[Zim]

Disclaimer: I don't intend this to get ugly and have gone back and forth about even posting anything, but I think there is a valid underlying issue (quality of support), so here goes...

I had a tech issue with my Netgear WGR614v4 (it likes to lose connectivity (for both wired and wireless) and not regain it unless I fully re-power the unit, which is tough to do remotely leaving me for hours with no connectivity to my box until I can be there to cycle power on the router)

I did a search of the NetGear website, finding no mention of this problem. I did find a new patch, read the release notes, and found no mention of this issue being addressed in the patch, so I decided to call NetGear support (still within my 90-day window)

In the course of a 20+ minute phone call (which only needed to be 2-5 minutes), I spoke to 2 people (getting to a superviser was bloody h#ll), and frankly neither spoke English well enough to address the technical issues related to the problem. The 1st conversation degenerating into them claiming that the WGR614 "does not support telnet" (which is enough right there to know the call is not going to go well). It was very obvious that if I deviated off of the expected support script, all hope was lost. The superviser was not much of an improvement.

Not that I make that many calls to tech support lines, but this would have to rate as one of my least satisfying and as such I would not expect much from NetGear phone support. I for one will be adjusting my purchasing decisions by knowing who provides support I can rely on (and may yet be returning this router).

Mike

[Freeflyer]

yep, netgear support sucks. I've had the same problems, and if you tell them you're using a mac, you can just forget it. I was asked to plug the router into a pc so they could trouble shoot it. When I told him I didn't have a pc, but he could choose from any of my 3 macs he just couldn't help.

You may get a customer support survey in the next day or so. Fill it in and tell them what you think.

By the way, I think all netgear support has been outsourced to India, which may explain the less than perfect english.

J.

[Scotttheking]

Netgear level 2 tech support told me a firmware programmer was going to call me, about 6 months ago. Still hasn't called. My base station still doesn't work.
If that's not crap tech support, I don't know what is.

[bigbird 07]

Same here, I bought one of Amazon.com's wgt624 wireless router and have problems hooking it up to the Qwest DSL modem (airport stuff works fine). When I called tech support and waited for 10 minutes I got some one who didn't listen and asked questions that I had already answered and finally decided the router had gone crazy... After none of the usual testing. didn't have me ping the router or get into the html setup or power cycle the darn thing. I did get an RMA and Amazon is replacing it at their expense (kudos to them)

NetGear support does SUCK

[ghporter]

Don't take crap support lying down. Contact the corporation; you can get initial contact information here. Tell them you want to "provide feedback" about their tech support-or lack thereof. Make sure that you stress that the product is unusable, and that all tech support did was waste your time and insult your intelligence (that goes over well in business offices!).

Going to the suits often gets results, though you might wind up with a coupon for a new device instead of help fixing the old one-or a fix (that you can detect) to the tech support problem.

[Zim]

Couple of updates...

a) Most importantly the newest firmware does not fix the problem.

b) The only actual email addr I could find for feedback to Netgear was for PR, so I sent them a complaint about the tech support being so ineffective.

c) Whatever javascript they use on their techsupport page doesn't work with an older Mozilla (the best I can find for Solaris 2.7 which we have at work), so I ended up sending a blank email to techsupport... which was ironically answered by a techsupport agent whose name would strongly suggest being amongst the outsourced agents that are part of the poor support. Didn't seem like a complaint to tech support would be very effective.

d) I have filed a new tech support request using IE6 at work over the web, to avoid the first level tech-support nonsense I encountered last time.

Mike

[ginoledesma]

Yes, Netgear has outsourced their technical support to India. Contacting them through the web proves to be tedious, since the first reply is ALWAYS an auto-reply. To get a "person" to address the problem specifically, you have to reply back to the email. For my case, it took an average of 2 business days to get a very useless reply -- what you could find on their website (even when you specifically tell them NONE of it helped you).

Zim, the problem you describe seems to be common with a lot of my cheap-o equipment: Edimax BR-6104, Netgear MR814v2, and Netgear WGR614v4. The only solution, as you pointed out, is to do a power cycle. When the unit "freezes," all packets are lost though the LED still indicates activity.

What I did as a workaround is to put it in a slightly cooler place (with proper ventilation). That seemed to prolong the unit's "work cycle." I don't know if this can be resolved by firmware. I'm certain, however, that the next product I get will either be a Linksys, D-Link, or better. Not that they're "top quality" to begin with, but at least they fare better.

[Zim]

One _possible_ solution I've come up with depends on whether I can reboot the unit via a command. I've seen evidence that some NG boxes can be controlled ala

Code:
#!/bin/sh
date
while [ true ]
do
if [ ! "`ping www.netgear.com 5 2>/dev/null`" ]
then
echo
echo `date` RECONNECTING...
curl -u admin:password -d connect=Release 192.168.0.1/st_dhcp.cgi
sleep 2
curl -u admin:password -d connect=Renew 192.168.0.1/st_dhcp.cgi
fi
sleep 60
done

(this was for a different NG box)

The Release/Renew is not enough in this case. What I need to do is find a list of these command (ie. is there a "Reboot").

I have a cronjob that helps me make sure my dyndns is up to date, and this would be an easy thing for me to add in, but I can not come up with a source for the list of valid commands (no clue where to find).

Would be happy to post my script when done (it uses ddclient to update dyndns, and also mirrors IP addr to an external web page, just in case you "lose" your home machine, you can find it via another website (like mt free PoS site that RR gives me.. only good thing being the static location)).

Mike

[Socially Awkward Solo]

They out-source tech support to India and everyone complains about how bad it is.

[stevesnj]

I had the same probblems with that exact model and version and decided to upgrade to version 5.0.x firmware, what a disaster...every minute or so it would disconnect and restart on its own. After no replies from e-mail support I decided to risk it and go down to the version 4 firmware...that seemed to work and I have had very stable connectivity. As far as Telnet there is a setting for it in the port fowarding section.

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Originally posted by stevesnj:
I had the same probblems with that exact model and version and decided to upgrade to version 5.0.x firmware, what a disaster...every minute or so it would disconnect and restart on its own. After no replies from e-mail support I decided to risk it and go down to the version 4 firmware...that seemed to work and I have had very stable connectivity. As far as Telnet there is a setting for it in the port fowarding section.

If it is not broke don't fix it. Stick with the old firmware that WORKS. I have to use one version bellow the current one for my Netgear or it crashes every 20 min.

[ginoledesma]

I upgraded to the latest v5.x firmware and that was a mess initially. The settings were reset, and the new "wizard interface" is problematic to say the least. If the unit can't detect the type of Internet connection you have, you're stuck. You can't go to the manual config page. But after that's been fixed, everything's been working fine.

Zim, I'm not sure if that shell script will be of much help, since in my case no connection can be established -- either ping, TCP, or UDP.

[Zim]

To clarify my problem.

With the 4.x AND 5.x firmware.... (frankly I see no difference in performance)

... once every week to 2 weeks, my router simply loses connectivity. All the lights are "happy" as if everything is normal, but I cannot establish ANY connection to the internet. The problem is resolved only by a REBOOT/REPOWER of the WGR614. DHCP release/renew doesn't work.

So, in my case anyway, I have a script running on a periodic basis that would be able to detect a loss of connectivity and attempt to reset the WGR614 *IF* if could find out how to do that. Since there are other commands that can be issued via a command line web access, it stands to reason that _maybe_ (30% odds, I give it) a reboot is among those commands. In which case, I can't prevent the problem, but at least I could automatically recover from it.

Mike

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Originally posted by ginoledesma:
I upgraded to the latest v5.x firmware and that was a mess initially. The settings were reset, and the new "wizard interface" is problematic to say the least. If the unit can't detect the type of Internet connection you have, you're stuck.

Doesn't the instructions tell you to hard reset the router after upgrading anyway? I think many people with problems have them because they are not doing that.

[stevesnj]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
Doesn't the instructions tell you to hard reset the router after upgrading anyway? I think many people with problems have them because they are not doing that.

The CORRECT procedures for firmware upgrades are on the upgrade page. If they are not followed there will be a problem. Did everyone follow the netgear procedure?...hmmmmm

[southtdi]

I have bought 2 of the WRG 614's. The first one I bought is the original WRG 614 so there is no version listed on it. That unit has been almost flawless with the exception of the beta firmware that incorporates WPA-SPK. I can get WPA-SPK to work with my pc;s no problem but the mac's don't ant to talk to it. Had to go back WEP and all was well.

Since I have the origianl I decided to get another one for my office to use. We were origianlly using this horrible boc provided by the ISP which totaly sucked. That unit the WPA-SPK works flawlessly with my powerbook no questions asked. The problem is about once a week or so we get a power drop for more than 5 minutes and the unit doesn't wake back up. It ges into some powersaving mode and you have to do a hard reset (unplug) to get it working again. No problems other than that but very annoying. That unit is ver. 3.

I hae called tech support and decided that after trying to talk to them that it isn't worth the trouble to talk to them and I just showed the key people what to do if that happens again and I am not there. The tech support guy vouldn't help me because we were using it on a business network and not a home network. Apparently the unit wil not work on a business network. Umm, I run a server based networkl in both places and use DSL to connect to the internet. At work we don't need anyting faster than that at this point so it is fine. Strange that the unit knows the difference of a server being at a house or in an office.

[Zim]

Originally posted by stevesnj:
The CORRECT procedures for firmware upgrades are on the upgrade page. If they are not followed there will be a problem. Did everyone follow the netgear procedure?...hmmmmm

Absolutely. It fails now (with 5.x), just as it did before (with 4.x).

The implication I get from another forum is that its a heat issue, causing failure (in which case no firmware fix will prob work). So again, I just want to find the command list to see if I can correct the problem once it occurs (with a watchdog script).

Mike

[ginoledesma]

Like I said earlier, the watchdog script you describe may not be that useful considering the router itself drops all packets on all interfaces (wired, wireless, modem). So you won't be able to establish a connection to it to issue the instruction in the first place.

I tried this out because when my router hanged, I tried:
- pinging it (router's internal IP) from within the LAN (wired, wireless)
- pinging it (router's external IP) from the outside (service provider side)
- monitoring which packets are sent (TCP, ICMP, ARP, UDP -- all lost)

[Zim]

I see now what you are getting at, but my situ seems different.

I _can_ get to my router over a wired LAN port. Its the WAN port that seems dead, so at least for me it might work.

So I'm still on the hunt for a list of commands.

Cheers,
Mike

[Zim]

Actually the obvious seems to work

curl -u admin : password -d connect=Reboot 192.168.0.1

'cept curl doesn;t get anythng to return and hangs... hmmm, ok, down to details at this point. Will have to roll this into a script to use next time I see a lock up and see if it does the trick.

Cheers,
Mike