*BUG* 2.6.1.16 SSID Name Character Limit Change

[hookalot]

Count me in as one of the folks whose system was auto updated from firmware 2.0.0.74 to 2.1.1.16.  I'm also experiencing from the various other issues reported, but wanted to touch upon this particular issue concerning the wireless SSID character limitation/display issue I'm experiencing.
Prior to the firmware upgrade to 2.1.1.16, I had a 17 character SSID brodcast name.  After the firmware upgrade, my SSID name was chopped down to only 15 characters (last 2 characters were dropped off).  It took me a bit of troubleshooting to figure out why my wireless devices were not connecting to my known network, and that’s when I discovered the discrepancy in SSID name.  
Oddly enough, I was able to go into GUI and re-apply my original 17 character SSID name, and my devices were able to re-connect as expected.  However, the GUI SSID Name textbox is still only displaying the first 15 characters, despite the system broadcasting the 17 character name.
This sounds like a simple character length/display coding issue that was introduced in this version that will hopefully be trivial enough to correct.  I would appreciate if others could duplicate this issue and acknowledgment from the Netgear Support/Dev team that this is an issue they will investigate.

Equipment: RBK50  in Router Mode
1 x Orbi Router (RBR50)
1 x Orbi Satellite (RBS50)

[javasmith]

Replicated and confirmed.    There is a bug in the maximum SSID length.  There's an additional bug in the maximum password length, too.  I could not "fix" the password bug by typing my long password in the password field.  When I tried to apply the changes for both my "long" SSID and "long" password, I got a web browser error (in Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Edge).  I ended up reverting back to firmware version 2.0.0.76.    The IEEE 802.11i-2004 defines WPA2 passwords as being 8-63 ASCII characters or 64 hex characters.  The IEEE Std 802.11-2007 defines the maximum SSID length as 32 charaters.  I would've though these would have been part of the firmware release acceptance test suite 10+ years ago.  

[hookalot]

Thank you for testing.

I found this additional post today, regarding the use of "$" in the password field.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Orbi-RBR50-2-1-1-12-Wifi-Password-issue/m-p/1476890#M19946

Made me rethink perhaps character length is not the real root cause here, instead the use of the "$" character in the SSID or password field is.

[DarrenM]

We have a fix for this issue in the new beta firmware that you can find here 

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/OrbiOS-2-1-1/m-p/1476960#M19962

DarrenM

[javasmith]

Nope.  I upgraded to 2.1.2.10, and password bug is still there.  I have a 63-character password containing random ASCII text including upper & lower case letters, numbers, and symbols.  On the first $ character in my password, the string "wl_wpa2_psk " [without the quotes] replaces the $ and the entire password is appended in its entirety after the string (without any further string substitutions).  This doesn't seem to have been an issue for versions 2.0.0.76 and below.  Is NETGEAR using something like Jenkins, eggPlant, or Google Test to conduct automated unit and system level testing?  In the case of allowable passwords...for your nominal use cases, you'd minimally need 55 tests -- covering all of the "printable ASCII characters" across the 55 tests -- assuming a valid password length of 8..63 characters.  To cover errors and exceptions, you'd need tests for pass word lengths of <8 and >63 characters; passwords that contain non-printable ASCII characters; etc.

[javasmith]

Some additional information...if I try to change the password back to the original password via the router GUI, I get a "400 Bad Request" HTML error.  Trying to force the router to revert to the correct password by going through the "setup wizard" again didn't work.  Trying to use a backup settings file from version 2.0.0.76 that I made before the 2.1.2.10 upgrade looked like it was going to work.  The password field in the router GUI reverted back to the original correct password.  However...none of my network devices were able to connect.  So...I did a hard reset on the router and satellite and manually downgraded to 2.0.0.76...but I've gotten pretty efficient at doing that.   Is there anyway I can Telnet into the router and manually set the password?