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Just for clarification - "get on with" in the sense of "how did it go?" or "get on with" in the sense of "how did you get them to contact you?"
If the former, they acknowledged this was an issue for which they do not yet have a fix, and send me a rather long list of items to send them when the router next auto-updates, including brand of modem, network diagrams, config files, SSID/password, debug logs for router and satellite, screen shots, etc..., etc....
If the latter, I wrote a one star review on Amazon. Whatever works.
I'm also experiencing the satellite problem with 1.12 -- it appears as a connected device rather than a satellite and both wifi channels are disabled. I manually downgraded to the 1.11 firmware to reconnect it, but after a few days the auto update brought me back to 1.12, breaking the satellite again.
Support got me to manually re-flash 1.12, but to no effect. I'm awaiting a call for the next steps, so I'll post again if that turns up anything new. I'm not willing to spend time playing with the nvram settings, so I think I'll end up returning the unit if there isn't a fix soon 😞
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
Looks like atleast Netgear Engineering has acknowledged the issue exists, but no telling when a new Firmware will be released that has the fix. hoping they add the the ability to turn on/off auto updates and ability to adjust radio power or turn off radio.
@scornwell wrote: @rexet The thing that gets me is they're aware of this thread, it's been pointed out to them multiple times and they've acknowledged it exists, but they've not acknowledged any of the issues and they've chosen, for some inexplicable reason, to stick their head in the sand instead of responding.
It's definitely a difficult situation. For some, 1.11.x broke so much functionality, and 1.12 has fixed all of that. For my 90 devices, the Orbi is back to working like it did prior to the disaster that was 1.11.x.
While I didn't find 1.11.x to be a disaster for me, if I ignore the inability to disable 2.4GHz. wireless radio (and prevent auto-update, which has been an ongoing problem), 1.12.x has been fine here. No new problems yet, and the wireless signal has been stronger. So all I really need to be happy with 1.12.x are a couple of simple pieces of functionality that are usually available in a router anyways. This should be a slam-dunk for Netgear, but once they head off in a particular direction, nothing seems to get their attention.
@RogerSC I agree 100% with you, unfortunately the vision/direction Netgear is taking with Firmware is dictative (this is what you are getting take it or leave it) which to me is regression and myopic vision because one shoe does NOT fit all, everyone environment, needs, scenario is different. unable to toggle auto updates to On/Off and unable to adjust radio power or turn off radio not being used so entire apartment complex or neighborhood is blasted by interference to meet seems poor Engineering decisions a step back, I am baffled a smart network company like Netgear being so myopic in thinking.
I try to be a bit more forgiving as I've worked for a couple of software companies. Sometimes we had to temporarily disable features after updates because we couldn't quickly locate what was going wrong. I suspect Netgear, despite their lack of statements, will add back radio control and maybe choice of auto updates. My sister just bought another Netgear router and she turned off 2.4ghz radio after seeing slowness to one device. So, I suspect Netgear will eventually add that back, if it's compatible with the Orbie backhaul feature.
v1.12 is working for me and meets my needs (thought I'd prefer to be able to turn off 2.4ghz), but if it doesn't, at some point, then I'm going to move on. I've learned not to wait around for fixes. Been burned too many times in my life.
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
@Retired_Member From a technical standpoint it's not simple, though arguably Netgear have been doing this a long time and should have the testing practices in place to ensure major issues like these aren't discovered by customers. But from a customer relations standpoint it's simple, fess up and face your customers. If we feel like we're being listened to we'll be far more tolerant. The approach Netgear is taking is baffling and smacks of either arrogance or incompetence. Either way, they're losing customers and their product is becoming further tarnished.
Sometimes bugs are missed, I get that, but it's how you respond that determines whether you're a company worth putting trust in. I wouldn't touch any of their products at this point.
It does seem to me, anyway, that it must be hard to find bugs before general release. Since 1.12 is working for some and not working for others. I have a hard time understanding why, but...
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
It's really not that hard once the processes are established. That's not to say regressions don't happen and sometimes new bugs are completely missed, you can't test everything with every release, but some of the issues here are pretty fundamental and really should have been caught. Also, there's no way they didn't know they'd removed functionality, yet they failed to mention it and they've yet to acknowledge it.
But the real issue here is not the defects themselves, it's the willfully awful communication and the terrible idea that is forced updates.
I started a thread for the RBK40 when FW 1.12.0.18 totally ruined my system, which was finally running smooth and stable on 1.11.0.20. I had to do a factory reset and clean load of 1.11.0.20 to get my system stablized again. In that thread you will see that Netgear just released FW 1.12.0.20.... coming soon to your system, like it or not.
So far there is one post that it screwed up another person's RBK40 system. I haven't had the misfortune of auto updating to the new FW. At least by now I am an expert at doing a Factory Reset and clean install of 1.11.0.20. Doing a simple rollback didn't seem to work. It will be interesting to see if the same pattern emerges of a new FW release fixing issues on the RB40 (AC2200) but causing problems on the RB50 (AC3000), then the next release fixes the problems with the 50 and screws up the 40. Clearly one size doesn't fit all. I expect to see more posts here once the update hits enough systems.
Speaking of the Auto Update issue. Does anyone know of a way to "Firewall" anything from Netgear before it can reach the Router? It would be great to put on a "blocked list" to allow those of us who have finally reached stable performance from suffering with the forced updates. Surely some of the people on here way smarter than me know of a way.
Running into problems with 1.12.0.18. We have the RBR50 and RBS50s. Certain clients started dropping off of our wireless pretty frequently and it is causing a huge disruption. After the issues started showing up, I tried various configurations between router and sats. I have tried factory resetting all devices and force installing the new firmware update one at a time without any change. Tried turning off guest wifi and toggling beam forming & MuMIMO. WIth the same dropping problem. Even tried bringing the devices much closer with the same effect. I have my devices set in AP mode, i have tried toggling back and forth to force them into AP mode.I even tried getting on these wireless devices and doing a standard dhcp test on wireshark to esnure there arent any other conflicting dhcp servers and tried changing the password to be certain that there wasnt some lingering server. After pulling logs from the FIrewall and the devices, I was able to piece together some information.
It appears that the sats run into an IP conflict every hour so one sat is kicked and the devices connected through that have to wait for the sat to pull a new IP from the DHCP server/firewall. The lease time is 1 day, but the Orbi sats seem to always lease for one hour. After that hour, it looks as though there is a problem through the lease and renew process where the sats fall back out of their assigned IP and try to self assign 192.168.1.250. where I have these devices statically assigned in the 192.168.128.2xx range from the DHCP server. I also pulled a log on the sats where it started assigning the wirelessly connected devices to 192.168.1.xxx range before getting back to the DHCP server and then reassigning all of the IPs correctly.
Aug 2 00:16:13
Orbi Sat1
Client IP conflict
MAC: 9C:3D:CF:F0:9A:8D also claims IP: 192.168.1.250
Aug 2 00:16:13
Orbi Sat2
Client IP conflict
MAC: B0:B9:8A:64:F7:08 also claims IP: 192.168.1.250
I made the same NVRAM modifications given back on page 5... it prevented my Orbi from doing an automatic update back to v1.12.0.18 for about five days (from the evening of 18th to today) but that ended at about 3:10am this morning when it inexplicably auto-updated while I was asleep. It didn't get prompted to do it, and nobody's touched the Firmware Update button, it just launched and ran the update all on its own.
Netgear really needs to include an option to turn Automatic Updates off on this thing like every other manufacturer has been doing for aeons.
I didn't do any of the NVRAM modification (just reading about them now) and the firmware has been upgrading itself to the latest broken one once a week. I'm on my third manual rollback . Really pissed off !
And I can't return to retailer since it's over 30 days. Never should have bought this.
It's simply insane that you can't turn off automatic firmware updates.
Netgear support told me that if you do a manual update it will not auto update after that. That has been true for me, I manually downgraded both the satellite and router to 1.11.0.20 and it has not auto updated so far the last 4 days. I just get the message when I log into the router that an update is available.
Optionally go to Advanced, Security, Block sites and add a block for downloads.netgear.com.
Netgear support lied to you. It upgraded twice, exactly 7 days apart.
Advanced / Security / Block sites is not available if Orbi is in AP mode, so this is no solution.
But I guess I can block this site on my R7000 router.
Since that post NetGear Support contacted me and had me Reset my router and both satellites. 2 things happened.
First all my settings were deleted and I had to set up router from the default settings. That was not so bad as I had become fairly good at configuring my router by now.
Second my problem was solved. I am back online and talking to my satellites. All my Orbi devices are showing firmware V1.12.0.18.
System performance issues are where they were before this issue began.
I have to thank NetGear Support. My hope is that the next update goes smoother.
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
I reset/rebooted/resynced my Orbi Router and Every satellite again last night and my connections issues (even on my S8) seem to be gone. This is the third time I have done it so maybe one of the satellites was holding onto some cache or something? No clue but I am going to test all day to see if the connection issue comes back. I see others have had similar success.
So just to confirm the fix is to upgrade to 12 then go into the settings and reset the configuration to default then proceeded to power cycle all units? Do you have to reset the backhaul password or does the full configuration reset do so?
@ChuckP wrote: So just to confirm the fix is to upgrade to 12 then go into the settings and reset the configuration to default then proceeded to power cycle all units? Do you have to reset the backhaul password or does the full configuration reset do so?
Personally I did not reset the backhaul password but the config reset may have done that. Not sure.
We are listening to the feedback and I have been told that the features that have been taken out will be added back in a future firmware release I just do not have ETAs on the firmware release.
We are listing to the feedback and I have been told that the features that have been taken out will be added back in a future firmware release I just do not have ETAs on the firmware release.
Thanks
DarrenM
Finally, thanks very much for the good news. I'd like to hear the rationale for taking those features away in the first place, but not expecting to hear that.
