Do not upgrade to 2.1.1.12

[KMAnand]

I had a call with support today regarding frequent disconnections (every 15 or so minutes) on my Orbi. It was running 2.0.0.74 firmware at the start of the call. The support agent made me manually "upgrade" my firmware to 2.1.1.12 and stayed with me on the line for about 5 minutes after the upgrade was complete. I was noticing that the satellite kept showing an orange ring every minute or so. When I mentioned that to him, he said that it was quite normal and it should go away in a few minutes. Here I was feeling accomplished that I finally solved the disconnection issues that had been plaguing my household for several weeks now. Instead, I realised within about 15 minutes that I had made a huge mistake. The new firmware is absolute garbage! My satellite keeps disconnecting every minute or two.

You might wonder if it's because the satellite and the router are too far apart. Well, I checked. My laptop has NetSpot on it so confirmed that the signal strength from the main router near the satellite is pretty solid, so that's certainly not an issue. The agent advised that I should change the channels to 11 and 44 and for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz respectively if I still face connectivity issues. I did that and it turns out that suggestion was not useful at all. Now I am back to square minus one. 

If I had to do it all over again, I'd seriously consider buying an Eero instead of this garbage. Unfortunately for me, I bought this router about 3 months ago from Best Buy, so I am not able to return it either.

[jyun]

Can't you downgrade the firmware back to the previous versions? I have searched and there are some references to people downgrading back in v1 but I can't find anyone confirming v2.

Let me know

[mccx]

Does anyone has experience on going back to v1 from v2 firmware?  I was running 2.0.0.76, upgraded to 2.1 and had tons of issues.   Reverted back to 2.0.0.76 (it still disconnects like before, but not as frequent like 2.1).

If it's possible to go back to v1, which version is the most stable one?   I remember when I first bought the Orbi, everything was working flawnessly until it started to auto upgrade to a newer version, things start to break.  Ever since, I've been spending time troubleshooting and upgrading/downgrading.  

When can Netgear get it straighten out?   Like most people here I'm stuck with the hardware because I can no longer return it.   I had to recommend my brother to buy a Linksys Velop instead (which he told me it's been working nicely for him so far) since I can no longer recommend a router with broken software and tones of issues to anyone anymore.

[KMAnand]

What version to downgrade to? Also, that would mean that I would not have access to potentially any of the latest security updates.

[DarrenM]

Hello KMAnand

Did you try to factory reset both units or even just the satellite unit if that is the one having disconnects?

DarrenM

[JMU1998]

Will we be notified when the auto update will be pushed out so we can prepare ourselves? many of us work from home and a sudden auto updates with a buggy Firmware is not ideal.

[KMAnand]

Yes, customer service made me factory reset both the router and the satellite before performing the upgrade.

Hello KMAnand

Did you try to factory reset both units or even just the satellite unit if that is the one having disconnects?

DarrenM

[JMU1998]

can someone from Netgear let us know when to expect the auto update? with holidays approaching and people need to know so we can plan when the auto update breaks network. 

[DarrenM]

Hello JMU1998

We plan to release the firmware soon it will a updated version of 2.1 but I do not have a exact date yet.

DarrenM