ipV6 disconnecting on Orbi RBR850

[donawalt]

(NOT RBK53 model in drop down, why is RBR850 not there?)

I have RBR850, firmware V4.6.7.13_2.1.9, and a CM1200 modem connected to Comcast's 1.2/40 service. All is working well, speeds, modem numbers, errors/logs are all fine. I read somewhere, can't find it now, on the Comcast board I believe, that Orbis were dropping their ipV6 connection. I didn't know if mine was or not, as I have nothing requiring ipV6 exclusively, and ipV4 is available. So I checked last night on the router web page, and sure enough the router didn't even have a WAN or LAN ipv6 ip address! After some playing around, I found I just selected Auto-detect, saved, and it went back to DHCP and had an ip address - and the test ipv6 was back to 10/10.

Everything else in my ipv6 settings is default - dns address of ISP, auto config of IP address assignment, and enable RIPng is not selected.

This morning, about 7 hours later, I just did the ip test, and it failed. Now this time, the router still had ip addresses, but ipv6 was definitely not working. I tried a router reboot, still not working. Again, I set it to auto-detect, saved, it went back to dhcp, and the ipv6 test is back to 10/10 pass.

what I had read is that the Ori router is dropping ipv6 every 4-5 hours. This appears to be happening to my router as well. Is this something for NG engineers to investigate? Is there anything I should do? Are others seeing this (you may have to go and test it specifically since ipV4 is working fine)?

[donawalt · Accepted solution]

OK, it's been two weeks, and my IPv6 has been working perfectly all that time, no more disconnects! I am going to mark this thread as solved, with the update of firmware to 4.6.8.5 being the thing that fixed it. If others are still having trouble I suggest starting a new thread, as there may be multiple issues. Thanks everyone for your help!

[CrimpOn]

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@donawalt wrote:

I just did the ip test, and it failed. Now this time, the router still had ip addresses, but ipv6 was definitely not working.

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Sorry if this is obvious, but could you please describe how you do the IP test?

[donawalt]

https://test-ipv6.com/

[CrimpOn]

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@donawalt wrote:
https://test-ipv6.com/

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Way cool.  Thanks.  I particularly like the tab which explains how the tests were run.  I'm guessing that "Fail" means that all of the IPv6 tests were not successful?

[donawalt]

Yes, sorry, I should’ve been more accurate. Any of those 10 tests related to IPv6 said fail. For example, there was no IPV6 IP address.

[CrimpOn]

I'm on Spectrum, which shows "DHCP" in the connection type. (which is correct).

My Enable RIPng box is checked.

Wonder if Jason Fesler would comment on your results?

[donawalt]

Yes, mine goes to DHCP connection type once I do an auto-detect.

Now, it has been about 6 hours and it's still working. Maybe reboot the server first, then Auto Detect does the trick? We will wait and see!

[donawalt]

24 hours later, it is still working! My last thing to investigate, maybe you can help - I want to make sure that if necessary the RBR850 successfully renews its IPv6 address with Comcast. This is the only other potential stumbling block for ipV6 to keep working that I can think of. I assume it's a dynamic IP address with a lease, and not static? If true, where can I find the lease info, and when the IP address expires? 

[cdysthe]

I am having the exact same problem on RBK752. Losing the IPv6 IP after approximately one week. Then I have to do all kinds of toggling including disable to get a new IP set DHCP. Auto Detect gets me 6to4tunnel so I have to force DHCP to get an IP.

So this must be an Orbi vs Xfinity issue since it happens on different Orbi models. Otherwise see here:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WiFi-6-AX-and-WiFi-6E-AXE/My-Orbi-RBR752-drops-IPv6-every-hour...

Netgear has to address this with a firmware update sooner rather than later. I do not not have these issues on my backup older ASUS router so Xfinity/Comcast did something with their IPv6 DHCP implementation a few months ago since it worked fine for a year before this started to happen

[donawalt]

So I reported on April 4 above, mine was working. Seeing today's thread post, I tested again - unsupported. So ipv6 just stops working maybe within a 2 week window.

[cdysthe]

It's 5 to 7 days for me between drops and has been for the last four weeks.

[donawalt]

Here I am 3 days later and it has failed again., Why won't Netgear respond to this? There's an obvious issue...the test says no ipV6 address detected, but the Netgear admin site says it has an ip...

[cdysthe]

I've had another IPv6 drop a few days ago also on my RBR752. Expecting another this weekend. This has to be fixed asap since I need working IPv6 for a couple of IOT devices that doesn't work well without it. And it is such a waste of time since I spend 10-15 minutes every time it happens to get a new IPv6 address.

[CrimpOn]

Could you please identify the IoT devices which require IPv6?

[cdysthe]

I have two Eve devices. Eve Room and Eve Weather. They both work better with IPv6. And of course, the X-Box is "best experienced" with IPv6

[CrimpOn]

 Eve Home and Eve Weather describe their wireless connection as Bluetooth Low Energy.  IPv6 has nothing to do with Bluetooth Low Energy.

They both require an Apple iPhone or iPad for local access and either an Apple HomePod or AppleTV for access when away from home.

Not sure how that equates to "work better" with IPv6?

[cdysthe]

I was told that "Eve runs on Thread which is designed around IPv6". How it otherwise works I do not know. I do not know why the X-box works better with IPv6 either. I just use the stuff. What I do know is that IPv6 is currently broken on Orbi systems. Whether it's an ISP or Netgear issue I yet again do not know. I, and others just want it to work again. 

[FURRYe38]

Would be good to know if this still happens with newer FW:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WiFi-6-AX-and-WiFi-6E-AXE/New-RBR850-RBS850-Firmware-Version-4...

@donawalt 

[donawalt]

I am on 4.6.8.2_2.1.9 (Orbi RBR850) and I am one of the ones reporting the problem so yes it does occur on the latest firmware.

[FURRYe38]

Did you power OFF and back on the ISP modem and RBR for 1 minute or  factory reset and setup from scratch then test IPv6? 

[cdysthe]

I have done it all several times. The IPv6 is lost after approximately a week. Then I have to toggle IPv6 to disable and on again, then do auto detect which gives me 6to4tunnel and then set DHCP. If none of that works I have to reboot the router and modem also. It's time consuming and annoying.

I am on firmware 4.6.8.2.

[donawalt]

Actually I did neither, I see that firmware came out April 27 - I didn't even know there was new firmware out. Does it auto update? I'll power off the modem and RBR now for 1 minute and see how it goes the next few days...

[donawalt]

I did the power reset on the modem and router yesterday afternoon, Last night I encountered a strange problem. On 2 different Windows 11 laptops, things got really slow. On my MacBook Pro there were no issues. I couldn't figure out the problem, but to get to the DuckDuckGo home page in Edge took about 30 seconds, usually it's instantaneous. Quicken took about 3-4 minutes to bring up the first screen! I ran speed test, it took about a minute to connect, but then speeds were perfect (~ 900Mbps down, 40 Mbps up - so a very fast ethernet). One of the Windows is Ethernet connected the other is WiFi.

So I tried - 

Windows restart

Windows power cycle

Power cycle modem

Power cycle RBR850

Power cycle Switch

Clear all cache etc. in Edge 

I probably did some other stuff I can't remember.

It was still very bad today, almost unusable. So I thought about the ipV6 issues, and I disabled ipV6 on the router only. Boom - lightning fast again! So there was some sort of serious issue going on here. I am done with ipV6 for awhile, luckily I can afford to - maybe it will work consistently by the time its truly needed.

[cdysthe]

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@donawalt wrote:

I did the power reset on the modem and router yesterday afternoon, Last night I encountered a strange problem. On 2 different Windows 11 laptops, things got really slow. On my MacBook Pro there were no issues. I couldn't figure out the problem, but to get to the DuckDuckGo home page in Edge took about 30 seconds, usually it's instantaneous. Quicken took about 3-4 minutes to bring up the first screen! I ran speed test, it took about a minute to connect, but then speeds were perfect (~ 900Mbps down, 40 Mbps up - so a very fast ethernet). One of the Windows is Ethernet connected the other is WiFi.

So I tried - 

Windows restart

Windows power cycle

Power cycle modem

Power cycle RBR850

Power cycle Switch

Clear all cache etc. in Edge 

I probably did some other stuff I can't remember.

It was still very bad today, almost unusable. So I thought about the ipV6 issues, and I disabled ipV6 on the router only. Boom - lightning fast again! So there was some sort of serious issue going on here. I am done with ipV6 for awhile, luckily I can afford to - maybe it will work consistently by the time its truly needed.

@donawalt 

That is very interesting! After IPv6 is lost on my 752 I have to toggle IPv6 and use Auto Detect and then sett DHCP. The issue is that Auto Detect takes a very long time and the router web UI gets unresponsive for a long time. It sometime takes up to a minute before things go back to normal. Normal being either having a IPv6 address or 6to4 tunnel or having to power cycle everything.. There's clearly issues with IPv6 although I have not had slow network performance like you had.

[donawalt]

That's the first time I saw that performance hit, and on multiple Windows laptops.