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WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Added 2 Amcrest (2MP-841 and 3MP-956) cameras to my 2.4GHz network and about every 12 (or less) hours, my WiFi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) loses internet. Keep in mind that WiFi cameras are on the 2.4GHz WiFi only. Wired LAN connections to the router stay up the whole time (meaning wired LAN and wired Internet are just fine). WiFi LAN works just fine too as tested by transferring 300MB file from wired NAS to WiFi laptop in no time at all. It's just the internet Wifi that I lose. Nighthawk shows good internet connection status, I can ping Comcast and Google DNS servers the whole time. Only way to bring WiFi Internet back is to 1) reboot cable modem (by the way, cable modem up/down signals look great the whole time), 2) reboot Nighthawk, or 3) disconnect cable modem to Nighthawk Ethernet cable for a few minutes and then reconnect. Doing any of these 3 things will bring WiFi internet back up. Nighthawk firmware is up to date. Camera firmware is up to date. I don't see anything unusual on Wireshark (even sniffed WAN traffic using a hub)...granted, I am no Wireshark expert. I tried implementing QOS by device and placing the cameras in the lowest queue...no help.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Final 24 hour test with my original Arris modem was successful. I'm going to summarize the final changes and mark this as an accepted solution.
For Amcrest cameras on the WiFi network, the symptom was that the R6700v2 would lose internet DNS after about 12 hours with 2 cameras running. I lost it after about 24 hours with just 1 camera running. I tried wired connections to the cameras instead of wireless, I tried various NAS settings, I tried a different cable modem. In the end, the issue seemed to be that the R6700 did not like the Amcrest auto DNS Settings. Amcrest by default sets the preferred DNS to the routers address and the secondard DNS to 1.0.0.1. This doesn't seem unusual to me because I believe the R6700 is proxying DNS, so having the router IP as the preferred DNS for clients seems normal. Anyway, the fix is to set your Amcrest camera for static IP (not DHCP) AND static DNS. This means you pick an IP address for the camera, then most home networks are /24 which is a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Default gateway for most homes should be set to the router's IP address which is 192.168.##.1 where you fill in ## with your actual address. Preferred DNS, you can pick that. Your ISP provides that or you can pick a common one. I picked Google, so I used 8.8.8.8. Last field is the secondard DNS which again for Google is 8.8.4.4.
I also had a Synology NAS in my setup. I decided to go static on that too for both IP and DNS, again using Google's DNS. Not sure that made a difference. I also had the R6700 set up with reserved IP addresses for both cameras so the static settings I programmed into the cameras wouldn't be assigned by DHCP to other clients if the cameras were offline. Lastly was that I diabled the P2P checkbox in the Amcrest cameras which of course disables use of their mobile app and cloud service. I'm not sure that this made a difference, but this is how I wanted the cameras configured anyway, so I unchecked it during troubleshooting and never re-enabled it.
In summary, this simple setting was big time annoying to troubleshoot. It took me almost 2 weeks to figure it out because of the 12 to 24 hr lag time in symptoms appearing. Netgear can dispute this, but I believe this is a Netgear issue. Amcrest tech support thinks that too. I am running the Aug 2017 version of R6700v2 firmware which is V1.1.0.42_1.0.1. I am hopeful that they will release an update to fix this problem.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
I just purchased and installed my r6700v2 and I may have the identical problem. I'd say my internet connection lasts 12-18 hours before it stops working. When the problem arises, wifi devices cannot access internet but can access each other... i.e. I can view all of my wifi cameras from my wifi phones/tablets (I do have two Amcrest cameras). Also interesting I have one wired device that works, my Roku 3, but my wired desktop PC does not work. From my PC I can access the router interface and the cable modem status page, but DNS does not resolve.
The quickest fix I found to reset my connectivity is to "renew" the DHCP lease on the internet connection status page on the router web interface.
I opened a ticket with Netgear support and will post if I find a solution. If I don't find a solution quickly, this router is getting sent back and I probably won't but Netgear again.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Good feedback thank you. I have been churning now for a solid 24 hours on my old router with the Nighthawk completely powered down and everything has been rock solid. Definitely looking like a Nighthawk issue. I'll get a ticket open with them too.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Internet access stopped working again this evening and I did a bit more troubleshooting, and I think I found the problem. On the PC that lost access I checked the DNS server that it got from the router's DHCP... it was the router IP. Looking at the router status page I could see the ISP DNS server addresses. As a test I tried to ping www.google.com and it failed, but I couldsuccessfully ping my ISP DNS. I then found that I could resolve www.google.com if I directed the query to the ISP DNS... e.g. 'nslookup www.google.com <isp dns>'. Once I got the IP for google, I could ping that too.
So in a nutshell, my internet access is working just fine. The Netgear router's DNS is getting hosed up. Time to toss the ball back in Netgear's court.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
I'll have to try the nslookup again later today. The same problem happened to me again last night even with the Nighthawk WAN connected to my old routers LAN and the Nighthawk set to static IP and static DNS. I also received a reply from Netgear support last night, but it was just basic WiFi troubleshooting (change 2GHz to Ch11 and Change 5GHZ to CH161). Unless they are trying to tell me that this is the workaround for their DNS defect, then they are so far just wasting my time with basic WiFi troubleshooting by sending me to the least occupued spectrum. I clearly explained the issue in my ticket, but it's like they don't understand when I tell them that the WiFi LAN connection is rock solid. Very frustrating.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
I'm sure the first level support gives a similar if not the identical initial response to everyone that reports a connectivity problem. I just submitted my case update with the details about DNS. We'll see what they say later today.
If /when the problem happens next I will test to see if the DNS port is open (nmap -p U:53 192.168.1.1). I'm curious if it's still listening for DNS requests or just failing to service to them.
My wife also had a good idea when I mentioned about how you said the problem started when you added cameras. It might be worth a try to fire up the old ASUS router and move just the cameras on to that, to see if the Netgear DNS remains stable. Even if that's true, Netgear still needs to fix the DNS but it could be a suitable workaround... especially since there doesn't seem to be a way to configure Netgear's DHCP to hand out the ISP DNS address instead of the router IP.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Netgear DNS did not remain stable under those conditions based on a test last week. I moved just the 2 cameras and the NAS to the old router (on a completely different subnet), then connected the WAN port of that router to a LAN port on the nighthawk and the same DNS issue happens on the nighthawk. I also had it where the old router was connected on the same subnet using old router LAN port to Nighthawk LAN port connection (where the Nighthawk is still facing the Internet side) and the same DNS problem occured. At this point, I've tried so many things, it's getting crazy to track. It's not a trivial thing to move your operations back n forth between routers while keeping a perfect log of all of your actions so you know what changes were made. I'm sure you already know this, but Netgear did release a new version of firmware this morning for the R6700v2. I installed that at the same time that I tried the support ticket suggestions of using CH11 and CH161. Been running for about 6 hours so far, but I'm expecitng to lost Internet within the next few hours or sometime before bedtime. Hopefully not. The firmware lists nothing but "big fixes and security updates" as the content, so maybe the DNS fix is in there.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
I have it. This isn't necessarily a WiFi issue. From what I can tell, all ports on the router will eventually lose their DNS. The WiFi seems to lose it first. What happens is that your computer shows the little WiFi signal with the "!" symbol. Android shows something similar. When that happens, web pages display: "This site can't be reached...www.google.com's server DNS address could not be found....DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_ CONFIG." When I get this message, I can go into my TCP/Pv4 properties, leave the IP address as automatic, but change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (which is Google) or whatever DNS servers you want to use and as soon as I select "Ok", the web site loads immediately. If I go into the Nighthawk and release, then renew my Internet connection, then the router will start handing out the right DNS once again. to the other computers that are still set to automatically obtain their DNS. Unfortunately, V1.1.0.42_1.0.1 firmware released today does not seem to solve the issue. I'll update the Netgear ticket, bu the ball is definitely in their court. This isn't some obscure setting in the router. It's one of the two most important functions on the router. Step 1, get an Internet IP, Step 2, get DNS servers. They need to fix this.
This morning I got a response from L2 support. They advised to downgrade firmware to .34 or .32 to see if the problem goes away. Given that each update includes unspecified security updates I'm not necessarily comfortable staying on older firmware even if it works.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Yeah, downgrading to an older version to help troubleshoot the issue...ok. As a permanent fix. No way.
About 45 minutes ago...after about 12 hours of normal operation since the last manual release/renew the DNS starts getting funky even with manual Google DNS configured on all clients except 1 Android device. I tried a Google search a few minutes ago and DNS was down from my laptop. Looked at my phone and it was down there too. Then about 30 seconds later it came back on both devices.....then dropped again....then came back all in a span of maybe 5 minutes, then stayed up for about 30 then it dropped totally and I had to log into the Nighthawk to release/renew to bring it back. To be clear, I'm saying that DNS dropped on my manual DNS laptop and auto DNS android. It really does look like the router is spewing out something that is killing even a manually configured DNS setting. This time, I had a Wireshark capture going, so I am hoping to get someone to help me look at it to see if the root problem is apparent in the frames that were captured.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
My DNS failed twice yesterday on .42 firmware. It lasted about 18 hours between failures. I've downgraded to .34 firmware for today. While I don't consider the downgrades to be an acceptable solution, Netgear support believes it will be useful to know the results of this test.
In my cases when DNS failed I can still configured my ISP DNS manually on my PC to gain internet access.
I am really wondering... does everyone who owns an r6700v2 currently have to reboot it daily?
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Don't want to get too excited until I run a few more confirmation experiments, but I changed cable modem to a Netgear C3000, I wired the cameras, and I set manual IP and manual Google DNS via the Amcrest web interface (all at the same time). Worked great (24 hr test). I then changed back to wireless but kept all the same Amcrest IP and DNS settings. Again, worked great (26 hr test). I then kept cameras as Wifi, switched back to Amcrest DHCP and default DNS last night around 8pm and by 6am this morning I wake up and the "Internet"....really just DNS....is down. By the way, I rebooted all boxes between all test periods (cameras, cable modem, and router).
So what is the difference. It's the Amcrest degault gateway or the Amcrest DNS. I can't remember for sure now whether my static Amcrest settings had the Amcrest degault gateway set to the router address like it should or to my NAS IP. My logic there was that I didn't care if Amcrest could see the gateway to get out. I just need it to see my NAS and then I can remote view video from my NAS (and disable Amcrest P2P too which I have done the whole time as I have been experimenting).
So that's what I'm testing right now. C3000 modem, Amcrest Wifi, Amcrest Static IP with my router as Amcrest default gateway and Amcrest DNS set to Google's 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4. Here is the funny thing on Amcrest. When you set it to DHCP, the primary DNS sets to the same as the default gateway, and the secondary DNS sets to 1.0.0.1. I'm assuming this is because, as my neighbor pointed out, that DNS is proxied through most routers, so the router sends its address to the clients their DNS rather than directly passing the ISP provided DNS through to the clients. Of course by this logic, then why wouldn't my laptop work with manually configured DNS? Well, it does for a short period of time after the 10 hour or so point where things just start to get flaky. Not sure why it eventually craps out other than the fact that this is somr sort of flaw in the R6700.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Interesting. I have been thinking all along about how you and I both have Amcrest cameras and a NAS, so perhaps one of these devices may be a trigger. Regardless, it's still a defect of the r6700v2. Is your NAS a QNAP?
My Amcrest cams have been set with static IP's. I haven't looked at their configs but I will check to see how DNS is configured there.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Ed94, are you still having success with your latest test? I did not have time to try anything last night, but tonight I can take a look and I'd like to try to replicate your results if possible.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Yes, another 26 hour test was successful. I just started my last run which is hopefully my final state which is with my original cable modem so I can give back the one I borrowed. No other changes other than to reboot everything which is what I have done at the start of each test period. Still running Amcrest with static IP, default gateway set to router's IP address, primary DNS 8.8.8.8 and secondary DNS 8.8.4.4.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Final 24 hour test with my original Arris modem was successful. I'm going to summarize the final changes and mark this as an accepted solution.
For Amcrest cameras on the WiFi network, the symptom was that the R6700v2 would lose internet DNS after about 12 hours with 2 cameras running. I lost it after about 24 hours with just 1 camera running. I tried wired connections to the cameras instead of wireless, I tried various NAS settings, I tried a different cable modem. In the end, the issue seemed to be that the R6700 did not like the Amcrest auto DNS Settings. Amcrest by default sets the preferred DNS to the routers address and the secondard DNS to 1.0.0.1. This doesn't seem unusual to me because I believe the R6700 is proxying DNS, so having the router IP as the preferred DNS for clients seems normal. Anyway, the fix is to set your Amcrest camera for static IP (not DHCP) AND static DNS. This means you pick an IP address for the camera, then most home networks are /24 which is a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Default gateway for most homes should be set to the router's IP address which is 192.168.##.1 where you fill in ## with your actual address. Preferred DNS, you can pick that. Your ISP provides that or you can pick a common one. I picked Google, so I used 8.8.8.8. Last field is the secondard DNS which again for Google is 8.8.4.4.
I also had a Synology NAS in my setup. I decided to go static on that too for both IP and DNS, again using Google's DNS. Not sure that made a difference. I also had the R6700 set up with reserved IP addresses for both cameras so the static settings I programmed into the cameras wouldn't be assigned by DHCP to other clients if the cameras were offline. Lastly was that I diabled the P2P checkbox in the Amcrest cameras which of course disables use of their mobile app and cloud service. I'm not sure that this made a difference, but this is how I wanted the cameras configured anyway, so I unchecked it during troubleshooting and never re-enabled it.
In summary, this simple setting was big time annoying to troubleshoot. It took me almost 2 weeks to figure it out because of the 12 to 24 hr lag time in symptoms appearing. Netgear can dispute this, but I believe this is a Netgear issue. Amcrest tech support thinks that too. I am running the Aug 2017 version of R6700v2 firmware which is V1.1.0.42_1.0.1. I am hopeful that they will release an update to fix this problem.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Glad to hear that you got things working. I am eager to try out the changes to the amcrest cams. I agree that there is a flaw in the r6700v2 firmware, and I suspect that your remedy may just extend the amount of time before the problem kicks in.
Have you detailed your observations about the Amcrest cams to Netgear support? They need to fix this. I would find it hard to believe the problem is limited to just amcrest cams. But if adding more Amcrest cams increases the frequency of the problem then it should be easy for them to reproduce this in their labs and trace the root cause. I will mention your findings on my support case too.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Thanks. They are going to be calling me again today at 5 to discuss. By the way, I went out of town for a few days and was up the whole time. Just got back and 74 hours of up time with 2 camera active and no issues. Now I did notice that the WAN has only been up for 38 hours, but that's not completely unusual for Comcast to drop out every now and then. Point is that everything on the router seemd to have been stable the whole time.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Same result for me. My network has run smoothly since I made the change to my Amcrest cameras. I've been up and running for two or three days now no problems.
Please post updates after you speak to support. I am sure there are many others affected by this problem who could be helped by your efforts. I just replied to someone on another thread to describe our workaround.
Re: WiFi Internet Only drops about every 12 hours with WiFi cameras installed
Quick update. Still working with Netgear support. I programmed my cameras back into the auto DNS state to reproduce the problem and to capture a router debug log file for them (routerlogin.net/debug.htm). The issue was that when I attempted to save the debug file, the router completely locked up. First time that has happened. Hard lock, all lights were on solid, no flashing. Had to hard reboot it. I'm going to try one more time to get the debug file for them, this time saving the debug to USB instead of to router memory to see if that works. If not, I'm going to have to abandon trying to help them solve this defect.
