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After latest firmware update routerlogin disappeared as did my readyshare connection? HELP
Anybody have this issue? Did I F up somewhere that I am not thinking of? All is still connected did a reboot of the R7000. Still no luck.
- Sorry, but anecdotal evidence indicates that a reset to factory settings is needed with the latest firmware update.
14 Replies
Oh and FWIW I am using the Nighthawk R7000. :)
Ditto here
Please do not tell me to hard reset the router. It took forever to configure, and it's unacceptable that a firmware update messes up something so simple.
- Sorry, but anecdotal evidence indicates that a reset to factory settings is needed with the latest firmware update.
Solved... but I will add that adding a blaring note to a release that a HARD RESET is needed after the update instead of just going on veteran router users knowing this would be great for the whole community IMO. :) Thanks!
Why doesn't Netgear pull the firmware from their website? It's obviously defective... I see other postings here of people with bricked routers and broken 5Ghz after "upgrading". Do some proper testing on your firmware and regression test existing features and configurations before you release it to the public.
It took me 3 hours to redo the configuration of my router, and it's still not done yet. If this is the level of quality I can expect from Netgear in future firmware upgrades, you can be sure my next router will not be Netlink, and I will not be recommending it to friends either.
- Why does it take 3 hours? What does your configuration look like?
I have about 25 different devices, half of them wired, half wireless. Each needed a specific IP address to be assigned based on its MAC address. Then some of the devices need to be accessible externally, so I need to remember what my no-ip account login/password was. And then map the proper internal ports per device to the proper external port.
A lot of devices aren't windows/linux/macos/ios/android. They're ioT devices that were already configured for a specific IP address and port, and I had to fish around to find out what I configured them to be last time.
My configuration may be more complicated than average, but I would still assume that most users of $200 Nighthawk routers aren't basic users. If you have 5 devices at home, an $80 AC router would do fine.
Thanks for providing some insight.
It sounds like you are using IP address reservations on the LAN setup page. Unless you are port forwarding to all 25 devices, you don't need specific IP addresses to all of them. Only devices that need port forwarding require stable IP addresses. The rest of your devices can have dynamic IP addresses (e.g. smartphones, PCs that don't need to be accessible from the Internet, etc.).
As far as reserving an IP address is concerned, you should never need to type in MAC addresses by hand. You should let the router do most of the work for you. It already maintains a table of attached devices, current IP and MAC addresses. You just point and click to lock in a reservation.
Port forwarding requires a little more work, but the router does most of the work. You just need to enter the port numbers to forward for each device. Then, select the device to forward to from the autopopulated table of devices.
Even if half of your devices require stable IP addresses and port forwarding rules, it should not take 3 hours.
- You can use the IP address reservation feature on the router. The router will assign the reserved IP address to a device via DHCP. This insures that the address doesn't change after a renewal (this normally wouldn't happen) or a reboot (more likely to happen).
Maybe Netgear doesn't have the greatest UI, but they did think of the requirement for devices using port forwarding to have stable IP addresses.
Regarding backwards compatibility, I know plenty of products that reset settings after an upgrade, including cameras and Windows. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree with you that customer satisfaction is a priority. But backwards compatibility doesn't come for free. It takes development effort. In practice, a reset seems to be seldom required, so I can't fully disagree with their decision to forgo a robust, backwards compatible configuration. A well designed system would use more space, which could require more flash memory, which would drive up the price of the router, possibly beyond the point where it is competitive. Of course, Netgear could simply stop developing new features for products that have shipped for some time. Introducing new features are usually when compatibility issues arise, so we should be at least a little thankful that the Netgear hasn't taken the easy way out.
Wouldn't it be great if we could transfer configuration between different router models? That would come in handy when upgrading router hardware. Heck, it'd be great if I could transfer my seat, mirror and radio settings every time I buy a new car. But that doesn't come for free, either. And frankly, I don't buy a new car very frequently, so I put up with a little inconvenience.Every single router I've owned, and every firmware upgrade that I've done has never wiped out my previous settings. Heck, it's even easy to transfer settings from an old router to a new one, because you can have the config pages side by side and copy and paste values! I'm pretty sure previous firmware upgrades from Netgear always keep old settings too, and if they didn't then I seriously misjudged Netgear as a company and need to jump ship ASAP.
The problem here is that the norm is that your old settings get saved. EVERY OTHER ROUTER COMPANY DOES THIS. Linksys, Cisco, Belkin, Asus... And even on the times they do a major overhaul and have to wipe your settings, they warn you first. The reason it didn't happen here is because Netgear didn't do proper regression testing of their firmware with existing settings before releasing it to the public. They were either too lazy, didn't follow QA guidelines, or realized it after the fact and didn't care. And instead of pulling the release like they should have, or even updating the installation documentation to warn people, they decided that screwing over their users was acceptable.
The reason I know this is because the upgrade didn't say "This upgrade will automatically wipe your settings after completion. Please save your config or write down your settings". Instead, it did a partial upgrade, and still somewhat worked but broke other functionality. This means there was a bug, and the release was half baked.
And in the end, yes they release new features but so does every other router company. And now whenever I see a new firmware from Netgear, I'm even more hesitant to install it. I don't want to write down every IP address, MAC address, and port range again, and risk needing another 3 hours every time Netgear says they have something new for me. So far you haven't shown me a better way of doing this.
- So, your beef with Netgear is that they forgot to warn you that a reset was needed, and that you wouldn't be here raking them over the coals had they remembered?
If so, that hardly seem to be a reason to jump ship. EVERY router company has buggy products. Maybe you'll be happier with another brand that includes the proper warnings but you may not necessarily be happier overall. Do a web search on "X sucks" and substitute X with a router brand. You will get hits for every brand.
As for saving time, I've already explained to how to do that. You should never have to type any MAC addresses. Only reserve IP addresses for those devices that need port forwarding. Use local domain names instead of IP addresses to access devices. I bet your router is configured with the name, R7000. Try entering "r7000.local" into your browser without the quotes. This should connect to your router. Try it with your other devices. So long as they support mDNS, they should be reachable by their device name appended with .local.
Even if you don't follow my advice and insist on entering 25+ MAC and IP addresses, you have provided your own solution: copy and paste from the old config pages. That shouldn't take 3 hours.