Nighthawk routers and saving settings (IP forwarding, DHCP reservations) workaround
With the latest firmware, the Nighthawk router has lost its ability to save changes to numerous fields in the configuration manager. Attempting to set a DHCP reservation or IP forwarding no longer works, giving an error when attempting to save changes.
You'll notice that the error specifies the MAC address is not recognized, because the router has removed the colon's from the request. Example: AA:AA:AA:AA:AA:AA is shown as AAAAAAAAAAAA in the error.
A workaround requires using a proxy tool to manually enter the colons back in when saving your changes.
I used Burp Proxy community edition (free). Once you install it, you start a temporary project.
Go to the Proxy tab
Click 'open browser'
Login to your Nighthawk as normal and set the configuration changes.
Before hitting 'save', go back to the proxy tool and click 'turn intercept on'
Click 'save'
You'll see the request in the proxy tool. Scroll to the bottom and you'll see your MAC address without the colons. Manually enter them back in.
With the latest firmware, the Nighthawk router has lost its ability to save changes to numerous fields in the configuration manager.
Any particular router and/or software version? Just those you have tagged? (None of which is covered in this section of the community for Nighthawk with WiFi 6 (AX) and WiFi 6E (AXE) Routers.)
That detail could be useful when people turn up here asking for help.
That's not an issue I recall seeing here for many devices.
I didn't see it on my R7000P. But I wasn't port forwarding.
Uneducated guess @norcaldsm does talk about the R8000P and it's inability to pass MAC addresses in the Web browser, e.g. for DHCP address reservations.
These are things happen if some community members are publishing vague Beta firmware, without insight or details. Beyond me why Netgear does fail to fix such issues within reasonable time, considering fixes might exist - three months later, it appears to be a big secret.
The magic fix for "every" Nighthawk seems to be to manipulate the MAC address in the wonderful Web UI code 8-)
These are things happen if some community members are publishing vague Beta firmware, without insight or details. Beyond me why Netgear does fail to fix such issues within reasonable time, considering fixes might exist - three months later, it appears to be a big secret.
Indeed. Seriously baffling.
Hardly a responsible Netgear response to rely on some unknown intermediary to act as a corporate go between.
