R7000 local network problem?

[Carnagerover]

Hi all,

I am having trouble with the R7000 at the ability to be able to see local servers, for example.

When I use Splashtop I can connect locally on a fresh reboot and then after a few days it will only work if I log in and connect over the internet. Also I have a Plex server on my PC and that can only see my local server if I log into my Plex account which shouldn't be necessary, this problem only seems to effect one iPad for some reason and not the others.

What affects the routers ability to do these things, as rebooting my PC or iPad doesn't fix the issue only a router reboot does?

 

[htismaqe]

You may be seeing a problem with wired and wireless devices not being able to see each other. I worked with Netgear support for over a month and provided hundreds of megabytes of debug and packet capture info and they still don't know how to fix it.

I returned the unit unfortunately.

I've written about the issue exhaustively over at the Netgear user support forum but unfortunately that information will only help you identify if that is your problem. I don't have a solution. Here's a short excerpt that details the issue somewhat succinctly:

Without going into exhaustive detail, here is what I found:

1. Multiple online reports of people intermittently losing connectivity to wireless printers (HP, Canon, or in my case, Epson)
2. Printer wasn't the only problem. While connected directly via wireless to the R7000, I couldn't connect to other wired devices.
3. After much online discussion with other users, it appears that wired and wireless devices are losing the ability to see each other after some period of runtime.
4. When the problem appears, wireless devices connected to the R7000 appear in the WIRED section of the "attached devices" screen.
5. Rebooting the problem ALWAYS fixes the issue. Within 48 hours or so after the reboot, the problem re-appears.

 

[Carnagerover]

You may be seeing a problem with wired and wireless devices not being able to see each other. I worked with Netgear support for over a month and provided hundreds of megabytes of debug and packet capture info and they still don't know how to fix it.

I returned the unit unfortunately.

I've written about the issue exhaustively over at the Netgear user support forum but unfortunately that information will only help you identify if that is your problem. I don't have a solution. Here's a short excerpt that details the issue somewhat succinctly:

Without going into exhaustive detail, here is what I found:

1. Multiple online reports of people intermittently losing connectivity to wireless printers (HP, Canon, or in my case, Epson)
2. Printer wasn't the only problem. While connected directly via wireless to the R7000, I couldn't connect to other wired devices.
3. After much online discussion with other users, it appears that wired and wireless devices are losing the ability to see each other after some period of runtime.
4. When the problem appears, wireless devices connected to the R7000 appear in the WIRED section of the "attached devices" screen.
5. Rebooting the problem ALWAYS fixes the issue. Within 48 hours or so after the reboot, the problem re-appears.

Hi and thanks for taking the time to reply, this certainly does sound like the problem that I am currently having with this unit.

I wonder if this happens with DD-WRT, I may put that on tonight and see if the problem continues. I have previously tried the DD-WRT firmware but always found that my range was a little worse for it, even though I am told that it shouldn't be the case.

Thanks again

 

[htismaqe]

I have seen no reports of the problem existing in DD-WRT and in fact, have had several people over at the Netgear user forum (some of whom post here) say definitively that they have not seen it in DD-WRT.

 

[Carnagerover]

I have seen no reports of the problem existing in DD-WRT and in fact, have had several people over at the Netgear user forum (some of whom post here) say definitively that they have not seen it in DD-WRT.

Sounds ideal will give it a go later, thanks for confirming, just hope I can fix my range issues with DD-WRT now.

 

[htismaqe]

Everything I've seen so far is that Kong's DD-WRT build using the new drivers has very little, if any, drop off in wireless range from stock FW.

The only place you're going to see a significant difference is WAN-LAN throughput because DD-WRT lacks HW acceleration.

 

[Carnagerover]

Everything I've seen so far is that Kong's DD-WRT build using the new drivers has very little, if any, drop off in wireless range from stock FW.

The only place you're going to see a significant difference is WAN-LAN throughput because DD-WRT lacks HW acceleration.

I have 75Mbps Download and 20Mbps upload and from what I read the ceiling on DD-WRT is around 300Mbps so should be good hopefully. Just downloaded the latest DD-WRT with the new drivers so hoping for good things.

 

[htismaqe]

Correct. 300Mbps seems to be the cap so you should not see any problems at all.

 

[sfx2000]

The only place you're going to see a significant difference is WAN-LAN throughput because DD-WRT lacks HW acceleration.

HW Acceleration tends to be vastly overrated - It's a nice sticker on the album cover, but in real world, not so much...

sfx

 

[sfx2000]

Without going into exhaustive detail, here is what I found:

1. Multiple online reports of people intermittently losing connectivity to wireless printers (HP, Canon, or in my case, Epson)
2. Printer wasn't the only problem. While connected directly via wireless to the R7000, I couldn't connect to other wired devices.
3. After much online discussion with other users, it appears that wired and wireless devices are losing the ability to see each other after some period of runtime.
4. When the problem appears, wireless devices connected to the R7000 appear in the WIRED section of the "attached devices" screen.
5. Rebooting the problem ALWAYS fixes the issue. Within 48 hours or so after the reboot, the problem re-appears.

Classic example of a memory leak - I'm surprised that Netgear is having problems with solving this software issue.

hmmm...

sfx

 

[htismaqe]

Yeah, it sure looks like a memory leak.

They just kept throwing beta firmware releases at me. It's like they were throwing darts.

I tried 6 different FW revs in all and all of them displayed the issue. I feel kind of bad because there's 4 new people over at the Netgear forums in the last couple of days that now have the issue and I can't help them anymore because I sent mine back...

 

[sfx2000]

Yeah, it sure looks like a memory leak.

They just kept throwing beta firmware releases at me. It's like they were throwing darts.

I tried 6 different FW revs in all and all of them displayed the issue. I feel kind of bad because there's 4 new people over at the Netgear forums in the last couple of days that now have the issue and I can't help them anymore because I sent mine back...

I would point them towards libupnp - in versions before 1.6.19, it would allocate threads and not release them... some vendors have patched older releases, but the main dev tip, wasn't patched until 1.6.19...

I've seen this with other devices that use uPnP as well...

sfx

 

[htismaqe]

Would libupnp still run even if uPnP was disabled in the GUI? It's always one of the first things I turn off. Also, I never saw an issue wired or wireless to WAN port, only between the wired and wireless sides of the layer 2 switch.

 

[sfx2000]

Would libupnp still run even if uPnP was disabled in the GUI? It's always one of the first things I turn off. Also, I never saw an issue wired or wireless to WAN port, only between the wired and wireless sides of the layer 2 switch.

Depends on the implementation - by hitting the checkbox in the webgui, either do a kill -9 to kill off the daemon, or do a kill -HUP leaving the daemon active but either rejecting or blackholing the connection attempts.

Without access to the device/configs, my best guess is that lib is still active and accepting connections, thus eventually running things out of memory, as the threads are never de-allocated...

challenge here is how to prove the problem - over wifi, if using WPA, you only see the single client - over wired, again, similar problem as it's a switched connection - might have to bring in a hub and try over the wired connection to confirm if the uPNP client is not localhost...

sfx

 

[htismaqe]

Of course, if the Netgear stock FW allowed telnet/SSH access, you could just login to the router while the problem was occurring and check for runaway processes.

 

[Carnagerover]

Hi again,

Just wanted to say that I put DD-WRT on the router and it has been perfectly stable and I haven't had any problems that I was experiencing with the Netgear firmware.

My only problem remains that my wireless range is affected when using DD-WRT for some unknown reason

 

[htismaqe]

Are you using NEWD or OLDD?

 

[Carnagerover]

Are you using NEWD or OLDD?

I am trying NEWD this time

 

[htismaqe]

Yeah, most people I've heard are using NEWD and getting wireless performance on par with Netgear stock drivers.

By the way, another user with this local network issue said that Netgear has told him to change his wireless channel and set his router MTU to 1500.

ROFL

 

[roldogg]

I was using the NEWD firmware by Kong and was having some issues connecting at AC and when I would connect, I would get kicked off shortly after. I flashed the OLDD with the older wireless drivers and haven't had any problems since. All I can say is that I wish I would have stuck with Asus and the Merlin firmware. I'm still using an Asus RT-AC66R setup in AP mode to extend my wireless signal, but I'm constantly tweaking the R7000, my primary router running Kong's DD-WRT firmware, where the Asus was setup initially with Merlin's firmware and I never had to touch anything.

Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk