XR500 - Automated Scheduled Reboot Feature

[MadCheese1337]

i would like to request a Automated Scheduled Reboot Feature added to the firmware capabilities for the Netgear XR500 Router. this feature is present on every other commercial router.

Reason: the Router Performance sometimes Degrades over time or will not put through internet data.

After Reboot the performance is top again or the internet data will be put through again.

[Netduma Alex]

Welcome to the forum!

I like the idea, although in an ideal world the feature wouldn't be required because the router's performance wouldn't degrade.

There are potential future features we have planned which might be adversely affected by an automatic reboot, so this feature may not be viable. I'll suggest it to the developers.

[MadCheese1337]

10 hours ago, Netduma Alex said:

Welcome to the forum!

I like the idea, although in an ideal world the feature wouldn't be required because the router's performance wouldn't degrade.

There are potential future features we have planned which might be adversely affected by an automatic reboot, so this feature may not be viable. I'll suggest it to the developers.

in an ideal world i wouldn't even have needed to request this feature as it would have already been implemented from factory 🙂

or the router wouldn't stop passing through data the next random morning for no reason the list could go on and on 🙂

but this is not the case the automated reboot should only happen on schedule that is set by the administrator/consumer who sets up the router nothing else this shouldn't affect any other feature you have planned at all.

the way the router is used shouldn't be dictated by the manufacturer/developer of the system who designed it to be a "router" the consumer should have the right to decide what he/she does with the router and in which environment he/she want's to deploy the router and should have the options to setup the router how he/she thinks best the router should function/be used in that said environment.

decisions on "features" that are mainly because the developer/manufacturer want's to happen can have adverse effects as well.

best example is microsoft's windows 10

in order to have every windows 10 system always up to date,  microsoft has baked in automated downloads for updating which in essense is all good and dandy.

but they failed to add the ability to schedule these said updates or update interval to times that the customer/consumer wants the updates to happen.

by today we all have that term patch tuesday or patch wednesday depending on which timezone you live in.

where windows is downloading updates regardless of the time. now not many users have the luxury of unlimited data and have a set data cap for peak hours and off peak those customers wouldn't be able to schedule windows to download/update on xyz hour of the day cause the scheduling is missing and thus their cap will be blown at some time.

as shown from this example best interest of the dev is not best interest of the consumer/customer.

 

[Netduma Fraser]

Hey, welcome to the forum!

If there is a demand for it then it's certainly something we can look into implementing, it is something that's been suggested before so it is on our idea list.

It may be worth detailing the issues you're having and we can try to resolve those as well.

[MadCheese1337]

4 hours ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Hey, welcome to the forum!

If there is a demand for it then it's certainly something we can look into implementing, it is something that's been suggested before so it is on our idea list.

It may be worth detailing the issues you're having and we can try to resolve those as well.

if you haven't figured it out from my previous reply.

the router sometimes stops permitting internet traffic to the devices on the network, access to the router is still there but no internet.

the issue resolves as soon as the router has been rebooted.

[George]

20 hours ago, Netduma Alex said:

in an ideal world the feature wouldn't be required because the router's performance wouldn't degrade

In the real word it is utterly unacceptable to have premium priced routers behaving like that. Not sure how Netgear gets away with it but people that spent £275+ for a router expect it to remain stable without experiencing performance degradation for let's say at least a week right?

In my opinion feature requests like this one shows how desperate the end users are. I would know as I requested the exact same feature in a different thread. I mean from everything that I have read so far in this forum and on the Netgear one, it seems that Netgear is not willing to focus on bug fixing the broken firmware of the XR routers. So if we are stuck with the reboot as the only "workaround" we might as well have it automated... 

[George]

On 1/8/2020 at 2:17 AM, MadCheese1337 said:

Reason: the Router Performance sometimes Degrades over time or will not put through internet data.

Ideally I would insist all bugs to be squashed and have the XR series premium priced routers justify their price point. However I am a realist and I do not think this is going to happen, so personally I would definitely welcome a scheduled reboot feature 

[Netduma Fraser]

15 hours ago, MadCheese1337 said:

if you haven't figured it out from my previous reply.

the router sometimes stops permitting internet traffic to the devices on the network, access to the router is still there but no internet.

the issue resolves as soon as the router has been rebooted.

Does the connection ever re-establish itself when it goes down? How long have you left it before rebooting? If you give a static/reserved IP to a device does that device continue to have internet?

8 hours ago, George said:

Ideally I would insist all bugs to be squashed and have the XR series premium priced routers justify their price point. However I am a realist and I do not think this is going to happen, so personally I would definitely welcome a scheduled reboot feature 

With 3.0 lots of things are being relooked at to make the new features work, this in itself should fix most of the issues that are seen presently.

[Guest Killhippie]

Don’t buy SOHO routers from. Netgear, Asus, D-link etc. Get something decent like Cisco or Sonicwall. At the end of the day auto reboot is like having a graphic equaliser on the cheap all in one music systems of the late 90’s, It was to cover up the amplifier being absolutely awful, a decent amplifier doesn’t even need bass and treble. As to routers it’s easy enough to press the reboot button yourself or even get a timer. But if you want the kind of reliability that doesn’t require a reboot get a business grade router that generally comes with a much longer warranty if not a lifetime one. No it won’t have all the gaming features but it will stay up for months and months on end and have all the routing functions you will need. Home routers generally are full of gimmicks to make people part with their money and have fantastic shapes and loads of LEDs, whereas a business class router will be probably be rectangular and boring to look but it will be reliable, and with the minimum number of LEDs needed to show you everything is working. 

[crawlgsx]

I would love this feature. It's not just about the router. Some WIFI Devices enjoy a freshly established connection :). (always on devices, thermostats cameras etc)

[Redline]

I, too, would like an automated reboot feature. Scheduling capability is already present with parental controls, why not also add a simple auto reboot to it.

[George]

On 1/10/2020 at 3:23 PM, crawlgsx said:

I would love this feature. It's not just about the router. Some WIFI Devices enjoy a freshly established connection :). (always on devices, thermostats cameras etc)

Let's not sugarcoat it, DumaOS for the XR series of routers is completely broken. I have been manually rebooting my XR300 every night to avoid the occurrence of 3-4 critical issues that could even hinder my network connectivity. Since the devs are unable/unwilling to squash all the underlying bugs, this feature is a necessity. 

[Newfie]

I’ve got to be honest I’ve never had an issue where my Wi-fi cameras need a fresh boot as they enjoy it or any other equipment that requires it. I would rather see a system that is stable and not needing a reboot to solve issues and personally a scheduled reboot due to problems that are solved via this is a tad lazy. 
 

[Guest Killhippie]

Considering Netgear suggest power cycling should be done with all connected and Wi-Fi devices off* I wonder how much confusing this could possibly cause to a routers memory with a lot of devices attached when rebooting as well as its own Firmware. Personally I don't want the router going though a boot sequence with all the Wi-Fi and Ethernet devices still on on and calling out for a IP,. I think once in a while If you need to reboot your router just power it down for a 5 minutes remove the power block so the router has no residual electricity still in it and then you get a good clean start with the memory properly cleared, power it up and wait two minutes after powering it back up for the router to go though its start up routine, then switch all  your LAN  gear back on. Thats a much better way to reset devices if they are playing up, and you have refreshed your whole LAN. After all some devices need a reboot now and then, not many, like Newfie I've never had to reboot to help Arlo cameras out or my Tado heating system or my soundbar etc, but some set top boxes (Sky Q) need a reboot now and then, as well as some smart TV's especially those running Android. (Yes I'm looking at you Sony AF8) I mean if a £2500 OLED TV needs a reboot once in a while it shows clients need to be powered down once in a while to clear out memory too. (not to often though) So just do the whole lot in one go because you may find that just rebooting the router not the client can leaves some devices not connected or end up behaving in a quirky manner, which has happened on my XR500, a few times as well as other routers. I think doing the whole thing manually which would take less than ten minutes on a quite day when people are not using the network is a better approach, that's just me though we all have different views and ideas.

* https://kb.netgear.com/19755/How-to-Power-Cycle-Your-Home-Network

[George]

2 hours ago, Newfie said:

I would rather see a system that is stable and not needing a reboot to solve issues and personally a scheduled reboot due to problems that are solved via this is a tad lazy. 
 

Agreed, however I don’t think it’s happening. I mean if you take a look  in this forum it’s the same problems over and over and not even a hint of a hotfix. Only a promise that things *might* be better in DumaOS 3.0. 
 

[Newfie]

Just now, George said:

Agreed, however I don’t think it’s happening. I mean if you take a look  in this forum it’s the same problems over and over and not even a hint of a hotfix. Only a promise that things *might* be better in DumaOS 3.0. 
 

To be honest once again George when my XR500 failed and I sent it off I took the time to get another router. My new XR500 turned up but I’m using the new router which I simply setup and it’s working fine. Very much like my old Apple routers performed.

I had lots of issues with the 500, always messing around so I’ll keep the XR500 and wait for the 3.0 but I was always plagued like you with little bugs and hardware limitations. Struggled just to get stuff connected like an Amazon echo and poor Wi-fi performance round my property where I ended up with extenders and even then I had to place them close to the router to get a half decent connection. 
 

[George]

2 minutes ago, Killhippie said:

Considering Netgear suggest power cycling should be done with all connected and Wi-Fi devices off* I wonder how much confusing this could possibly cause to a routers memory with a lot of devices attached when rebooting as well as its own Firmware. Personally I don't want the router going though a boot sequence with all the Wi-Fi and Ethernet devices still on on and calling out for a IP,. I think once in a while If you need to reboot your router just power it down for a 5 minutes remove the power block so the router has no residual electricity still in it and then you get a good clean start with the memory properly cleared, power it up and wait two minutes after powering it back up for the router to go though its start up routine, then switch all  your LAN  gear back on. Thats a much better way to reset devices if they are playing up, and you have refreshed your whole LAN. After all some devices need a reboot now and then, not many, like Newfie I've never had to reboot to help Arlo cameras out or my Tado heating system or my soundbar etc, but some set top boxes (Sky Q) need a reboot now and then, as well as some smart TV's especially those running Android. (Yes I'm looking at you Sony AF8) I mean if a £2500 OLED TV needs a reboot once in a while it shows clients need to be powered down once in a while to clear out memory too. (not to often though) So just do the whole lot in one go because you may find that just rebooting the router not the client can leaves some devices not connected or end up behaving in a quirky manner, which has happened on my XR500, a few times as well as other routers. I think doing the whole thing manually which would take less than ten minutes on a quite day when people are not using the network is a better approach, that's just me though we all have different views and ideas.

* https://kb.netgear.com/19755/How-to-Power-Cycle-Your-Home-Network

A simple daily reboot from the router’s interface resolves and most of the time prevents every single firmware related issue that due to the bad shape of DumaOS I have been experiencing. Nobody said that this is the complete solution to power cycle your whole network nor that it will solve everything; it does however help a lot with the unsquashed pesky bugs that still remain in the firmware  of the XR routers so many months after release... Since the devs do not have the ability, nor the will from what it seems, to squash those pesky bugs I guess most people would settle for an automated router restart feature. If you use any XR router for your daily driver I am pretty sure you can see the value in that. Now if you don’t think this solution is elegant enough and you prefer your XR router to hang or misbehave well that’s why it should be optional and not mandatory. That way everyone would be ok with it I guess 

[George]

2 minutes ago, Newfie said:

I’m using the new router which I simply setup and it’s working fine. Very much like my old Apple routers performed.

Agreed, both my ISP default router and my old Apple Time Capsule work way way better. They remain stable and reliable for weeks without a single restart. 
 

However the  QoS settings especially in conjunction with the game traffic auto-detection along with the advanced monitoring that DumaOS facilitates are two features I don’t have in my current setup. But guess what? In my XR300 both of these huge DumaOS selling points are completely broken. High priority traffic auto detect works Properly  half of the times at best. 
Monitoring is broken too. As if the full of “nil” values interface wasn’t bad enough, when sometimes download traffic is not showing for some devices this makes the whole existence of advanced monitoring facilities completely  useless. 

[UK_Wildcats_Fans]

I have previously requested scheduled reboots.  With technology (especially software) complexity and problems will exist.  Yes, it would be great to have a stable platform that does not require rebooting.  However, we have to consider reality and problems will exist.   

From a personal perspective I believe the scheduled reboot should be an added feature that can be used as a tool for the user.  My wife and I both work from home.  I am constantly on WebEx conferences using my laptop and headset.   I have found that DHCP lease renewals can cause issues (stops and stutters in my WebEx conferences).   As a safeguard and means of testing, I started rebooting my modem and XR700 daily or just before my conference call.  This has dramatically reduced the frequency of the stuttering and stops problems.  

It is not realistic to believe that we will not have problems; therefore, we need all the tools that we can get to reduce the magnitude of the problems.

[dizzeespellz]

Found this after looking if I could schedule reboots.
Mobile phones keep disconnecting and I'm getting woken up by annoyed people at 2am.
Praying 3.0 fixes things.

[Netduma Fraser]

18 hours ago, dizzeespellz said:

Found this after looking if I could schedule reboots.
Mobile phones keep disconnecting and I'm getting woken up by annoyed people at 2am.
Praying 3.0 fixes things.

Is it only occurring on mobiles or are other WiFi devices disconnecting as well? Are any wired devices experiencing the same issues?

[dizzeespellz]

On 3/3/2020 at 6:32 PM, Netduma Fraser said:

Is it only occurring on mobiles or are other WiFi devices disconnecting as well? Are any wired devices experiencing the same issues?

Every wireless device stops working
It's often late at night when video is being streamed on laptop

[Netduma Fraser]

10 hours ago, dizzeespellz said:

Every wireless device stops working
It's often late at night when video is being streamed on laptop

Do wired devices suffer as well? Do you notice if the white internet light is still on when this happens or is it red/amber?

[dizzeespellz]

22 hours ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Do wired devices suffer as well? Do you notice if the white internet light is still on when this happens or is it red/amber?

Only wireless devices
I've not checked but next time It happens I will

[Netduma Fraser]

1 hour ago, dizzeespellz said:

Only wireless devices
I've not checked but next time It happens I will

That's interesting, are you using Smart Connect? If so disable that and connect devices individually to 2.4/5GHz and see if they sustain a connection.