EX7000 internet issues after firmware upgrade

[pacdave]

I received an email to upgrade my wifi extender firmware to V1.0.1.78_1.0.140. Installation went fine. Now I cannot connect to most websites. Google I can connect to. Netgear, among many others, I simply recieve Server Not Found. I did nothing but upgrade the firmware. Everything worked fine before the upgrade. I've even tried connecting to the router, not the extender. Same problem. Any suggestions? This is aggrivating. Thanks!

[JMW001 · Accepted solution]

Yep... MANY people are having same problem .... downgrade the firmware by downloading it from netgear and applying ... looks like newest release is borked

[JMW001 · Accepted solution]

Yep... MANY people are having same problem .... downgrade the firmware by downloading it from netgear and applying ... looks like newest release is borked

[yukitz]

I am curious what percentage of EX7000 units updated to the latest firmware is having these issues reported here.

I figure people happy with the update wouldn't be here, so it would be tricky to determine the success rate by polling people in here.

I too had frequent disconnect issues after the update, so I rolled back to the previous version.

[JHMar]

Having same issue.  Changed channel...did not fix.   Is there a solution that does not call for a roll back?

[JMW001]

Seemingly not at present. And i've found that rolling back hasn't resolved the instability ... i have effectively decommisioned my EX7000 because of this which is really annoying.

[NickAskew]

Hi,

I've had loads of problems since the firmware upgrade too, my symptoms are extremely slow download speeds when connected via WiFi to this EX7000 - upload isn't ever affected, confirmed by running numerous download speed tests - 0 bytes down, almost full bandwidth of my configured upload speed.  Switching to connect via WiFi directly to my broadband router (a BT SmartHub6) results in full speed again, switching back to being connected to the EX7000 results in zero download speed, full upload speed.  Only powering the EX7000 off and then back on again fixes my issue.

I'll try the older firmware version now and see if it's still unstable over the next few days.

Cheers

Nick

[NickAskew]

Additionally after the downgrade from V1.0.1.78_1.0.140 to V1.0.0.66_1.0.126, my WiFi connected speed has risen from 575 Mbps (V1.0.1.78_1.0.140) to 1.1 Gbps (V1.0.0.66_1.0.126).

[StephenB]

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@JMW001 wrote:

Seemingly not at present. And i've found that rolling back hasn't resolved the instability ... i have effectively decommisioned my EX7000 because of this which is really annoying.

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You might try one more factory reset of the extender, and reconfigure.  When the format of the settings file changes, they convert it when upgrading, but they can't back-convert it when downgrading.  So you can end up with some bogus settings (not always visible in the UI).

[schumaku]

Didn't work for us at all. Spent hours for updating and reconfig. Then we discovered the EX7000 in AP did not even pick up an address by DHCP on the wired GbE anymore, it "disappeared" - and the users complained about the loss of Internet connectivity.

[StephenB]

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@schumaku wrote:

Then we discovered the EX7000 in AP did not even pick up an address by DHCP on the wired GbE anymore, it "disappeared" 

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This was after you downgraded the firmware again?

[schumaku]

No, we've upgraded and re-configured from scratch last weekend - because we found it hard to believe it should not work. As of today, we're back on 1.0.0.66.

[yukitz]

When I switched back to 1.0.0.66 firmware I didn't have to do the reset, but I had to re-enter the SSID & password to reconnect to my router.

Seems most people here were able to switch back to the previous firmware.

[pacdave]

Thanks.  I rolled it back to the previous version.  No more problems. 

[JMW001]

Tried factory resets several times... i've given up on it - it's off and will remain off until there's a new firmware out which (hopefully) resolves the issues

[pacdave]

I had to foll my firmware back to the previous versions.  Easy to do.  No more problems. 

[pacdave]

Go to netgear, download the previous firmware version and install.  I did that and had no more problems.  No telling when a new version will be out to replace the current buggy version. 

[JMW001]

I did that (several times) and it's still unstable. Tried updating wirelessly & cabled. Don't know what else to say ... factory reset each time but it's just, at this point, a useless hunk of plastic now.

Very much not impressed that this has happened

[schumaku]

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@schumaku wrote:

No, we've upgraded and re-configured from scratch last weekend - because we found it hard to believe it should not work. As of today, we're back on 1.0.0.66.

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FWIW - the EX7000 disappeared from the switched network L3 wise (but was reachable over it's radios), GbE devices (like a NAS and two printers) showed problems, these wired devices cloud functionalities had issues (e.g. DDNS registrations or cloud access of the NAS, cloud access to the printers, ...), too.

[pacdave]

Hmmm.  I downgraded from version V1.0.1.78 to V1.0.1.66 wirelessly using the below instructions.  Must be just lucky.  I haven't had any additional problems that I've noticed.  

Note: To avoid wireless disconnect issue during the firmware download process, NETGEAR recommends that firmware upgrade be performed on a computer with wired connection.

1. Write down all the settings which you changed from the default values, since you may need to re-enter them manually.
2. Using the Download Link below, download and extract the new firmware to a convenient place such as your desktop. The filename after extracting is EX7000-V1.0.0.66_1.0.126.chk
   
   Download Link: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/EX7000/EX7000-V1.0.0.66_1.0.126.zip
3. Log in to the device using a Web browser. The URL is http://www.mywifiext.net.
4. Click Firmware Update.
5. Find “Upload Update File” and click “Browse” and locate the file you just downloaded.
6. Click Upload. While the firmware is loading, do not interrupt the upgrade process.
7. The extender reboots when the upgrade is complete.
8. After the extender boots up and the power LED becomes steady green, log in the extender again.
   
   To check that the upgrade was successful, log in to the extender again at http://mywifiext.net and check the firmware version.

Important Note:

1. The upgrade process is completed when the on screen progress bar completes.
2. EX7000 don’t have power LED. It has three LED’s above the LAN LED.
3. If the upgrade progress bar on web GUI doesn’t display correctly during firmware upgrade, please see the two arrows LED (Device to Extender LED). During upgrading, this LED will blink amber. After firmware upgrade is done and boots up the system, it changes to steady green color
4. Please DO NOT power off or reboot the device during firmware upgrade, otherwise, it may result to a corrupt firmware and cause the device not to work.

[schumaku]

Sorry to be unclear - this was on the new firmware only, once downgraded things were back to normal (some other oddity - had to reboot the NAS).

[dstorer3]

I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to roll back after first upgrade went south and tried two more times thinkiing it was my fault then finally looked at the community postings. Won't be trying again

[mtapsak]

I am having problems too. Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a novice and can't figure out how to roll back to an earlier version. Is there a help thread for that? Happy for replies to mtapsak@hotmail.com thank!!!

[StephenB]

Basic instructions are here: https://kb.netgear.com/000059563/EX7000-Firmware-Version-1-0-0-66.

On step 5, make sure you select the .chk file.

[danielgeorge000]

I had issues with disconnects after loading the 1.0.1.78 firmware upgrade. I solved it (maybe, just implemented this solution 4 hours ago) by installing the previous version 1.0.0.66. It wasn't so straight forward, however. Like some others on this forum, the installation wasn't able to restart the extender to the point where it could re-establish a connection to the base router. I had to resort to doing a factory reset on the extender, and then redoing some of the extender settings. The extender DID remember it's previous SSID names for both the 2.4 and 5 gHz channels, as well as their respective passwords. Netgear support needs to step up and admit that this is a bogus upgrade, and let us know when a reliable one is available.

[danielgeorge000]

None that I know of. See my comments (#24 in this thread)