Speeds have plummeted after latest update.

[Wakey]

New to Orbi and have been delighted with its speed. I have 500 internet and all over the house was getting very fast speeds and always without exception full upload speed of 35.

As soon as I’ve updated the firmware it has plummeted in speed. You can see the exact moment my firmware was updated on the Speedtest history, and even upload speed seems halved.

How can Netgear release a firmware update that trashes the product?

Any ideas. I bought this system as consumer friendly with no rigmarole, will resetting it and all the hassle that requires even work? Why should you have to do that?

I see others are reporting similar issues and resetting did not work for them and they have rolled back the firmware. I have no idea how to do this and only use the app- my web browsers (Chrome and Safari) cannot for some reason connect to it on my Mac (could not when I bought it a few weeks ago).

Very sad as I had a great system, now it is trash.

Thanks everyone.

[Wakey]

OK so I worked out how to backdate the firmware and did it only on my 2 satellites so far. Suddenly my speeds are straight back to where they were (I also noticed the ping drop back down a couple of points, it had gone up post latest firmware).

So there is something definitely broken in this firmware.

Question is, do I also roll back the main Orbi Router firmware or leave that on the latest and the satellites on the last version?

Thanks

[Wakey]

Further update, rolled back the router firmware so they are all on the same.

All previous speeds and throughput is now immediately restored.

Morale or this story- never upgrade stable Netgear firmware, I will not be doing it again.

[Gregron]

Glad you figured out how to roll back the firmware! Happy your system isn’t garbage anymore!

[plemans]

Glad to see/read you got it resolved. It is a sad instance when firmware makes our products worse. 

Hopefully the firmware crews look at the complaints about the most recent firmware and get some fixes in action. 

[FURRYe38]

Try a factory reset and setup from scratch if you see this problem again after updarting FW. Some have not done this and not given a full reset and setup a try. it does work and helps in these cases where users upgrade and see bad behavoir. I know a reset shouldn't be main stream however for some cases, it needs to be give a chance. I saw no speed loss after upgrade to v38 and had great operation. However I alwaya manually update and factory reset and start out fresh. Just works. Others as well:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/ORBI-RBK50-RBS50-Tips-Tricks-Hidden-Secrets-etc/m-p/1818889/hi...

https://kb.netgear.com/31486/How-do-I-reset-my-Orbi-system-to-factory-default-settings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePZSc7vnRlQ

Good Luck. 

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@Wakey wrote:

New to Orbi and have been delighted with its speed. I have 500 internet and all over the house was getting very fast speeds and always without exception full upload speed of 35.

As soon as I’ve updated the firmware it has plummeted in speed. You can see the exact moment my firmware was updated on the Speedtest history, and even upload speed seems halved.

How can Netgear release a firmware update that trashes the product?

Any ideas. I bought this system as consumer friendly with no rigmarole, will resetting it and all the hassle that requires even work? Why should you have to do that?

I see others are reporting similar issues and resetting did not work for them and they have rolled back the firmware. I have no idea how to do this and only use the app- my web browsers (Chrome and Safari) cannot for some reason connect to it on my Mac (could not when I bought it a few weeks ago).

Very sad as I had a great system, now it is trash.

Thanks everyone.

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[Orbi-Roc]

Same here @FURRYe38 . A factory reset after each firmware update has kept me safe from all those issues I read about. Just curious @Wakey -- did you check your log? Just wandering if perhaps something else is getting in the way and causing your system down to crawl.

[Wakey]

I didn’t check any log, but it slowed when the new firmware was installed, and went back to how it was when I rolled it back, so it seems to be the firmware. It also seems to be the firmware on the satellites from the fact it went back to what it was when the satellites were rolled back before the router itself. Router has always showed 500+ speed when doing a speedtest on it even after the dubious new firmware was installed, so it was either the backhaul or the wireless performance that was degrading under new firmware.

I’ve seen a lot of reports across the internet of the same thing, so for some reason this firmware is affecting a lot of people. Have you got a very fast internet connection of plus 200 because the reports seem to be coming from those people?

[Orbi-Roc]

Hi again @Wakey . Yes, I understand. But you attribute the performance loss directly to Netgear's latest firmware; and although this be indeed be the case, one would think that ALL users would be experiencing the same thing; which I do not believe to be the case. The reason I was asking if you checked your Admin log is to see if, by any chance, you may have been bombarded with DoS attacks which can bring any network down to crawling speed and even bring the network down competely. Not every time, but I've had many instances of performance degradation; and upon checking the router's Admin log, I would find hundreds of DOS records. But I am no expert in the field, far from it. Just thought I'd pass it on any way.

[Ragar99]

You guys are insane if you think a factory reset after every firmware update is the answer.  I have better things to do.

[FURRYe38]

I ran my RBK50 for over 5 days and saw no slow down in speeds, wired or wireless, from RBR or RBS with v38 loaded. Others who have reported having issues after the FW update were able to get there systems up and runing after a factory reset. Haven't see a ton of loss in speeds being reported other than bad experiences before the reset and naming of devices which NG is aware of. There maybe other outstanding issues that maybe causing your speed to slow down other than it just being FW. 

IF your back up and running again then then all that matters. I would check next time when a FW update is available, download the files and manually install them to the RBS then RBR and then factory reset and setup from scratch. Save a new backup configuration to file for safe keeping. You can even factory reset and re-load a backup configuration from file to save time should a reset be needed.

Good Luck. 

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@Wakey wrote:

I didn’t check any log, but it slowed when the new firmware was installed, and went back to how it was when I rolled it back, so it seems to be the firmware. It also seems to be the firmware on the satellites from the fact it went back to what it was when the satellites were rolled back before the router itself. Router has always showed 500+ speed when doing a speedtest on it even after the dubious new firmware was installed, so it was either the backhaul or the wireless performance that was degrading under new firmware.

I’ve seen a lot of reports across the internet of the same thing, so for some reason this firmware is affecting a lot of people. Have you got a very fast internet connection of plus 200 because the reports seem to be coming from those people?

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@Wakey wrote:

I didn’t check any log, but it slowed when the new firmware was installed, and went back to how it was when I rolled it back, so it seems to be the firmware. It also seems to be the firmware on the satellites from the fact it went back to what it was when the satellites were rolled back before the router itself. Router has always showed 500+ speed when doing a speedtest on it even after the dubious new firmware was installed, so it was either the backhaul or the wireless performance that was degrading under new firmware.

I’ve seen a lot of reports across the internet of the same thing, so for some reason this firmware is affecting a lot of people. Have you got a very fast internet connection of plus 200 because the reports seem to be coming from those people?

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[Retired_Member]

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

I ran my RBK50 for over 5 days and saw no slow down in speeds, wired or wireless, from RBR or RBS with v38 loaded. Others who have reported having issues after the FW update were able to get there systems up and runing after a factory reset.

You conveniently left out the huge group who reverted/rolled back their firmware and saw great results.

[Orbi-Roc]

I doubt very much that any contributor to this Community would conveniently leave anything out, just for the sake a making an argument.

One important factor to remember is that people who come to this Community (and so many other like forums) are folks who have encountered an issue with their device or related software that they cannot resolve on their own; so they come here to seek help and advice from their fellow 'club members.'

So if we want to talk about conveniently leaving out a huge group, that huge group is perhaps better defined as the thousands of users who have not encountered any hiccups that they could not resolve on their own. 

[FURRYe38]

And for the sake of argument, I'm not here to argu anything, just here to help those get there problems solved. It is why the community is here for. 

[Ragar99]

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@Orbi-Roc wrote:

So if we want to talk about conveniently leaving out a huge group, that huge group is perhaps better defined as the thousands of users who have not encountered any hiccups that they could not resolve on their own. 

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You are mistaken in your assessment.   Numerous people have issues and don't post here or call Netgear.   They may not know about their support options or don't have time.  There are also a ton of people that don't know they have a problem, i.e. they are only getting 50 Mbps and don't realize it.

[Retired_Member]

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@Orbi-Roc wrote:

I doubt very much that any contributor to this Community would conveniently leave anything out, just for the sake a making an argument.

One important factor to remember is that people who come to this Community (and so many other like forums) are folks who have encountered an issue with their device or related software that they cannot resolve on their own; so they come here to seek help and advice from their fellow 'club members.'

So if we want to talk about conveniently leaving out a huge group, that huge group is perhaps better defined as the thousands of users who have not encountered any hiccups that they could not resolve on their own. 

The group I refer to are those who did NOT jump through dozens of unneceassry step OR perform a factory reset.  These folks simlpy reverted their firmware and got back to where they were and hopfully learned a valuable lesson in dealing with firmware updates.  

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[Retired_Member]

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

And for the sake of argument, I'm not here to argu anything, just here to help those get there problems solved. It is why the community is here for. 

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That's my point,...you want to help...but you're not being smart about it.

[Orbi-Roc]

@Ragar99 . I don't think I am mistaken, but I respect your opinion. What I believe is that people that have issues with NG or Armor post here; and I believe that they represent the exceptions and not the mass of satified users.

As for "Numerous people have issues and don't post here or call Netgear. They may not know about their support options or don't have time." Oh yes, the silent majority!

"There are also a ton of people that don't know they have a problem, i.e. they are only getting 50 Mbps and don't realize it." Humm ... I assume that not everyone is a technical guru, I sure am not. But I would think that the great majority of people would know about a chronic drop in performance; and I'd be willing to bet that the great majority of people would try to find out why. If they don't, perhaps the hardware they bought is overkill for their needs.

Any way, I'm  done here. Have a good day.

[Ragar99]

@Orbi-Roc    Netflix recommends 25 Mbps to stream UHD, so a lot people won't notice a drop in performance.  Gearheads in this forum constantly check speeds and are not indicative of the average Orbi user.  I can get close to 500/500 on my iPhone, but if my Orbi dropped to 50 Mbps I don't think I'd notice.