This just started in the past week. It first looked like a connectivty problem, but on deeper diagnosis it was DNS and took a few days of struggling to figure out. When you go to a new site, the router drops the first few dns responses. The web browser says something like "site not working". There are a lot of similar problems from earlier in the year on Orbi routers and many have fixes around turning off daylight savings time or traffic meter. Neither of which were turned on on this router. It's a pretty generic setup.
I finally decided to revert the latest firmware update. I went back two releases because I updated once when all of this started so I think the error was two releases prior, not the previous release.
@plemans you seem to be a super user here, is there going to be a fix for any of these issues or just the nice comment that there are other models that have the same problem? It's a nice thing to know, but doesn't really help fix the router? Can you convince Netgear that this is a problem that should be addressed? I would think connectivity issues would be a pretty high priority for a router company..?
Go figure that they even have a community support forum that they don't even monitor to look for issues. Well, when I do replace this router it won't be a Netgear and I've bought a LOT of Netgear equipment over the years.
I upgraded last week to 1.0.4.76_10.1.82 on my R8000 and DNS broke. All the same comments above...websites periodically failed resolution, but after a few trys would work. Back revd to V1.0.4.68_10.1.75 and problem solved. I too have disabled automatic firmware updates until further notice.
This is the most **** frustrating problem I have ever come across with Netgear. Same her with the R8000. Tried changing to 8.8.n and Google and still fails. VPN, still fails. It's actually disrupting my work. It is SO frustrating that Netgear haven't fixed this and won't even seem to acknowledge it. I'm about to dump the whole system (4 hard wired routers), just give uip and go to a mesh system (not Netgear).
DNS is one of the most basic services - I can't believe a professional networking company has cocked this up and not fixed it for multiple firmware releases.
I did wonder if it is that Armor service, but I'll have to trawl for how to turn that off - even you even can - it's not obvious.
Just flashed firmware V1.0.4.66_10.1.75 as noted above for a possible fix. Same issues persist. Even as I went back to NG's forum I got a quick "site can't be reached" then it continued.
To be clear - I did factory reset the router yesterday, and the ONLY changes I made after that were to our SSID's and passwords and a channel tweak on the 2.4Ghz band. That is ALL.
Original message 11/18/21:
We just switched from Windstream / Kinetic fiber to Spectrum...took a downgrade to 400mbps (because even THAT is overkill for what we need). And I got my X6 R8000 back out of the box (was using Windstream's T3200 for 2 years because my wife's employer paid the bill, and with absolutely NO connection issues). We switched to save a LOT of $/month. Anyway, the R8000 worked great when I tested off of mobile devices...superior throughput in ALL parts of our house as compared to the T3200. However, we were constantly getting DNS errors on our PC's, pages not available, "site can't be reached" / DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN, short flashes of these errors, then able to connect. Some remote apps not working properly because they are supposed to recognize synched apps across different company servers = DNS nightmare if things aren't going smoothly.
Ironically, I updated the firmware on the router to latest as of 11/16/21 as soon I got it back out of the box but BEFORE I even tried to do anything else on a PC. Here we go...I am about to flash it back and I will return to update this thread.
But I also have concerns about enabling it - maybe they are unfounded.
If I do enable it, should I choose auto, 6to4, pass through, etc.
I'm not versed on exactly what each option means.
I DID just have a Windstream chat agent tell me though that they DO use ipv6 and it IS enable by default on their combo gatways. This is the setup we just abandoned for Spectrum.
I'm guessing you might be right, just need to know which setting makes sense.
Auto usually detects what type of IPv6 is being used and sets that up. If it doesn't then we can try one of the other methods. It doesn't hurt anything to try.
