RBK 8 Series Only - Unofficial v4.6.6.11 Firmware Experiences

[Dd852]

Maybe we underestimate the complexity of mesh - when I was at my low point with Netgear and high point of frustration, I started researching competitors thinking about jumping ship... but when you delve into their community websites there seems to be just as much bitterness and anger at firmware problems. I honestly don't think anyone has found the golden ticket of great performance combined with flawless firmware updates combined with decent customer service. Unfortunately. There would seem to be a great market opportunity for someone to fill!

[FURRYe38]

v4 initial version was supposed to bring in Smart Parental Controls which had been missing since Orbi AX first launched. Seemed to bring in headaches instead. 

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@tjtrimble wrote:

I installed this version yesterday morning....everything is looking good & stable so far.  I wonder why Netgear is having such a tough time with their firmware?  I'm not seeing many new features in these releases.  The only new feature I want to see is an opt out of automatic firmware upgrades!

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[N3tworkDud3]

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@Dd852 wrote:

Maybe we underestimate the complexity of mesh - when I was at my low point with Netgear and high point of frustration, I started researching competitors thinking about jumping ship... but when you delve into their community websites there seems to be just as much bitterness and anger at firmware problems. I honestly don't think anyone has found the golden ticket of great performance combined with flawless firmware updates combined with decent customer service. Unfortunately. There would seem to be a great market opportunity for someone to fill

But businiesses have been using systems like this for well over a decade. Think about it - you go to a large buiilding where one business resides and they have Wi-Fi. You don't change SSID's when you move around - the same SSID works everywhere they enabled it. 

People who use Ubiquity swear by them. I've seen a lot of positive reviews, including wiith firmware, on ASUS products. 

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[RelaxMinders]

Why the link to a random .nl domain? Doesn't support give out a netgear url?

[FURRYe38]

Was given to a user who called NG support and the user posted it. No idea when NG will officially post something. Use at your own risk. 

I loaded it up on mine. No issues so far. 

[RelaxMinders]

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@Dd852 wrote:

Maybe we underestimate the complexity of mesh - when I was at my low point with Netgear and high point of frustration, I started researching competitors thinking about jumping ship... but when you delve into their community websites there seems to be just as much bitterness and anger at firmware problems. I honestly don't think anyone has found the golden ticket of great performance combined with flawless firmware updates combined with decent customer service. Unfortunately. There would seem to be a great market opportunity for someone to fill!

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Indeed. So far, Orbi reminds me of the old saying about democracy: "It is the worst there is, except for all others that have ever been tried."

[FURRYe38]

Users have the freedom to go else where too. 

[RelaxMinders]

> ASUS

ASUS has a lot to recommend it, but mesh performance for me was consistently unfixable. When there is overlap and devices frequently move between devices .. like, say, people with phones walking around a house! .. connectivity failed all the time. Couldn't keep it.

[FURRYe38]

I have a friend whos on his 4th ASUS GT-AX1100 due to the 2.5Gb port failing when he connected his xbox to it. No idea if ASUS ever fixed it. Mines working ok however I haven't connected a xbox to this port. Saw slow wireless speed issues on mine which seems to be fixed for Bridge mode now. Router mfrs are not perfect. 

[CrimpOn]

Very strange.  The XBox specs I find on-line say it has a 10/100/1000 ethernet port.  The Asus 2.5G port is 2.5/1.  Hard to see how connecting a gigabit device to a 2.5G ethernet port could cause the port to fail.  So odd.

[FURRYe38]

Ya, I believe something in there FW or the HW causes it to fail. I thought about connecting my xbox up however didn't want to take the risk. It's been working with a 2.5Gb ethernet PCI adapter connected to it since I installed it. I told same thing to my friend and mentioned to avoid connecting the console to it unless he can find a 2.5Gb device to connect to it. He's still working with ASUS support on it I think. They've just announced another new router with same 2.5Gb port. Were wondering if this has same problem...or not. 

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@CrimpOn wrote:

Very strange.  The XBox specs I find on-line say it has a 10/100/1000 ethernet port.  The Asus 2.5G port is 2.5/1.  Hard to see how connecting a gigabit device to a 2.5G ethernet port could cause the port to fail.  So odd.

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[N3tworkDud3]

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@RelaxMinders wrote:

> ASUS

ASUS has a lot to recommend it, but mesh performance for me was consistently unfixable. When there is overlap and devices frequently move between devices .. like, say, people with phones walking around a house! .. connectivity failed all the time. Couldn't keep it.

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Can you say when and with what devices from Asus you tried? One of the articles I found describing Asus Mesh is linked below. Apparently, success depends on how you mix and match the system:

https://dongknows.com/best-aimesh-routers-and-combos/

[NGSvensk]

Update on this firmware.  It works! No disconnects.  Satelite works well... mesh seems to work at picking up moving clients. 3 days and counting

[Garwoofoo]

I'm also liking this firmware. Compared to the release firmware, the connection of various devices to the satellites seems stronger and I'm not seeing any of the intermittent reboot/flashing light issues I was getting. Everything's been stable now for a couple of days and I'm happy with my Orbi system again.

(I am however running in AP mode. I think router mode has always caused more issues with the v4 firmwares. So upgrade at your own risk).

[Dd852]

I'm in router mode and I am also having an excellent experience with this (unofficial) update. Hope they make it production mode for all soon.

[elayton28]

Now that I am hopefully unbanned from posting I too am looking forward to trying this new FW out this weekend.

[FURRYe38]

What makes you think you were banned? 

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@elayton28 wrote:

Now that I am hopefully unbanned from posting I too am looking forward to trying this new FW out this weekend.

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[elayton28]

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

What makes you think you were banned? 

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@elayton28 wrote:

Now that I am hopefully unbanned from posting I too am looking forward to trying this new FW out this weekend.

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I don't think, I know.  Not worth getting into...I just want this Firmware nightamre to be resolved so I can use my very expensive paperweight as a mesh network.

[FURRYe38]

Well if you have the 8 series Orbi AX system, give this version a try. Seems to be working way better for users who've posted about it. Mines working as well. 

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@elayton28 wrote:

I don't think, I know.  Not worth getting into...I just want this Firmware nightamre to be resolved so I can use my very expensive paperweight as a mesh network.

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[Jeffoz]

I just installed it and it looks proper. Since the previous firmware my Satellite never showed up as Satellite anymore but it was reported as client device. Updated the firmware to this beta and the Satellite shows up as Satellite again. Everything seems also stable so we will see over the next few weeks, but so far so good.

[Ely]

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

What was happening and going on when you notice this crash? 

What brings you the idea of the system crashing? 

Was a power OFF of the RBR and RBS and Modem for 1 minute then back ON performed or was a full on factory reset performed after loading v11? 

Is this your current modem? ARRIS - SURFboard S33

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@Ely wrote:

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I'll make sure to do this, However eventually it did crash again today, but at least it's not crashing several times a day. Hopefully it'll get better before general release.

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Well, what's weird is that it now usually crashes (Lights on the router and satellite turn pink and there's no internet connection on any device on the network) right after I finish a long session of watching Netflix, Prime video or YouTube. It used to crash while watching 4K videos on any platform. Other times it would just crash randomly for no reason.

Unfortunately it is still happening, but less frecuently. The device was factory reset using the 30/30/30 method and yes it has been power cybled several times since then. I'm honestly feeling like selling this device ASAP, but I'm not sure I can in good concience sell it to another poor soul.

I was thinking is it posible for me to reverse to previous old versions of the firmware? Perhaps I have more luck with older versions.  Would I be able to just download older versions from Netgear's site and just upload them to the router? would it accept it and not  brick it?

I'm seriously considering putting back my RBK50 which worked perfectly fine for years and served me well. 

Oh btw my modem is a Comcast provided Gateway XB7 with model number G4482A.

[CrimpOn]

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@Yashur21 wrote:

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Well, what's weird is that it now usually crashes (Lights on the router and satellite turn pink and there's no internet connection on any device on the network) right after I finish a long session of watching Netflix, Prime video or YouTube. It used to crash while watching 4K videos on any platform. Other times it would just crash randomly for no reason.

I was thinking is it posible for me to reverse to previous old versions of the firmware? Perhaps I have more luck with older versions.  Would I be able to just download older versions from Netgear's site and just upload them to the router? would it accept it and not  brick it?

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Thanks for clarifying the meaning of "crash".  Sometimes the term is used to indicate the router rebooting.  When a "crash" occurs, does the LAN itself fail (in addition to internet access).  i.e. can devices 'ping' each other and connect to each other as long as internet access is not required (no DNS, no IoT 'cloud', etc.)

I am not aware of any restriction on downloading and installing previous firmware except that the router will update itself pretty quickly.  (There is an internal timer that compares the installed firmware version with the version on the Netgear web site.  There are several methods people use to block firmware updates.  The easiest is to sign up for a free account at OpenDNS.com and block access to Netgear servers as in message #10 of this post:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Disabling-Auto-Update-Force-Update-firmware-version-2-7-3-22-f... 

[Ely]

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@CrimpOn wrote:

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@Yashur21 wrote:

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Well, what's weird is that it now usually crashes (Lights on the router and satellite turn pink and there's no internet connection on any device on the network) right after I finish a long session of watching Netflix, Prime video or YouTube. It used to crash while watching 4K videos on any platform. Other times it would just crash randomly for no reason.

I was thinking is it posible for me to reverse to previous old versions of the firmware? Perhaps I have more luck with older versions.  Would I be able to just download older versions from Netgear's site and just upload them to the router? would it accept it and not  brick it?

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Thanks for clarifying the meaning of "crash".  Sometimes the term is used to indicate the router rebooting.  When a "crash" occurs, does the LAN itself fail (in addition to internet access).  i.e. can devices 'ping' each other and connect to each other as long as internet access is not required (no DNS, no IoT 'cloud', etc.)

I am not aware of any restriction on downloading and installing previous firmware except that the router will update itself pretty quickly.  (There is an internal timer that compares the installed firmware version with the version on the Netgear web site.  There are several methods people use to block firmware updates.  The easiest is to sign up for a free account at OpenDNS.com and block access to Netgear servers as in message #10 of this post:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Disabling-Auto-Update-Force-Update-firmware-version-2-7-3-22-f... 

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Thanks for your reply, 

Yes everything stops LAN and all, I haven't tried the pinging part, but I'm guessing it will also fail as all devices wireless or otherwise loose connectivity.

Thanks for the details, I might try that this weekend and see how it goes, it's really frustrating for a device that costed me over $600 at Bestbuy just a few months ago and has given me so much frustration.

I appreciate everyone's help over here.

[CrimpOn]

If you get the chance to test devices on the LAN, I'd appreciate it.  I understand that a WiFi system with no internet access is of no use to most people, but there is a technical difference.

Another question: when the Orbi crashes, is the web interface accessible (http://orbilogin.net)

(please forgive me if that was spelled out somewhere in the preceding messages)

[FURRYe38]

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@Ely wrote:

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Oh btw my modem is a Comcast provided Gateway XB7 with model number G4482A. What mode is this gateway working in? This already has a built in router and wifi...

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