V1.12.0.18 is out

[Ucchi]

I switched the WAN (NAT) setting back to secure.

Further fiddling around with the 2.4ghz wireless channel settings, I was able to get the sattelite recognized only when using Channels 10, 11.

So there might be the solution: Don't use (Auto) and find which band on the 2.4ghz channel works for you.

[Sevo123]

1st off Netgear you guys gotta get your acts together and figure this Orbi situation out! I personally paid over $500 for a orbi system and I do love me some Netgear but the only feature I want is the actual mesh in this mesh system lol! Why cant one satalite connect to
Another instead of the router! 1 year and this last firmware still nothing! I don't even wanna get started with all the stuff we want that have been mentioned in this community post! Netgear you guys will lose customers left & right if you guys dont speed up this firmware issue. I never knew we purchased an item that was defective that needs so much updates lmfao! #FIX #SAD #UbetterTHANthat

[Retired_Member]

Having been one on the thread that had praised 1.12.0.1x from the disaster that 1.11 was, after a complete system reboot (due to swapping a UPS on the router) I can say that after that reboot, my first since 1.12.0.18 was released, my system now is a complete mess.

I'm not sure how a reboot could take a perfectly working system on 1.12.0.18 to what I have now, but it did.

My S8+ and my Surface Pro (2017) now continually show the WIFI icon with the ! sign, with the message "Waiting for the quality to improve" to "no internet".  They'll connect for a few minutes, then go back to the weird connected, but disconnected state.

I have 6 chromecasts and at least 3 are now continually buffering or reconnecting every minute or so.

1.12.0.18 had been, up until yesterday a God send, but now (and following subsequent reboots) is a complete mess as so many are reporting.

[gbjackson]

@DarrellRiffe - thanks.  It would be nice if Netgear provided some detail regarding the "much less secured firewall" statement.  I know that NATfiltering can be a problem for certain applications (online gaming, etc...), but it's not clear exactly what you're doing when you set it to open?  Are you effectively disabling the router's firewall, or doing something a little less drastic.  Point taken about the logs, although when I ran some security tests with the router set to "secured" and then to "open," there weren't any differences.

[TheEther]

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@gbjackson wrote:

@DarrellRiffe - thanks.  It would be nice if Netgear provided some detail regarding the "much less secured firewall" statement.  I know that NATfiltering can be a problem for certain applications (online gaming, etc...), but it's not clear exactly what you're doing when you set it to open?  Are you effectively disabling the router's firewall, or doing something a little less drastic.  Point taken about the logs, although when I ran some security tests with the router set to "secured" and then to "open," there weren't any differences.

---

My understanding is that setting NAT filtering to open is the same as full-cone NAT, as explained in this article, while secure NAT is either restricted cone NAT or port-restricted cone NAT (I haven't tested to determine which, but it's like port-restricted NAT).

Setting NAT filtering to open does not completely disable the firewall.  Any closed ports will still be inaccessible.  The router wouldn't know where to send the traffic because your LAN is a private subnet.  A device on your LAN would have to initiate an outgoing connection first in order to open a port.  Once that happens, and if NAT filtering is open, then any device on the Internet can access that port on that LAN device.

I hope this makes sense.  It can be confusing.

[hobbnet]

My Orbi doesn't work correclty with this latest update.  I get frequent disconnects on a lot of my devices including my iPhone 7 and my Denon receiver.  

When one device disconnects all of the other affected devices disconnect at the same time.  Really frustrating and unacceptable for such an expensive system.  

[DarrenM]

Hello hobbnet

Have you tried to enable beamforming and mumimo? Also have you tried to factory reset your device since the latest update?

DarrenM

[hobbnet]

Yes, DarrenM.  I called netgear customer support last night and they instructed me to do both of those things.  I'm still having frequent disconnects today however.

[RogerSC]

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@hobbnet wrote:

Yes, DarrenM.  I call netgear customer support last night and they instructed me to do both of those things.  I'm still having frequent disconnects today however.

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Wow, widely varying results being reported here! After I gave up on getting the Orbi going in AP mode on the v1.11.x firmware, it is working fine in AP mode with the v1.12.x firmware. Nice and stable.

However, one thing that makes me unhappy is that not only can I not turn off 2.4GHz. wireless, it insists on operating with a 40MHz. wide channel on 2.4GHz. in my crowded neighborhood. So my unused 2.4GHz. signal is taking up more than half of the available 2.4GHz. band. That isn't a big problem since the signal isn't being used, but makes me unhappy that I'm forced to do that at all. And yes, "20/40 MHz. Coexistence" is enabled *smile*.

[st_shaw]

@RogerSCOrbi will switch to 20 MHz if 20/40 coexistence is enabled and interference is detected. I tested it by putting another AP in the same room on overlapping channels.  I don't know what the threshold is though, or whether it continuously checks or only checks at start-up.

[RogerSC]

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@st_shaw wrote:

@RogerSCOrbi will switch to 20 MHz if 20/40 coexistence is enabled and interference is detected. I tested it by putting another AP in the same room on overlapping channels.  I don't know what the threshold is though, or whether it continuously checks or only checks at start-up.

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Yes, I agree that it's supposed to work that way *smile*. Unless it's checking like once a week for band crowding, that's not working for me. It was working in router mode, though. Interesting.

[st_shaw]

I tested it a couple days ago, AP mode, latest firmware. I'm using a set channel, not Auto, and that could make a difference. If that's not it, try disabling the feature, then re-enabling the feature after Orbi reboots.  Perhaps your neighboring APs are not strong enough to trigger the switch. Orbi is probably hammering your neighbors though!

[RogerSC]

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@st_shaw wrote:

I tested it a couple days ago, AP mode, latest firmware. I'm using a set channel, not Auto, and that could make a difference. If that's not it, try disabling the feature, then re-enabling the feature after Orbi reboots.  Perhaps your neighboring APs are not strong enough to trigger the switch. Orbi is probably hammering your neighbors though!

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Thanks, I always use a set channel, learned early on not to use "Auto". And I did mention that it was working in router mode, so yes, my neighbor's networks are strong enough to cause 20MHz. channel width to be triggered if it was working.

Not about to reboot the Orbi at this point, I'm still establishing basic stability in AP mode, want to get a little uptime on it...Anyways, I can't remember the "turn if off and turn it back on" dodge ever working for me. I did try that when I first got the Orbi and had the same problem in router mode. Then Netgear fixed it for router mode after a few firmware releases. I don't know why it works for you and not for me in AP mode...one of those "wildly varying results" I was talking about before. I can live with it for a while, since I'm not using 2.4GHz. But I'm glad that it works for you.

[RogerSC]

Just for the record, I did try the "disable 20/40MHz. Coexistence, and re-enable" thing without rebooting, though, and no effect. Still have 40MHz. channel width.

So it goes.

On the plus side, have a about a day of stability of AP mode with the latest firmware release for the Orbi. A hopeful start. A long way to a month of uptime *smile*. That's my acid test for stability. A week is nice, a month is conclusive for me.

[st_shaw]

Just to be completely clear, I was suggesting changing the setting, then hitting Apply which restarts the radio and makes the change take effect.  Not just clicking the box.

In my experience, Orbi has been operating with complete stablity in AP mode since I bought it in January, through all software updates. The only time I have had issues is when I created the isssues.  Like when I moved the Orbis to a bad location (a basement corner underground) or when I have had other RF devices too close or operating on conflicting channels (Sonos speakers and ISP routers with WiFi).  Any issues I've had were explainable and fixable with proper channel management, and a little thought and consideration of how Orbi works and how nearby radio systems work.

I have experienced random disconnects with another manufacturer's WiFi router which was 2X more expensive than Orbi, so I understand the frustration of people who do have issues.

[RogerSC]

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@st_shaw wrote:

Just to be completely clear, I was suggesting changing the setting, then hitting Apply which restarts the radio and makes the change take effect.  Not just clicking the box.

In my experience, Orbi has been operating with complete stablity in AP mode since I bought it in January, through all software updates. The only time I have had issues is when I created the isssues.  Like when I moved the Orbis to a bad location (a basement corner underground) or when I have had other RF devices too close or operating on conflicting channels (Sonos speakers and ISP routers with WiFi).  Any issues I've had were explainable and fixable with proper channel management, and a little thought and consideration of how Orbi works and how nearby radio systems work.

I have experienced random disconnects with another manufacturer's WiFi router which was 2X more expensive than Orbi, so I understand the frustration of people who do have issues.

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Not sure why you would assume that I don't know about or use "Apply" to commit changes, so here's what I did:

1. Deselected 20/40 MHz Coexistence.

2. Clicked on "Apply".

3. Selected 20/40 MHz Coexistence.

4. Clicked "Apply" again.

See, I know that I need to "Apply"...

Did not help, as I expected. But I'm willing to try things, and often do. Sometimes changes help, sometimes they don't.

Just to to help you out, I've been playing with routers and firmware including dd-wrt, tomato, OpenWRT, LEDE, asuswrt, not to mention Linksys, Netgear, Asus, D-Link, etc. for about 10-15 years. I don't pretend to know everything, but I'm thorough and usually get things to work if they can work. While I'm happy to hear about your experiences, I also know what I'm seeing here.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it. Right at the moment the only issues I'm having aren't major but are still issues. They apparently differ from your issues. That happens.

[st_shaw]

I didn't assume anything about what you did.  I only clarified what I was suggesting so there was no ambiguity about what I meant.

[madbrain]

The telnet procedure did not work for me. My Orbi just upgraded itself again today to the broken firmware, for the 4th time, and of course, I lost my satellites . Sigh.

IS THERE ANY WAY THAT ACTUALLY WORKS TO STOP UPDATES FROM HAPPENING ?

[scornwell]

There's no need for lawsuit, Netgear just need to get off their a**** and start communicating with and supporting their customers. There's absolutely no excuse whatsoever for not having released an update that allows us to disable automatic updates by now. I'm starting to get the feeling the Orbi dev team is just one guy working on his spare time.

I'd ask some Netgear staff for an update, but we all know by now that they're not going to say a d*** thing.

[JMU1998]

@scornwell how hard is it to release a targeted fix that allows us to disable/enable auto updates just a simple check box that will make half the community with issues happy and tie us over until the next major fix/Firmware is released to address all the other issues for now just let us make our network stable to stop the auto update.

[cyberprashant]

Mine has not auto-upgraded in over 2 weeks now - the key maybe to have it a router ahead of it. My old r7000 has downloads.netgear.com blocked and i have the orbi wan port plugged into the r7000 lan port and the r7000 wan into the cable modem....try that if u have a spare router and want to block auto updates and telnet method failing

[Ucchi]

I don't want to speculate but can't help it; it seems to me like Netgear's quiet Insistance on everyone getting updated to 1.12.0.18 is probably that they're hiding a big boo-boo from us.

[Retired_Member]

Given how terrible 1.11.x was, I suspect that as bad as 1.12.0.16-18 are, they're nothing compared to 1.11.x for the majority of users.

[RogerSC]

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@cyberprashant wrote:
Mine has not auto-upgraded in over 2 weeks now - the key maybe to have it a router ahead of it. My old r7000 has downloads.netgear.com blocked and i have the orbi wan port plugged into the r7000 lan port and the r7000 wan into the cable modem....try that if u have a spare router and want to block auto updates and telnet method failing

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Well, I had a losing battle keeping my Orbi from auto-updating, it even did it in AP mode. I had blocked the same Netgear download domain in the main router, but my Orbi has been really aggressive in auto-updating.

On the good side, though, the firmware release that I was trying to keep the Orbi on, v1.11, only worked in AP mode for about 20 minutes or so for me. And then the router and satellite units both went magenta and incommunicado. So I updated it manually (would you believe) to v1.12, and now the Orbi is stable and working well in AP mode. Got a couple of days of stability now, which is a really good sign. So, unless I'm willing to go back to v1.10 and try that, I'm okay with this particular auto-update to the latest.

However, I need to add that I'm not okay being unable to disable auto-update when I need to. Fine with firmware auto-update as a default, but there are times when I have reasons for staying on a particular version of firmware.

[madbrain]

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@cyberprashant wrote:
Mine has not auto-upgraded in over 2 weeks now - the key maybe to have it a router ahead of it. My old r7000 has downloads.netgear.com blocked and i have the orbi wan port plugged into the r7000 lan port and the r7000 wan into the cable modem....try that if u have a spare router and want to block auto updates and telnet method failing

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I have the same config - R7000 router ahead of Orbi  in AP mode. Had blocked downloads.netgear.com (and download.netger.com) in the R7000 . Orbi still updated itself yesterday after 5 days.

And my Orbi router is now bricked after the manual rollback to 1.11 failed.