Nighthawk R8500 not connecting - was working before for a few days now getting an amber light

[ccarrasco]

Just picked up an X8 two days ago and immediately upgraded the firmware to V1.0.0.56_1.0.28. Everything has been fine until this morning. The router powers up, but I am unable to connect to it locally, and it won't connect to internet.

I'm unable to get in and see any logs. I've tried a hard reset and the problem persists.

Anyone else seeing similar issues? I haven't had this long enough to guess if it's a firmware or hardware problem.

[ElaineM]

Welcome to the community, @ccarrasco

Is there any Internet access when you bypass the router?

Who is your ISP?

When you say can't connect locally, are your computers/devices not getting a valid IP address from the router?

What are the IP addresses of the devices? Are these devices using wired or wireless connection?

What lights are turned on, on the router?

Do you happen to know if there were any power interruptions happened in your area last night?

[ccarrasco]

Yeah, right now I am jacked directly to the modem. My provider is Comcast.

When hooked to the router wifi or eth, my devices are not assigned an ip, and in turn, I cannot access the router. All was running fine from Saturday night when I unboxed and upgraded the firmware up through this morning.

When powering on the router, all leds turn on for a few seconds. Then the antenna led's, wifi led, and power led is on for a few more seconds before only the power led is on.

After about 30 seconds, the antenna and wifi leds turn on again before turning off - this repeats.

No power surges/interruptions last night. The router is on the same surge protector as the modem and nas. My NAS would be off had there been an interruption.

Do you know if anyone is reporting issues with the latest firmware? I am wondering if I just have a duff device and should exchange it for another.

Thanks

[ccarrasco]

Swapped out for another one. Just unboxed and updated to the lastest firmware: V1.0.0.56_1.0.28

I'll update this in a few days

[ElaineM]

Looking forward to your update.

[ccarrasco]

So far, so good. The replaced router has been running fine with the latest firmware update.

Only difference in it's configuration vs the previous is the lack of exposing a guest network. There were two devices out of my control on that network.

I suspect that either:

1. The previous router had an honest hardware malfunction
2. There may be an issue with guest networks
3. The external guest devices are somehow compromised and infecting the firmware

I'll expose the guest network this weekend to see what happens. I don't see where I can monitor cpu and memory usage in the admin panel. It would be nice to know the before and after when changing the configuration and attaching new devices.

[ccarrasco]

Looks like it's good to go. Must have been bad hardware in the first router.

[ElaineM]

That's great!

Thanks for the update.

[Loudog2]

No your hardware wasn't bad.  My 8500 just turned unresponsive after over a month of use.  First the wifi went out but wired still worked for a bit.  Then it all went to crap.   Did a Hard reset but still non responsive.  This happened just a day after upgrading the firmware. Yes I did a reset after the upgrade.  The power light was red and only one other light was on. 

[brandoncbarker]

Mine just did this last night as well. So frustrating

[Loudog2]

I'm glad I had the protection plan with Best Buy. Just walked in and grabbed a new one. If it happens again I'm switching brands.

[brandoncbarker]

Any news on if that helped? I know its only been a day, but keep me posted. Thanks

[ccarrasco]

Do you know which firmware version?

[EtherOne]

I had the same problem.  Received my R8500 on 11/29.  Set it up.  Updated to latest firmware (R8500-V1.0.0.56_1.0.28) Great Wifi on guest and regular bands.  The R8500 Worked for aprox 24 hrs but then died.  Red light for power, and red light for gigabit ethernet connection.  Blue antenna lights seem to blink occassionally.  I tried factory reset button and direct wired connection and wifi connections.  Nothing is working. No Wifi network is showing.  DHCP is not assigning IPs.  Netgear Genie won't connect.

Went back to my ASUS N66U which has been running continuously for 18 mos without a glitch and network is back up and working fine (with significantly less thoughput)  I'm going to call NetGear tech support to see if they have any ideas.  Really frustrating for the price paid.

[Loudog2]

Let me know what they say.  I'm running the original firmware out of the box.  I'm not going to deal with this especially at the cost of this router.  

[ElaineM]

@Loudog2 Are you having the same problem with your replaced router?

How's your connection so far?

[brandoncbarker]

Ive been working with support for a couple of weeks and still hasn't resolved anything. Any way I can get my router replaced under warranty? I will let everyone know if it works

[ElaineM]

@brandoncbarker Contact our support team and they should be able to help you with that.

[Loudog2]

@ElaineM I have not updated the new router yet.  I'm running the out of the box firmware. I can't have it go out again right now. I'll try it next week to see what happens 

[ElaineM]

@Loudog2 Thank you for the update! Looking forward on that result. 

[Modokislayer]

This exact same issue happpened to me today. I've been unable to get it to connect. The power LED stays a constant amber; and it was only used for less that 24hrs out of the box. I updated to the newest firmware as soon as I unboxed it. Maybe it's a firmware issue? I'll be taking this back to Best Buy for a replacement.

[EtherOne]

I called support, we ran through several steps. No fix. They suggested I send it back to amazon for replacement. I'm waiting for the new box to get here. I'm really uncertain what I should do about firmware updates, I don't want the replacement box to suffer the same fate as the original.

[Modokislayer]

Well, I exchanged it for a new one tonight. The Power LED turns solid white, and the Internet LED turns solid white... but now the wifi channels will not turn on and the antennas only light up for a brief moment while the router is powering up. I've pressed the wifi button on the front, and it doesn't turn the channels on and nothing changes. I can not use it to access the internet. I've had to reattach my old router; which is cheaper and slower, but gives absolutely no issues. This is really crushing my faith in the top tier of Netgears routers. Looks like I'll be exchanging this, again, tomorrow and hope that the third one will finally work.

[ElaineM]

@Modokislayer I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

I have collated all your reported concerns and our engineers are already looking into this.

So far, the one that I have is still working. 

[Arnezg23]

I am having the same issue. Unbound yesterday, working fine until this morning when the Internet would not connect and haven't connected all day...