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Netflix Android app crashes through R7000 router, works fine on all other networks
Our Linksys router died recently. After not making it more than about 2 years on our last two Linksys routers, I decided to come back and give Netgear a try. I'd had good luck with them in the past. I purchased a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 Wireless Router. For the most part I am very pleased with our new router. Wired connections are fast and stable. Wi-Fi is fast and stable on either network with one exception. I cannot get Netflix to work consistently over Wi-Fi on our Samsung tablets. Every device that is wired works well and Netflix has no issues. If we use our Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 tablets to connect, the app will start and, when switching to the library/selection screen, we get the little swirling busy icon for about ten seconds, then the app crashes back to the home screen. We have no issues whatsoever if we turn our phones into mobile hotspots and connect to them. We have no issues on any other Wi-Fi networks that we have attempted to use. The only time we have this problem is on our home Wi-Fi network administered by our R7000 router.
I called tech support a few weeks ago, and they walked me through performing a factory reset on our router, thinking maybe something didn't take quite right during our initial setup. They walked me through initial setup again. Once we were done, bam!, Netflix was back and was working well. However, within a couple of days, the same problem started. The Android Netflix app was crashing on our home network. Again, no problems over mobile data and no problems on any other Wi-Fi network we checked. The problem was only exhibited through our home network. If I reset the network and perform initial setup again, Netflix will work fine again, for a limited time; anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days. Since installing our new router, I have not been able to make it more than three or four days without this problem arising and requiring a factory reset to "fix" it.
Our router is currently at version V1.0.4.30_1.1.67 and update says No new firmware version available.
Has anyone else experienced issues like this or does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks.
- Byron
There are two parts of a VPN connection:
- The VPN "client" which attempts to open a VPN "tunnel" into a host so that all traffic between the client and host are encrypted and thus protected from being observed along the path.
- The VPN "host" which waits for devices to connect.
The OpenVPN that is included in Netgear routers is an OpenVPN host, not a client. The purpose is to allow the router administrator to connect to the router when not connected to the local network. I have OpenVPN configured on two Orbi routers so that I can connect to them and manage them remotely.
NordVPN's host is at various locations in the world. Customers install a NordVPN client on their local computer(s) so that they can connect to the NordVPN in a secure manner and then connect to other internet locations and appear to be coming from Nord. Nord hides their true location.
There is no problem doing both at the same time. A computer in the local network can install the NordVPN client and open a VPN tunnel to Nord at the same time as the Orbi router's OpenVPN host is waiting for a connection from the internet. You devices that are running NordVPN cannot detect that OpenVPN is running on the Orbi. Likewise, the Orbi cannot detect that your device is running NordVPN.
People often want to have their WiFi Router act as a VPN client and have every device on the local network pass through a single VPN tunnel for secure and anonymous access to the internet. Netgear routers do not support becomming a VPN client to do this. There are routers which can do this. Nord mentions several in their web pages. There is even a third party firmware for the Orbi RBR50 (only that model, not on the RBR20) which can act as either an OpenVPN client or as a Wireguard client. But Netgear routers running Netgear firmware cannot become VPN Clients.
Will VPN make a Netgear router more secure? No. As it is, the Netgear router will not accept any connection from the interent. It cannot be "taken over" from the internet.
Hope this helps.
12 Replies
Thanks for the suggestion but, no, we have Time Warner Cable and there is no login required.
Also, were this the issue, I would think that it would have always been a problem. This is a problem that has only arisen since the installation of our Netgear R7000 router.
On the off-chance that this could help with my issue, I looked at the link you provided and followed the instructions there. I came up with with an optimum MTU of 1500. When I check my router settings, MTU Size is already set at 1500.
Ok, it was a stab in the dark. I can't think of any reason why the R7000 could cause your Netflix app to crash. The only thing it does to the traffic is NAT. Most of the time that should be transparent to applications.
