

At least all is ok at the moment, just keep an eye on it and see how it goes. Touch wood it's ok now.

Message 60 of 233
avtella
Prodigy

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Yeah same boat lol, I got a SuperMicro server for pFsense 2 weeks back, and switched the RAX120 to AP mode as well.
Message 61 of 233
FiatNox
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

I have the exact same issue. Running fine since December until this pops up in early March with 0 changes from me. This is bizarre. What happened in March to set this off for everyone? Is it related to daylight savings somehow?
Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 62 of 233
rax120_rax80
Apprentice

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

I'm betting there is a code issue that was triggered after the DST change. I've thought about disabling it to see if it makes a difference. Not a big deal if the router clock is an hour off. 

 

Regarding the issue, I'm running for over 24 hours without a failure after a factory reset and manually changing my config to match my preexisting setup. It was a big PITA since I have 75 clients on my ACL, some port forwarding, and reserved IPs. If this becomes a thing that needs to be done every few months, it's going to be a major hassle. Anyway, if I make it through a week with no issues, great. If not, I'll try a cronjob running every 30 minutes with ./etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart. Hopefully that will fix me for the long term until I can deploy a more enterprise class solution. 

Message 63 of 233
Topology
Virtuoso

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

"What happened in March to set this off for everyone?" (FiatNox)

 

Just an observation: “Mozilla has started rolling out encrypted DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) by default for US users of the nonprofit's Firefox browser.” (25 FEB 2020; Firefox now defaults to DNS-over-HTTPS for US netizens)

 

Also:  “In the US, Firefox by default directs DoH queries to DNS servers that are operated by CloudFlare” (Firefox DNS-over-HTTPS)

 

Is this observation a piece of the puzzle, in a way that has yet to be identified?

Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 64 of 233
reddle01
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

 It *MIGHT* be the really short TTL's on some DNS hosts (short TTL and wrong time settings means your DNS cache expires as soon as the entry hits). Might be the issue with the caching DNS server on the router expiring entries and getting stuck in a constant loop. PCAP outside interface of the router and see if the requests to external dns happens over and over again. GMT/UTC should have been used in the code, and the router should update the local time based of NTP somewhere. Maybe a code bug doesn't update dnsmasq with the correct GMT offset or somehting. I would pull your "/etc/dnsmasq.conf" if you can via telnet and also see if you have access to tail "/var/log/syslog" or wherever netgear keeps the dnsmasq logs. There might be something interesting in there. 

 

As soon as I get my AX12 and EX8000's installed I guess I'll find out if I hit this bug as well.

Message 65 of 233
Sujag1998
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

My ax12 has worked flawlessly since October 2019. Yesterday, it started going offline. Why is this? I’ve spent too much money for this to happen. A reboot of the device temporarily fixes this. However, I need a permanent fix?
Message 66 of 233
welchyboy
Star

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Hello I am chiming in to see what everyone thinks is the best fix for them. I have the rax120 and determined it is a dns issue. I would have to reboot at least once a day and if i rebooted from the app it would wipe my settings. I changed the dns on the router to 8.8.8.8 and it worked through the night but in the morning it was down again. I installed the 118 fw and didn't seem to help. I will try and factory reset it when I get home...I have done this before but not after installing fw 118. I read someone has a beta fw that they are testing that is not the public beta 118. Has this fixed the issue? This is super frustrating I have over 40 devices and everything I have to reboot or something it causes more issues.

Message 67 of 233
Killhippie
Prodigy

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

I use my ISP's DNS server, it is a small niche provider called IDNet which use DNSSEC on their dns servers. I have mine set to pick up DNS automatically. I really suggest a factory reset via the pinhole in the router, and since 1.0.1.118 is beta hotfix and there may possibly be issues, although I am not them seeing myself just use your ISP's DNS servers untill the next update, compromise sometimes is the best way with beta firmware. Also contact Netgear if you are within the support period to report this issue bearing in mind Covid-19 will mean delays. Always factory reset after every update and never use a config file to restore your device which will bring back low level code changes into the new firmware update which is is known to cause issues, always lean on the side of caution even if it takles longer to set up. 

Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 68 of 233
kschroed
Star

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Factory reset and manual config re-entry after v118 code upgrade and things have been stable for me for over a week now.  

Message 69 of 233
rax120_rax80
Apprentice

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Agreed. I've tried every combination of code, static DNS servers, etc. The only long term fix (running a little under a week with no reoccurance) is to factory reset the device after upgrading the code, and manually changing your settings. Do not re-import your settings via the config file, cuz it carries over the problem. Don't bother with the .115 beta code. Just stick with .114 or .118. 

 

It's a bunch of nonsense and a big hassle to those with a lot of changes from factory defaults to say the least... 

Message 70 of 233
Newfiedrool
Virtuoso

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/faq-nvram-and-factory-default-reset.22822/

have a read why resets are required. Note it's RMerlin's post who's code is used is Asus and he has his own folk which is very well regarded. 
Netgear, tp link, you name it, they all use NVRAM, it's not just Netgear that require factory resets it's just than most end users have little knowledge on how their routers work which is not say it's their fault but it's part of the learning curve.

Message 71 of 233
Sujag1998
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

I haven't updated to x.118 yet.  How long did it take to reset the router?  My concern is that I am working from home and I don't want to make my situation worse. 

Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 72 of 233
kschroed
Star

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

I would plan on at least 10 minutes, by the time you re-set it up with some minimal Wireless configureation exactly as you have now. and aren't trying to restore a bunch of QoS or other filtering configurations.   Also make sure you either have a hardwire connnect to do config or you have your QR code so you can use the Nighthawk app.  

Message 73 of 233
Newfiedrool
Virtuoso

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects


@Sujag1998 wrote:

I haven't updated to x.118 yet.  How long did it take to reset the router?  My concern is that I am working from home and I don't want to make my situation worse. 


It does not not take long, 118 is a security patch that's needed for safety when you log in.

A reset for me takes all of 10 mins max. Use the rear pin method and setup as before using the same credentials so everything connects. Just don't use a saved config file.

Message 74 of 233
welchyboy
Star

Re: RAX120 Router Random Disconnects

Well it seems like everyone is on the same page....so it looks like a factory reset is in order. I will take care of that tonight.

Message 75 of 233
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