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Wifi randonly drops off for about 30 secs about every 15-20 mins. This is mostly noticable on the 2.4ghz channel since all the "smart things" are connected to 2.4ghz. I have tried switching channels (1, 6, 11 & Auto) and hasnt seemed to help.
This only effects wireless connected devices as LAN devices have no issue.
I have had soo many issues with the new setup with the R9000 router and mesh (EX8000), I already returned the mesh to the store and plugged back in my EX7000 and I have been considering returning the R9000 and using my old R7000. I have had 4 hours of techincal support and still having more issues than with my old set up which was only replaced because I had to reset it once a week. Quite possibly my last netgear product.
Nothing I tried fixed the issue and I got really tired of spending so much time trying to fix it that I returned it and made a switch to a different brand...
I had a BestBuy replacement plan for my R9000. So, I decided to exchange it (I was only seeing drops on 5GHz; 2.4 and ethernet were both fine). The replacement R9000 works flawlessly. It is possible you are seeing hardware issues.
Nothing I tried fixed the issue and I got really tired of spending so much time trying to fix it that I returned it and made a switch to a different brand...
I have hit this issue once again on my brand new (replacement) R9000. I would love to try Voxel, but I've opened a ticket with Netgear support and want to give them the opportunity to fix the firmware. If I don't get traction there, I will be using Voxel.
One thing worth noting. I have now disable MU-MIMO and Smart Roaming in the advanced wireless settings (even though it says "Don't touch this unless directed to by Netgear support") and while it isn't a 100% solution, my packet loss and drop frequency has noticible decreased.
switched brands and the Asus router took me a whole 15 mins to set up and has been working flawlessly. Bonus was it was half the price for 1 router and 1 router/mesh.
Using AirPlay for iTunes music over wifi drops out every 5-10 mins, shortly 2 or 3 times, then works. for another 10 min.
Streaming music from my Mac iTunes (wifi) over AppleTV (wired) and to a couple wifi speakers is my primary use. I have no dropouts streaming video over my wired Apple TV (eg Netflix). When I hardwire my Mac to the router, my AirPlay dropouts are much less frequent - but still happen every 20 min or so.
I've messed around with beamforming, smart connect etc with little change but frankly this is a basic use case in 2018 for a "future proof" router that costs this much. It should work out of the box. I'll hope for a FW fix but will probably send it back to Amazon and abandon Netgear.
And also, I for one wish you'd give up trying to be a media server as well.
I'm also inclined to run open source firmware where I can see everything being placed on my router (Voxel has all his stuff on GitHub; check it out). I will likely switch once my support runs out.
That being said, I've been working with Netgear support and running various tests. Here is what I've learned.
When the drop happens, anything hardlined and on 2.4GHz are unaffected. Everything on 5GHz sees near total packet loss simultanouesly. Disabling MU-MIMO and smart roaming (as I mentioned in a previous post) seems to mitigate the issue. I'll update this thread when I hear back from support.
I spent 2 hours on the phone with netgear support, had to pay $89.99 to get it fixed. 24 hours later, all my devices can’t connect to the router. All my problems began because I followed Netgear’s prompts to update the firmware. I ended up buying a Google WiFi. So frustrated with Netgear. They will lose customers if they don’t fix this issue. Researching and it seems many people have had this issue for a long while.
I just got off the phone with a very pleasant individual who has asked me to setup a few tests I've personally designed as well as some extra debug captures. I will be trying this tomorrow and reporting my findings to Netgear. Hopefully their engineers will be able to find the root cause in all the data I've managed to collect (and will collect tomorrow).
Even with my workaround in place two of my devices lose connectivity and will not recover (one is a Sony sound bar the other is my XBox One X; both are relatively new and both only have this happen on the 5GHz network; I exchanged the sound bar because I could and it did no fix the issue). Only a hard power cycle recovers the functionality.
I strongly suspect there is likely some less-than-bulletproof code in the XBox One X and Sony sound bar wireless drivers and the R9000 is doing something so strange its causing them to crash. Linux (4.15 kernel), Android (the one device I have on all the time anyway), iOS, and MacOS seem to just experience packet loss and recover.
For me, this was not a problem until I upgraded to 1.0.4.12.
So it has been almost 2 weeks since I decided to quit messing with the netgear router and replaced with a mesh set up from Asus https://amzn.to/2IRFzkY. They are not as fancy but omg, not a single dropped signal since I swithced over. IMO I would rather have relyability over speed, still getting 800-900 mbps on LAN and 100mbps on 2.4 @~200 mbps on 5G. Best switch I have made an it was only half to cost lol... Good bye netgear you just lost a 15 year customer
I've had really good luck with Asus routers (I have one in a drawer I use for testing/ad hoc networks and I set one up for my parents); unfortunately only the ugly 8 antenta (AC5300) seemed to be able to support my device load and performance requirements at the time I was shopping around and bought the R9000 and it had better reviews and (believe it or not) better firmware.
That being said, the R9000 is really a nice piece of hardware and I still like its theoretical capabilities. Unfortunately, the firmware leaves a great deal to be desired. If Netgear support is not able to get it patched to my satisfaction, I'll try Voxel. If that doesn't work to my satisifaction, I'll either patch Voxel and submit a PR, fork Voxel and build my own custom firmware, or finally just throw my hands up and throw DD-WRT on there.
Good luck with your Asus devices! Like I said, Asus makes a solid product; just make sure you keep them up to date. They do put out frequent updates to pick up security fixes which is a really great thing. You may wish to do all your updates over a wired connection or their built in updater; I've had problems when updating my AC66U over WiFi and had to connect over wired to recover it.
Don’t you find it strange that Netgear hasn’t fixed this issue. I mean, so ma y people are dropping Netgear and choosing any other product that doesn’t give such a headache. I’m bummed, because prior to updating, I’ve not had any issues with my Netgear router. If I was Netgear, man, I would fix it quick!
I am actively working with Netgear on the issue and have provided them way more information than I'm normally comfortable with in order to resolve this so I hope their engineers can pinpoint the problem.
Please note: I rolled back to 1.0.4.2 as part of troubleshooting with Netgear and it fixed all of my issues. I'm going to continue to use the old firmware for a few days and see how it goes, but so far it looks really good (especially since I can trigger the network drops on demand on the 1.0.4.12 within a 3-4 minute time window; it turns out Splatoon 2 is really good a triggering it and it takes only a single multi-player match to bring the network down).
I normally would not encourage anyone to ever downgrade an OS/Firmware for security reasons, in this case it might be prudent to do so in the name of stability until Netgear fixes whatever is wrong with 1.0.4.12.
Seriously! It’s their own firmware update that are messing everything up. Why don’t they fix that? They’ll make you buy a support package, waste 3 hours of your life and the fix isn’t permanent. They destroyed my router. They told me I would pay $89.99 as long as they fixed it. It worked for less than a day and crashed. So I called to get it refunded. They scam you. Thank god American Express has your back and I just disputed the entire charge! I’m not paying them a penny for destroying the router and not fixing it. I won’t be buying Netgear again.
I have downgraded and while the drops only happen about once a day now, they still occur. Mac, pc, Xbox and iphones affected and split across 2.4 and 5Ghz.
Another one here! I have a R9000 and my WIFI is dropping under heavy load.
I have a DirectTV streaming service, doorbell cam. 2 cams in my kids rooms. 3 apple TVs all on WIFI. Phillips Hue Bridge. Garage Door Opener. Multiple iPhones / iPads / Apple Watches / Laptops. 2 Androids.
All of that is consistantly on my WIFI but in the past few days I've really noticed that while watching my kids streams and watching TV at the same time, the connection will drop. Then I found the http://routerlogin.net/RST_statistic.htm and when looking at WLAN b/g/n and /a/n/ac I see things like 00:03:58 uptime (3 minutes) vs lan 6 and wan which is 02:04:40:10 2 days so my wifi is contantly rebooting.
i started keeping that page open and i started noticing my wifi is constantly rebooting every 10 - 20 minutes. I turned off WMM etc and it still drops.
Should I downgrade to a certain firmware while we sort this out?
