Re: Firmware V1.12.0.18 Discussion

nxc · ‎2017-08-28

@Myeviltwin wrote:
It has been working well for me so far with the 1.12 firmware (knock on wood) but it has only been little more than a week since I got it, so too early to tell.

But reading through all these comments, I'm now worried that it could go down any moment, so keeping my Asus router as a backup at all times.

It's always good to have a backup! While I obviously don't have any inside information, further testing and debugging has me convinced that as long as you never use the speedtest you should be fine.

ArtLee · ‎2017-08-28

@nxc wrote:
It's always good to have a backup! While I obviously don't have any inside information, further testing and debugging has me convinced that as long as you never use the speedtest you should be fine.

I've used the built in speed test and it hasn't caused my system to do anything. Do you have any idea what the speedtest does that could cause issues???

nxc · ‎2017-08-28

Running the Speedtest appears to set a few internal values that are used to sit limits for up and downstream bandwidth. The speedtest doesn't seem to be very reliable in terms of choosing the best partner ISP, and will often produce a test result that is significantly below what your connection is capable of. Never running the Speedtest appears to prevent some switches from being flipped, which more or less means the router treats all content equally and shuffles it along as fast as possible.

There are a number of hidden settings and magic variables in these routers, and there's more than ample evidence for some really sloppy coding practices.

RogerSC · ‎2017-08-28

This firmware has been working okay for me as an Access Point since the router auto-updated to it. There is one problem that I see, which is that the Orbi's 2.4GHz. wireless is not being used by any of my clients, and I'm in a crowded network neighborhood. Yet my 2.4GHz. wireless channel width is 40MHz., which is pointless, other than to crowd my neighbors. Since I'm not using 2.4GHz. wireless, it isn't a big deal, but the Orbi would be using a 20MHz. channel width if the "20/40 MHz. coexistence" worked correctly.

Dustin278 · ‎2017-08-28

@nxc wrote:
Running the Speedtest appears to set a few internal values that are used to sit limits for up and downstream bandwidth. The speedtest doesn't seem to be very reliable in terms of choosing the best partner ISP, and will often produce a test result that is significantly below what your connection is capable of. Never running the Speedtest appears to prevent some switches from being flipped, which more or less means the router treats all content equally and shuffles it along as fast as possible.

There are a number of hidden settings and magic variables in these routers, and there's more than ample evidence for some really sloppy coding practices.

Eek! If we have run the speed test is there an easy way to reset this?

Tim-in-CA · ‎2017-08-28

@Tim-in-CA wrote:
@Tim-in-CA wrote:
At what version did auto update begin? I'm at 1.3.0.26 and it's working well, however, I'd like to manually update to the version that enabled guest network but don't want to get sucked in to auto updates. Also. If 1.12.0.18 is so problematic for users, why doesn't Netgear pull it from their update servers? I work for a CE brand and we can do that if users experience FW update issues. Netgear appears to be clueless
Bump ... any feedback to what FW version started auto updates? I'm at 1.3.0.26 and would like to update to the first version that supports Guest Networking, but worried I'll encounter auto upadating to 1.12.0.18

Well, I spoke too soon. Just checked my system remotely from work and found that the router FW updated to 1.12.0.18 on its own ... must have happened last night. I’ll have to check the satellite FW when I get home to see if these updated correctly. I’ll heed the advice of others and not run the router’s speed test. Hopefully this didn’t fubar my system. Fingers crossed!

ArtLee · ‎2017-08-28

@nxc wrote:
Running the Speedtest appears to set a few internal values that are used to sit limits for up and downstream bandwidth. The speedtest doesn't seem to be very reliable in terms of choosing the best partner ISP, and will often produce a test result that is significantly below what your connection is capable of. Never running the Speedtest appears to prevent some switches from being flipped, which more or less means the router treats all content equally and shuffles it along as fast as possible.

There are a number of hidden settings and magic variables in these routers, and there's more than ample evidence for some really sloppy coding practices.

Thanks. I have not dug into the system since it's running okay for me. At least for now

nxc · ‎2017-08-28

@Dustin278 wrote:
Eek! If we have run the speed test is there an easy way to reset this?

If you are not having any issues then I would suggest leaving things as they are. If you are having issues, I would suggest trying the instructions I posted a few pages back regarding erasing NVRAM settings and manually restoring default firmware settings. After that you can reconfigure everything to taste, but avoid the Speedtest or modifying any QoS settings.

n4cho · ‎2017-08-28

If you are not having any issues then I would suggest leaving things as they are. If you are having issues, I would suggest trying the instructions I posted a few pages back regarding erasing NVRAM settings and manually restoring default firmware settings. After that you can reconfigure everything to taste, but avoid the Speedtest or modifying any QoS settings.

OK - I may take this plunge. I have a ton of IP reservations set by MAC addresses - is there any way to impor those without reconfiguring everything manually? Thats the main reason I havent taken this step. Like some 60+ reservations tied to port forwarding.

nxc · ‎2017-08-28

OK - I may take this plunge. I have a ton of IP reservations set by MAC addresses - is there any way to impor those without reconfiguring everything manually? Thats the main reason I havent taken this step. Like some 60+ reservations tied to port forwarding.

Wish I had better news, but I'm unaware of a way to back those up on their own.

scooterman2 · ‎2017-08-28

Thanks. when I go to terminal and type: "telnet orbilogin.com", I get this error:

telnet: connect to address 192.168.1.1: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host

what is supposed to happen? When I go to IP address/debug.htm, I get the Orbi frame of the page and then a spinning circle and Please Wait message.

I am not very familar with telnet.

RogerSC · ‎2017-08-28

@scooterman2 wrote:
Thanks. when I go to terminal and type: "telnet orbilogin.com", I get this error:

telnet: connect to address 192.168.1.1: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host

what is supposed to happen? When I go to IP address/debug.htm, I get the Orbi frame of the page and then a spinning circle and Please Wait message.

I am not very familar with telnet.

Yes, you need to enable telnet on the router. Just go to:

orbilogin.com/debug.htm

and when that comes up, click on the "Enable telnet" box. Then you'll be able to telnet into your Orbi router.

If you want to telnet to your satellite, just get the satellite IP address out of the "Attached devices" list from the Orbi web admin GUI, and go to:

<satellite IP address>/debug.htm

and enable telnet for that. Here "<satellite IP address>" would be replaced by something like 192.168.1.101 or whatever your satellite's IP address is.

Don't forget to go back to the debug.htm interfaces and disable telnet when you're done using it.

RogerSC · ‎2017-08-28

@scooterman2 wrote:
Thanks. when I go to terminal and type: "telnet orbilogin.com", I get this error:

telnet: connect to address 192.168.1.1: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host

what is supposed to happen? When I go to IP address/debug.htm, I get the Orbi frame of the page and then a spinning circle and Please Wait message.

I am not very familar with telnet.

Ah, sorry, I see that I didn't read quite far enough...you did try to enable telnet, but the debug.htm page wouldn't open. In that case, I'd suggest turning off both the router and satellite, and the turning them back on (power-cycle both units). When they come back up, try the "orbilogin.com/debug.htm" again, and it should come up. Then you can enable telnet to the router.

scooterman2 · ‎2017-08-28

Thanks. Will try that in the later and hopefully that does the trick. Appreciate the clarification.

scornwell · ‎2017-08-28

@nxc wrote:
Running the Speedtest appears to set a few internal values that are used to sit limits for up and downstream bandwidth. The speedtest doesn't seem to be very reliable in terms of choosing the best partner ISP, and will often produce a test result that is significantly below what your connection is capable of. Never running the Speedtest appears to prevent some switches from being flipped, which more or less means the router treats all content equally and shuffles it along as fast as possible.

There are a number of hidden settings and magic variables in these routers, and there's more than ample evidence for some really sloppy coding practices.

That last statement is pretty much a given at this stage. Even from a cosmetic perspective the UI is sloppy and inconsistent, I have little reason to doubt the code is any different.

The kinds of bugs and regressions we're seeing bare all the earmarks of a minimally competent development team with equally competent quality assurance. When you add lacklustre customer support and community management to the mix you have the perfect storm of incompetence, arrogance and indifference.

It's a shame, the hardware seems solid, but it's let down by just about everything else.

DarrellRiffe · ‎2017-08-28

What just happened? Out of nowhere, my Orbi RBK53 shut everything down, and rebooted to initial state, showing my only router as Orbi28 (NOT my system SSID, passwords etc.). At first, I thought that it must have been an auto-firmware update. But no- once up , it is the same ole 12...18 update that shows up. This, after going through the complete setup again. Now, I'm getting drops out the Wazoo (whereas I wasn't before with 12....18), even though I set everything to the original SSID and password. What the hell is going on? I'm about to take a sledgehammer to this system and replace it with ... well, anything would be an improvement . Same firmware version that was tolerable before , but now things have gone to hell . Very unhappy at the moment. Thanks to AT&T cellular, I can post this. Without, I'd be dead in the water.

scornwell · ‎2017-08-29

Well I finally got some movement from my support ticket. Fingers crossed I will have some good news in the next couple of days.

Retired_Member · ‎2017-08-29

@DarrellRiffe wrote:
What just happened? Out of nowhere, my Orbi RBK53 shut everything down, and rebooted to initial state, showing my only router as Orbi28 (NOT my system SSID, passwords etc.). At first, I thought that it must have been an auto-firmware update. But no- once up , it is the same ole 12...18 update that shows up. This, after going through the complete setup again. Now, I'm getting drops out the Wazoo (whereas I wasn't before with 12....18), even though I set everything to the original SSID and password. What the hell is going on? I'm about to take a sledgehammer to this system and replace it with ... well, anything would be an improvement . Same firmware version that was tolerable before , but now things have gone to hell . Very unhappy at the moment. Thanks to AT&T cellular, I can post this. Without, I'd be dead in the water.

I am sorry this happened to you, but this is EXACTLY what happened to me. After the disaster that was 1.11.x, I tested 1.12.16 and then upgraded to 1.12.18. For almost two weeks it was perfect, then, while replacing UPS's on the two sats and the router, I of course had to power them off and back on. Since powering back on. 1.12.18 has been a disaster, exactly as you describe. Something is flaky in this firmware, because from 1.10.x backwards everything was stable.

Screamz · ‎2017-08-29

I've had my Orbi for about a week now. Everything seems fine, except the internet speed in backyard is really bad (20ft from orbi router). Both my wifes iphone & mine show full signal strength, but the internet speed seems up and down. Once second it's fast, one second it's slow. On the iPad it seems alittle better, but still not quite the speed i'm getting inside the house. Really upset about this, I really should of done some more research before purchasing this damn thing.

I have tried downgrading to 1.11.0.2 but it seems the same. Please netgear release a fix for this ASAP. Or i'm gonna have to try to sell this system and get my $500 back. Really upsetting.

Dustin278 · ‎2017-08-29

I am beyond frustrated and have wrote reviews on Amazon and Costco for people to stay away from this product - It is unstable and unusable for the past month. Support is slow and non-helpful.

rexet · ‎2017-08-29

Sames here. I'm gonna write a review on Amazon and major reseller here in France warning people to stay away from this product.

Tim-in-CA · ‎2017-08-29

@RogerSC wrote:
This firmware has been working okay for me as an Access Point since the router auto-updated to it. There is one problem that I see, which is that the Orbi's 2.4GHz. wireless is not being used by any of my clients, and I'm in a crowded network neighborhood. Yet my 2.4GHz. wireless channel width is 40MHz., which is pointless, other than to crowd my neighbors. Since I'm not using 2.4GHz. wireless, it isn't a big deal, but the Orbi would be using a 20MHz. channel width if the "20/40 MHz. coexistence" worked correctly.

How can you tell which frequency clients are connected to if the SSID is shared between bot 2.4 and 5Ghz? I haven't found an option in the menu for this. I've only seen that if you go into the Satellite's menu, that you can see what devices are connected to each sat.

RogerSC · ‎2017-08-29

@Tim-in-CA wrote:
@RogerSC wrote:
This firmware has been working okay for me as an Access Point since the router auto-updated to it. There is one problem that I see, which is that the Orbi's 2.4GHz. wireless is not being used by any of my clients, and I'm in a crowded network neighborhood. Yet my 2.4GHz. wireless channel width is 40MHz., which is pointless, other than to crowd my neighbors. Since I'm not using 2.4GHz. wireless, it isn't a big deal, but the Orbi would be using a 20MHz. channel width if the "20/40 MHz. coexistence" worked correctly.
How can you tell which frequency clients are connected to if the SSID is shared between bot 2.4 and 5Ghz? I haven't found an option in the menu for this. I've only seen that if you go into the Satellite's menu, that you can see what devices are connected to each sat.

This short thread will tell you how to get the "Advanced attached devices" screen that includes the information you're looking for:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Devices-connected-to-router-or-satellite/td-p/1255900

To quote from that posting, using telnet to the Orbi router:

shell> config set enable_adv_attached=1

shell> config commit

Tim-in-CA · ‎2017-08-29

@RogerSC wrote:
@Tim-in-CA wrote:
@RogerSC wrote:
This firmware has been working okay for me as an Access Point since the router auto-updated to it. There is one problem that I see, which is that the Orbi's 2.4GHz. wireless is not being used by any of my clients, and I'm in a crowded network neighborhood. Yet my 2.4GHz. wireless channel width is 40MHz., which is pointless, other than to crowd my neighbors. Since I'm not using 2.4GHz. wireless, it isn't a big deal, but the Orbi would be using a 20MHz. channel width if the "20/40 MHz. coexistence" worked correctly.
How can you tell which frequency clients are connected to if the SSID is shared between bot 2.4 and 5Ghz? I haven't found an option in the menu for this. I've only seen that if you go into the Satellite's menu, that you can see what devices are connected to each sat.
This short thread will tell you how to get the "Advanced attached devices" screen that includes the information you're looking for:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Devices-connected-to-router-or-satellite/td-p/1255900

To quote from that posting, using telnet to the Orbi router:

shell> config set enable_adv_attached=1
shell> config commit

Thanks. Seeing as this involves messing with debug settings, I'm going to hold off for now until I REALLY need it. I don't trust the stability of the system if I start making low level setting changes (although, this seems like something an owner of an advanced router would want to know). I'm only a few days into the latest FW and didn't want to upset the apple cart and doom myself to failures. Disappointing that I need to be so cautious with a $500 system and treat it like a Faberge Egg!

RogerSC · ‎2017-08-29

@Tim-in-CA wrote:

Thanks. Seeing as this involves messing with debug settings, I'm going to hold off for now until I REALLY need it. I don't trust the stability of the system if I start making low level setting changes (although, this seems like something an owner of an advanced router would want to know). I'm only a few days into the latest FW and didn't want to upset the apple cart and doom myself to failures. Disappointing that I need to be so cautious with a $500 system and treat it like a Faberge Egg!

I understand your feelings. Yes, it surprises me that you have to use telnet to turn this on, but Netgear's effort with the firmware of the Orbi has apparently been to make it as simple as possible. I do think that they've exceeded their goal in this one, though. I agree that a router should work well by default, but if you have to do some troubleshooting, as often happens in the real world, then you need this sort of information to understand how your network is working and fix it.