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Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

cdysthe
Virtuoso

My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical location!

Hi,

 

I bought a Nighthawk R7000 from Amazon.com. It was demo used and shipped by a Amazon seller, not Amazon.com themselves. When I got it it turned out it was registered with someone else. Netgear took care of that after I sent them the receipt and picture of the serial number on the router. I thought all would be well until all our devices at home, phones and computers, appear to be located at a certain address in Brooklyn. When I turn on GPS in the phones I get the correct location, but when GPS isn't available I'm all of a sudden in Brooklyn, NY at one specified address! I call my carrier and my ISP. Nothing wrong with either. Then I turn off wi-fi on the phones and the location is correct again on those devices. The ones still on wi-fi are still in Brooklyn. I get the wrong weather forecast on my Roku TV and phones. All location depending functions are wrong too.

 

Finally I turn to the router. Can't find anything in the settings, but when I look at the Amazon invoice for it it says that it was shipped from, yes you guessed it, Brooklyn, NY! How is it possible that the router is still back in Brooklyn, at one particular address and tells all connected devices they are also? And what do I need to do to have this fixed? Is this Brooklyn address stored in the router somewhere and used for location? If someone could help me out it would be great. I have never experienced anything like this before.

Message 1 of 15

Accepted Solutions
TheEther
Guru

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

@Jim769

 

This is not so much about the location of the public IP address. It's about the router's MAC address. See https://community.netgear.com/t5/R6000-Series-AC-WiFi-Routers/6200-Uses-old-location/m-p/426980#M298... for more details.

View solution in original post

Message 6 of 15

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VE6CGX
Master

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Have you factory reset the router and reflashed f/w before setting it up?

Message 2 of 15
cdysthe
Virtuoso

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Hi,

 

It was factory reset when I got it. It had the deault settings. I also upgraded the firmware to the latest. Maybe I should try to factory reset it myself and restore my settings? Where would those location settings be stored in the router?

 

I poked around in the forums also and found that I am not the only one with this problem: https://community.netgear.com/t5/R6000-Series-AC-WiFi-Routers/6200-Uses-old-location/m-p/426980#M298...

Message 3 of 15
TheEther
Guru

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

See my response in the other thread. Blame smartphones and Wi-Fi positioning.

Message 4 of 15
Jim769
Luminary

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

This is a simple geo location issue because when you hooked up a new device (R7000) your isp was forced to give you a new public IP address that don't match your actual location this is not uncommon. Not much you can do about it as its not something your isp can fix for you in time it will straighten itself out. In the mean time it's a pain in the butt. 

Message 5 of 15
TheEther
Guru

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

@Jim769

 

This is not so much about the location of the public IP address. It's about the router's MAC address. See https://community.netgear.com/t5/R6000-Series-AC-WiFi-Routers/6200-Uses-old-location/m-p/426980#M298... for more details.

Message 6 of 15
Jim769
Luminary

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat


@TheEther wrote:

@Jim769

 

This is not so much about the location of the public IP address. It's about the router's MAC address. See https://community.netgear.com/t5/R6000-Series-AC-WiFi-Routers/6200-Uses-old-location/m-p/426980#M298... for more details.


Yes. Very strange issue though. Normally when i see post like this it's most times related to a IP address change. Thanks for the correction.  Smiley Happy  

Message 7 of 15
cdysthe
Virtuoso

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Hi,

 

And then I'm back in Brooklyn again. Today when I came from work my TV and phone show weather in Brooklyn and when I check the exact location on my phone I am at the same exact street address in Brooklyn yet again. Are we sure it's not something set by Netgear when the router was registered the first time? Remember I bought it demo use and had to move the Netgear registration from whoever had registered it to my account. As someone has said I may just have to wait until this fixes itself, but it is pretty annoying and confused my wife and kids also who use a lot of location based services in social media who also places them in Brooklyn while they are telling about what a great time they had in Maine for Halloween! 🙂

 

This is the location picked up by my phone:

 

__Net Location_______

Provider: network
Location: 40.63063063063063, -73.95493952696286
Accuracy: 2000.0m
Address: 2946 Bedford Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11210
Fix Time: 2015-11-02 02:42:39-0500

 

I'm located a couple of hundered miles north of that in Massachusetts.

 

 

 

Message 8 of 15
TheEther
Guru

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

 

I really doubt Netgear is setting anything based on registration. If you do a web search, you will see that other people have encountered the same issue as you and with routers other than Netgear.

 

It's possible that someone in Brooklyn, possibly the Amazon seller you bought the router from, is still using your router's MAC address. You can change your router's MAC address by logging into the router and clicking on the Internet tab on the left. The router's MAC address is at the bottom of the page. Change it to one of your computer's MAC addresses. You may have to reboot your modem in order for it to pick up the new MAC address.

Message 9 of 15
cdysthe
Virtuoso

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Hi,

 

Yes, I've seen others with similar problems. What made me wonder is that it isn't even just Brooklyn. It's a spesific street address (belonging to a college it seems) in Brooklyn. The same street address every time. I have spoofed the MAC address now to see if that will make a difference.

Message 10 of 15
JamesGL
Master

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Hi @cdysthe,

 

Please check IP information provide by your ISP. Click on the link below and it will provide you the location of your IP. If it says Brooklyn then you may need to contact your ISP.

 

https://www.whatismyip.com/my-ip-information/?iref=home

 

Regards,

 

JamesGL
Community Team

Message 11 of 15
cdysthe
Virtuoso

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Hi,

 

I tried a few different services including the one you suggested. Most of them show the correct location, but one showed me as being in NY: http://whatismyipaddress.com/  Why do they have different results? 

 

 

Message 12 of 15
TheEther
Guru

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

They have a page that explains this: Geolocation Database Providers.

 

They also have a page where you may be able update your location: Update Your Geolocation

Message 13 of 15
cdysthe
Virtuoso

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Hi,

 

Thanks! I guess that explains my problem! This is what I get from that site:

 

    
Longitude -70.6834-73.9569-70.662 
Accuracy (m)     
Country united statesunited statesunited states 
State/Region massachusettsnew yorkmassachusetts 
City gloucesternew york citygloucester 
Postal Code 01930 01930 
Organization comcast ip services l.l.c.comcast cablecomcast ip services l.l.c. 
ISP comcast cable communications inc.comcast cable  
Connection medium (cable)cable/dsldsl

 

Look at provide B, the middle column: NY!  The two others are correct. That would be what iscausing this problem. I have updated location on that site. Let's see if that works!

 

 

Message 14 of 15
cdysthe
Virtuoso

Re: My demo used Nighthawk R7000 places all connected devices in completely wrong geographical locat

Hi,

 

I updated my location on the site linked above in this thread and I have not seem the Brooklyn location since! Thanks!

 

Message 15 of 15
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