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First, Sorry that this got to long. Please feel free to ignore and not read the whole thing. I just wanted to relay my experience and how I have the router behaving very well now.
So I have been plagued with this stupid problem to the point of where I started to look for a different router.
But I'm holding off because I seem to have the router cooperating a lot more by doing a couple of things every day or two, that seem to keep it operating just fine now.
I haven't HAD TO reboot it in a couple of weeks or so! THAT'S PROGRESS!
So first, let me say, I think that ONE of the major problems with this router and its firmware versions, is that it does not handle massive traffic very well, EVEN THOUGHT IT'S A 'GAMING" router.
For my gaming server (which I no longer run or bother with), I had a bunch of ports forwarded to my server's static IP. Being that these particular ports are well known for the environment I was running, there were constant attacks by :
Russia
China
and a few other countries where reporting bad actors was useless.
At one point, so that I wouldn't have to totally remove all the redirects, I just put in a fake IP that went no where on my network, so that any attacks to any of those port ranges would just go to that fake IP.
I also set up huge ranges to redirect attacks to there as well... THAT WAS A MISTAKE!!!! That's because the router would STILL try to process the requests rather than just ignoring them.
I would notice my entire network starting to grind to a halt , so I'd check the logs and see hundreds of attacks, trying to get into my server. From Remote Desktop attempts to DoS attacks to port hammering, etc.
I'd have to reboot my router and the modem that connects me to my ISP. Doing so would get me a new external IP as well as clear the cache in the router. I would also clear the logs, apply and refresh to clean that up.
Sometimes, I couldn't even log into the router and I would have to power cycle it.
I still have some ports open for my security cameras so that I can access away from home.
But with that, I still had the router choke up every couple of days.
I finally decided to REMOVE ALL PORT FORWARDING except for my cameras. Those are vital.
Well that settled things down A LOT!
However, then I would see those same countries trying to access my cameras.
So for those, I tightened up their passwords. At least it won't be easy for those BOZOS to monitor my cams.
But still, the router was not stable. Sure, it was a lot more stable, but I still had to reboot every few days!
To troubleshoot this problem, I have a Command Prompt constantly pinning google.com -t. When the router would start to get wonky, I'd see packets dropping from the ping.... INTERESTING.
Sure enough, in the logs, I would see attacks, including still, DoS attacks.
But something still didn't seem right.
So then, I added another command prompt window and constantly piinged the router's internal IP. I wanted to see if pinging outside my network to the internet would fail, but internal pinging was ok.
Sometimes, this was the case ,but other times, more often, when one would start dropping packets, so would the other! HMMMMM
So then, I powered up my laboratory computer, which sits right beside the router and is wired directly into it. This computer does NOT go through anything else, no switches, nothing. I also ran a command prompt, pinging the router as well.
Now, with 3 pings being monitored, I could get a better visual on where the breakdown is happening.
So now here is where I found what is in fact one of the biggest problems with this dammed router.
THE LOGS! Yes! THE FREAK'N LOGS!
What I discovered that as the log file increased in size, is when the router would start to get wonky!
I could see dropped packets on the external ping, then drops on this machine that pings the router (but it goes through switches). But sometimes, the Lab computer wasn't seeing drops!
But then, I'd start seeing drops on the connected Lab computer.
I started monitoring the logs closer but nothing unexpected was seen.
I did notice, however, that the drops were right around the time that the attackers were trying to get connected to the ports that I did have open.
But at other times, even with that, there was no issues.
I got into the habit of clearing the logs so I would get a clear picture each time.
It's then that I noticed, when I cleared the logs, within seconds, the dropping of packets stopped and the router settled back down!
I've seen this kind of file corruption in older software, but I would have thought that in 2020/2021 there would be much better routines to keep caching in check.
So, very long story short,
- remove any port forwarding that you do not NEED
- do not set up huge ranges of ports to forward to a fake IP (if you don't forward ports, the router will just ignore requests to ports not listed)
- clear the log daily (at least to confirm if this solves the problem).
Just enter your router's model number (make sure it correct) and go to the support page. You should be able to see archived and/or older versions listed there. I was able to download several older version to test. Then, just unzip the file, save the firmware file somewhere easy to get to, then update the router by pathing to where you have the update. I'd suggest that before doing that, go into the area where you can save your configuration. I do that, but I also do page snapshots and keep them in a spread sheet. For my port forwarding I can highlight everything and just paste it into a spread sheet.
My AC1900 needed reboots multiple times each day. And, as previously mentioned, I had to go to netgear.com to find the latest firmware (1.0.11.123.10.2.100 hot fix). But, I also found an old ticket I submitted in 04/2019 where I was told to change my 2.4 channel to 11 and my 5 channel to 161. Lastly, connect to WAN with cable and change WAN Setup MTU Size to 1450. (I always run wireless, but changed this also.) So far, for the last 12 hours, I’m still up and running!
Model: A7000|Nighthawk AC1900 WiFi USB Adapter - USB 3.0
The lights on the front/top of the router disappear except for one that is orange on the left and a white one on the right (mounted 10 feet up a wall and poor eyesight. Don’t ask which lights plz) wireless takes a dump and going to 192.168.1.1 let’s me log in but any menu selection gives me that spinning icon. Removing the power for five seconds “fixes” the problem.
Model: R7000P|Nighthawk AC2300 Smart WiFi Dual Band Gigabit Router
Our family was suffering from multiple required reboots daily. Initially, when we bought the router it worked well for about 3 months. It's been 3 months of annoying reboot after reboot. I tried resets, channel changes only using 2.4 etc. to no avail. I finally found this advice and will report back with results. The firmware replacement was straightforward. Thank you all for your expertise in this matter. The router seems to be sufficient for our family when it isn’t offline.
Model: A7000|Nighthawk AC1900 WiFi USB Adapter - USB 3.0
So taking the firmware back to .42 has resolved our router issue. We have had zero issues with the router since.
If you keep having to reboot your router definitely follow the instructions for installing the older firmware. Also, I am not that techy and the directions in this thread were complete and accurate. Thanks again all.
Model: A7000|Nighthawk AC1900 WiFi USB Adapter - USB 3.0
All I can tell you is that I'm still on version V1.0.11.116_10.2.100 I WAS having the problem a lot and even down grading didn't help. But there are 2 things that I have discovered. For one, In Advanced, Administration, Logs I only have checked, the following: Include in Log - Connections to the Web-based interface of this Router - Router operation (startup, get time etc) - Known DoS attacks and Port Scans - Automatic Internet connection reset I originally disabled all of them, then slowly re-enabled one-by-one to see where the problem was. I ended up with the above and the router failing just stopped. HOWEVER..... Last week I was playing with "Ready SHARE" and I was surprised at how well it worked. So I wanted to copy up my main data drive to the drive connected to it. We're talking terabytes of data, so this was going to take hours. I left it running over night and some time during the night, THE ROUTER AGAIN FROZE UP and stopped working!!! I went to the router to power cycle it and when I touched the top, it was pretty hot. I have a lot of old mini fans around, 12V ones, so I took a small fan and taped it to the right side vents. The right side is where it was the hottest. Since then, the router runs cool and no more problems. Mind you, I removed Ready SHARE as I can't take a chance that THIS was the actual problem. I bought a stand-alone NAS to do the work. Since then, with the fan and the firmware version above, the router has been fine again. Before the Ready SHARE experiment and after the stripping down of the logs, the router had run for some months without a problem. So I do think the logging has a lot to do with it. Perhaps if it's logging a lot of stuff, the router can't keep up and/or the cache overflows... I am not sure, but SOMETHING isn't right with that. I did not go to .42 because of the lack of features. Hope that helps.
Model: R7000P|Nighthawk AC2300 Smart WiFi Dual Band Gigabit Router
And cooling. After last week, I believe the 2 are related. Just put a small fan, like from a computer over the vents on the right top close to the antenna that's there. I used a small fan rather than a 5" kind. So if you have that, this would be fine. I just used ordinary scotch tape to hole it in place so that it's blowing down into the vent. You'll know in minutes if it's cooling properly. You can feel the heat right in that are, and the heat should go away after a few minutes of the fan running. Hope that helps.
This is excellent! We may be proving what I've found, which if Netgear were to pay attention, might look at their code for the logging routines. While I'm no longer a programmer for any company (I just write my own software for my own uses) my suspicion here is that there's a major memory leak and/or issues with coding for the caching routines.
What seems to be consistent is after a while of the logs building, is when the router "freezes" up. It's like there's no more memory space for other routines, like... ROUTING, to use.
Time will tell.
May I ask, did you put a small fan on the rear, right corner over the vents there, blowing down to the inside of the router?
Since I've added that, the router is running nice and cool now.
I also added a fan to my WD MyCloud NAS box. I was surprised that it doesn't have a fan, yet, it's firmware is "fan aware!" GO FIGURE!
What I mean is, is that when I check the stats, there's a "fan indicator" saying that the fan is NOT spinning. But there is no fan inside nor room for one... I find that interesting.
I didn't add a fan, didn't have one to hand. I do have the router mounted vertically with good all around air circulation in a realatively cool room though.
Perhaps the overheating issue was caused by the logging issue so solving that dodged the problem.
It sounds like you might be ok with heat. You can just touch the top of the case to feel if the plastic is hot or not. I do think that the over logging contributed to the freeze up problem. After I did the log mods, the unit ran find without failure for a long time. Where I got concerned about heat, was when I enabled ReadyShare and connected a 2TB drive to the router. This was before I bought the WD NAS unit. I wanted to offload my projects drive from my main laptop (shared drive) and have it as a stand-alone. What happened was, when I was transferring the data from the main computer up to the drive attached to the router, the router got hot due to high traffic and yup, it froze u again and when I touched it, it was HOT. Thus, the fan. However, I removed ReadyShare and just bought a dual-bay NAS and that it working just fine. I did put a fan on the NAS as well as the router. Keeping things cool does help electronics to not fail so soon.
I have solved this problem!!! I simply took my Nighthawk router and threw it in the garbage and then connected to an old Linksys router that I found and the problem is solved! Have been up and running on the Linksys router for a few weeks now with no issues.
This is why forums aren't helpful with responses like these. Yet I am running the same Nighthawk routers for 30 office people at my company and my home with no problems. I have thrown out plenty of Linksys routers in my time.
