I am seriously ticked at Netgear. This update has broken everything, we tried to play a local lan game last night and EVERYONE kept disconnecting. My sattelites are all disappering, and not showing any connected devices. My wifi is unstable, I used to pull at least 300 mbs of my 600 mbs over wifi, now I am lucky to get 9... and sometimes trickles down from there. You guys just broke my entire house. You do realize when you are experimenting with firmware updates and betas that you PUSH on people, that some of us have our lights, garage door, doorbells, security cameras, hvac systems and door locks all being controlled via wifi... and you just broke it ALL... great job... I am going to look at Eero systems, I don't care how much money I wasted on this orbi system...
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
Wish there as some way to understand why some people have all these issues and others don’t. I’ve only had my Orbi RBK53 system running for about 3 weeks now, but haven’t been having any issues at all. Have about 25-30 devices connect typically, and while I don’t game, we do stream often. Been running the 2.1.1.12 firmware for 2 days now and have’t noticed much difference. I get 70 down and 6 up from Spectrum and it’s been rock solid.
Don't know if it helps but a little while back I suggested turning off UPNP if you have it on. All instability for me disappeared with that setting getting turned off.
I've been running the RBK53 for a year now without any issues. I've even been recommending it to several people. I've loved it. About a week ago, I started getting mass disconnections of devices across the network. I don't know what changed, perhaps the firmware auto-updated. A few days ago, I updated to v2.1 in hopes it would resolve everything. It did not.
I've spent several, SEVERAL hours this weekend just trying to get this thing to work again. It disconnects every 10-30 minutes. I haven't figured out rhyme or reason. I've cleared the NVRAM on all devices and factory reset them several times. This is a nightmare, and I'm considering returning the product to Costco, buying Eero, and apologizing to everybody I've recommended this product to.
Wish there as some way to understand why some people have all these issues and others don’t. I’ve only had my Orbi RBK53 system running for about 3 weeks now, but haven’t been having any issues at all. Have about 25-30 devices connect typically, and while I don’t game, we do stream often. Been running the 2.1.1.12 firmware for 2 days now and have’t noticed much difference. I get 70 down and 6 up from Spectrum and it’s been rock solid.
It's pretty clear... Netgear either has a couple of versions of chipsets in the RBK50's or a fair number with some sort of hardware fault... whether knowingly or by accident....
It's the only real likely explanation. It's very easy that a manufacturer delivered either a slightly different chip or a batch with defects.
Netgear probably tests on 50's that meet the specs they expect and are equally mistified why their firmware doesn't work for a subset of users.
After turnning on my erro on Thursday I've had no disconnects and ended 5.5 months of frustration. As a note, my Orbi worked from March to July without flaw.
After 2 days of stability, tonight my router rebooted itself three times in about 1/2 hour. Considering some of the other complaints, will probably go back to 2.0 .0.74 and hope it's stable. Thankfully Costco has world's best return policy.
Do you have the Orbi app installed on your phone? Through my tons and tons of troubleshooting, I'm currently working with the hypothesis that the Orbi Android app is causing the issue.
@DarrenM - thanks for confirming how things work now.
Does Netgear believe that this is an issue that requires addressing, or is the intent to never allow any ability to block or reverse FW updates, even in an Advanced or Expert mode?
I understand if Netgear is concerned about customers being exposed to security risks and bugs w/older FW, and there are difficulties supporting multple versions (I work for a large consumer tech company so I get that). However, the inability to block (or at least reverse) a FW update is a definte Con in my Pro/Con for Orbi, and will influence my (and others likely) decision about keeping or returning mine, recommending it to family and friends, etc.
It's a nightmare situation. I am going on holiday in the next few weeks and I have a relatively stable setup. The last thing I need is an auto FW update.
V2.1.1.12 has been the most unstable firmware for me by far, which is pretty bad since no firmware I have had on this system since I bought it has been stable up to an acceptable level.
I have downgraded to V1.11.0.20 now since that seems to have been stable for a lot of users in the past. Hoping it will stick and not auto update away.
If I could return this piece of crap network equipment and get my money back I would do it in a heartbeat.
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
1. Wife had to turn wi-fi off/on in the AM to stream radio station on her phone
2. Lost both internet connectivity twice for < 1 minute
3. Lost the entire network for ~1 min
In some senses that's not a lot, but it's setting a bad start to my decision regarding whether or not to keep Orbi. Speed when it works is fantastic. But my family won't react well to itermitten loss of connectivity, and since I'm the home IT guy, it's going to make me unhappy personally for my own use, and unhappy w/the "support calls" I'm going to get from my family on this. 😞
I've just rolled back to 2.0 on the RBW30 satelite to see if that helps, but using older FW is not a long-term solution for me, I want the security updates and hopefully bug fixes that newer FW provides.
Starting to look the Orbi may be going back to try the Eero. Sad...I've been a Netgear user for about as long as we've had a network in our home.
Bing-Stroller wrote: ....I am going on holiday in the next few weeks and I have a relatively stable setup. The last thing I need is an auto FW update.
It doesn't appear as if that is going to happen anytime soon, at least according to what was implied in a post on this board by a Netgear employee. Regardless, this is precisely the reason Netgear needs to incorporate some sort of "auto-update FW disable" option in the web UI and/or app. It's beyond my comprehension why there is no such option for the Orbi system when it exists for most of their routers.
You might want to check out their community board (link below) and note that some features, such as ethernet backhaul and AP mode, have not yet been implemented.
Looks like they decided not to push the auto update since so many complaints and bugs
Uh, no. If you're referring to the other thread by the guy warning everyone then he's only pointing out that he has to manually check for the hot-fix 2.0.0.76 KRACK patch firmware upgrade. That was a special case and should not be interpreted as an auto-update firmware policy change.
Looks like they decided not to push the auto update since so many complaints and bugs
Uh, no. If you're referring to the other thread by the guy warning everyone then he's only pointing out that he has to manually check for the hot-fix 2.0.0.76 KRACK patch firmware upgrade. That was a special case and should not be interpreted as an auto-update firmware policy change.
I did get a reply direct from Netgear that the engineers are looking into the 2.1 bugs so the auto-push is on hold.
