EX6200 suddenly not making network; only up/down green arrow lights on

[mlevin77]

I have a Netgear EX6200 wifi range extender. It was working fine for a couple of months (extending a network from a Netgear router on the 1st floor), but suddenly our devices cannot see its extended wifi network. I tried rebooting it, same problem. The only light that is on (green LEDs) is the one with the two little arrows up and down. All the others are off. Any idea what this means? What can I do to debug this problem?

[mlevin77]

I've disconnected the ethernet printer that was plugged into it, and now all lights are off.

[Babylon5]

When connected by Ethernet is the printer accessible from the main network, i.e. is the extender communicating with the router?

[mlevin77]

nope, extender wasn't communicating with anything. I had to reset it back to factory state and then restore a saved config file.

[Fairytail]

Try configuring it closer to the router. Check as well if there are new firmwares for you to try.

[mlevin77]

Yep, first thing I tried was bring it right close to the router, no change. As for firmware, I think there is some new firmware - if I upgrade it, would I need to reconfigure everything or would the old config file still be usable?

[Babylon5]

I would recommend that you note down all settings then factory reset after the firmware upgrade, and then re-enter settings manually.

[mlevin77]

Babylon5 wrote:
I would recommend that you note down all settings then factory reset after the firmware upgrade, and then re-enter settings manually.

is this better than restoring a config file? What's the downside of the config file method?

[Babylon5]

Restoring config files to a different version of firmware can sometimes cause issues, especially where there is a difference in functionality between versions e.g. a new feature has been added. By all means use a config file, but since you are currently having unexpected issues I could not guarantee it will work, but it’s up to you if you want to try and save some setup effort.

If you do save a config file then I would suggest that before you try a newer version of firmware factory reset the EX6200, see if the basic problem still exists, and if not then restore the config file, and check for the issue again. After that, if all is well, then consider the firmware upgrade.