Feedback, and it is not pretty!

[Glynn_A]

Having purchased this device only a month or two ago, I feel I am qualified to leave my experiences. In ordinary circumstances I like to leave feedback after a longer useage of whaever the item is, but this device have got me so infuriated that I feel compelled to state my grievences here now because there is just so much to talk about. I am going to talk about the ridiculous hyperbole phrase duma seem to enjoy using, that instead of making me excited, actually makes me cringe with anger Get Unfair

That is not the exerience I have had in warzone, my gameplay has actually gotten worse, now whether this is due to the duma, it would be disingenious of me to state, but I can state that the slogan most definetely does not meet the expectations.

1) The first issue was of course initial boot of the duma, being on sky it is not as simple as they claim.. the only way I could initially get it to work was to use an openreach modem to which I had to copy the following details manually to even make work 

add this code into the Client Identifier ID.                        52616e646f6d7573657240736b7964736c7c70617373776f7264

add this to the Vender Class ID                                         6.14.7aNUNIPCBAFAST2504NV1.0   

I know right... EXTREME, and very confusing to anyone who has no idea on what to do or how to do it, you are compelled to call for help at an online forum where, OBVIOUSLY you currently have no internet from.

2) Let's talk wifi... If you are fine with sitting on top of your router to do all your gaming. who knows you may even be lucky enough to get an ariel up the backside, you will recieve nothing short of maybe a few meters and certainly even less, next to none through walls. It was because of this that I went and purchased a set of decos to solve the problem, which of course would ordinially make almost every wireless feature of the duma irrelevant had it not been for that fact that I sacrifised every possible parental control ability for the sake of this measure by setting the deco's options to operation mode access point.. big thumbs up to internet safety!!

3) Every few weeks, which very quicky become every week, I had to completely reset my whole network because of consistant internet drops.. My sky internet was fine, it was something else, so eventually I made a guess that it was probebely the openreach modem because of the unconventional way it was connected and switched it out for the sky router, turning off UPnP, wireless and setting a static lan for the duma... BUT.. Thats right, you guessed it.. The problem was not solved.. So I bought a new sky router, a new microfilter and tried again.. NOPE.. Sorry, no internet on a regular basis for you!!

4) Fine.. I give up... I disconnected the duma as the main router, keeping a wall socket that sends internet via ethernet through a plug in the wall  and the deco's to the Duma.. Now what I have is a very expensive port switcher.. MONEY NOT VERY WELL SPENT!

 

[Netduma Fraser]

Thank you for the feedback, I'll address each point.

1. With Sky you will have their Sky Hub, in which case you should just be able to connect the R2 to it and receive internet. There is no possible way we can detail how to connect to each internet provider in a physical manual. As everyone who purchases the router almost certainly has an existing router they should be able to access the internet to seek assistance. Is there anything you think we could do differently to improve this for people in a similar situation to yourself?
2. I believe we've been discussing WiFi steps with you previously, I see you didn't respond to my latest message there. We're happy to continue with that and see if we can improve the WiFi for you, the next firmware should be better in this regard as well. As the decos are in AP mode they appear as though the are directly connected to the R2, therefore they're perfectly protected by the R2 firewall and you can use Traffic Controller to set rules for these devices.
3. What devices did you experience the drops on exactly? 
4. Sorry to hear you feel that way

I appreciate the feedback post, some of these issues you've not brought up before/the ones you have we haven't received a reply after ours, let us know about your issues or if you're still having them and we can do our best to resolve them. I've also sent you a PM. 

[Glynn_A]

Firstly, thanks for the message and reply, I will look into that in a few days.

To address some of the points you have made here, I’ll continue the sequential numbering.

1) I would say that there are several problems with the current method in order to work out how to connect each individual router, the first is obviously the variables involved in the options, the second is access to the information and the last is obviously understanding the choices given when you first install the duma.

Being no expert here is what I would do..

It seems to me that a lot of important information is lurking in the depths of this forum, there needs to be documentation of exactly what a client identifier or a vendor class is should someone choose an unconventional method of connection, I had to hunt for those details when I first booted up. It’s fair to say that you couldn’t possibly create documentation for every router, but most router software is the same across all their router brand so documentation for the larger or most popular ones is not out of reach imo, as is the need for explanation as to certain terms used within especially the install and setup process when it comes to for example using a sky router with the duma, I knew, but how many people have ever turned off wireless, turn off UPnP or even set a static local IP.. A generalised explanation as to what these are and why they should be turned off would be a good idea  

2) Unfortunately, I get a little impatient so I searched for another solution that I knew would work instead of spending most my time messing with something that many others had even recently complained about, I found the decos and I was fairly ok with the inability to use the parental features (because they simply did not work with the decos in place) in order to guarantee a good wifi connection.. But the point I was making was that out the box, the duma’s wifi should not be worse than sky wifi whether there was a possible solution or not.

3) Everything was dead.. I had all green lights on the sky router, checked ipconfig, replaced sky router and micro filter, replaced ethernet cables just in case, still no internet on anything. Pulled the line out of the ADSL on the duma, put it into a LAN and suddenly everything worked.. cannot access duma control panel any more because obviously it is not acting as a router. Sky router is in control with decos controlling wifi.. duma is currently just acting as a port switch.

[Netduma Fraser]

No worries!

1. The thing with identifiers such as what you're using is its not required by many internet providers so in most cases the internet provider should let you know what details you need e.g. PPPoE, VLAN etc but in your case Sky don't provide that information so it's sort of fallen in the crack for a lack of a better phrase so I do get where you're coming from.
Turning off WiFi, UPnP etc is not necessarily needed, it helps but mostly from what we've found is that people want the simplest experience, the Duma is pretty user friendly compared to other routers so having them do things which aren't essential is not always practical - that's why we reserve those types of changes for troubleshooting issues. I do agree some more documentation is needed, at the very least expanding on the ? icon help on each panel to explain these options more would be a good start so I'll add that to the list. 

2. Depending on the hub you have its WiFi specs actually may be better than the R2 but I get that by buying a router you would expect this to be better than something the provider gives you for free.

3. Thanks for the info, try with my PM suggestion and see if that helps.

 

[Glynn_A]

Having spent 4 hours messing with different configerations, including adding the one you messaged me about, I found that the best I could get that included the Duma was with the openreach modem connected and not the sky router, a massive 20mbs.

Having now completely removed the duma entirely from the network, I am now getting an average of 58mb.

Either something is very wrong with this duma or it is not compatible with sky..

I'm probebly going to have to ask for a refund at this point.

[Netduma Fraser]

Did you perform a factory reset after my suggestion? If not please do that as it's a necessary step to ensure no issues carry over

[Glynn_A]

Yes, fully reset..

[Netduma Fraser]

Was that with QoS completely disabled you got 20? With it enabled make a custom Traffic Prio rule:

Source 1-65535
Destination 1-65535
Protocol TCP/UDP 

and see if it speeds up please

[Glynn_A]

Ahh!… I’m pulling my hair out.. I’m not messing about with it AGAIN.. the benefit of this router is so small that it’s hardly worth taking my whole network apart for the 20th time ‘just to see’

[Netduma Fraser]

That's entirely up to you but we can proceed with troubleshooting steps and can't reach a solution then we can process a replacement

[RedBull2k]

On 8/4/2021 at 9:58 PM, Glynn_A said:

1) The first issue was of course initial boot of the duma, being on sky it is not as simple as they claim.. the only way I could initially get it to work was to use an openreach modem to which I had to copy the following details manually to even make work 

add this code into the Client Identifier ID.                        52616e646f6d7573657240736b7964736c7c70617373776f7264

add this to the Vender Class ID                                         6.14.7aNUNIPCBAFAST2504NV1.0   

I know right... EXTREME

Just offering my thoughts as i think some of your feedback are actual issues

If your on Sky or any other provider that requires extra ID's  (VCI, CID) then it not extreme, but a necessity if you want to connect directly to the modem in a type of bridged mode. The same for such if you need to use PPPoE, you will need username and password to authenticate with your ISP.

 

On 8/4/2021 at 9:58 PM, Glynn_A said:

and very confusing to anyone who has no idea on what to do or how to do it,

Lets be honest an ISP probably takes these steps to stop joe public from using their own eqipment. From what i can gather these ISP will stop support if your using your own equipment.

 

On 8/4/2021 at 9:58 PM, Glynn_A said:

2) Let's talk wifi

Wifi is shit on the r2,  They know that. They use open source drivers, and even the source has not prefected it. Dont hold out on wifi. As a gamer dont you think using ethernet is best.

There wil be new firmware as some point. but dont hold out for it, it wont fix all the isses. They have their own agenda bit off more than they can chew. but im sure at some point things will improve.

As a BETA tester before launch i did say the product was not ready, I appoligise that i wasnt louder, but like i said they have their own agenda regaurdless.

 

 

[Closs]

The wifi truly is crap on the R2

[Netduma Liam]

2 hours ago, Closs said:

The wifi truly is crap on the R2

We're aware it could do with some improvement, as RedBull2k mentioned. We are working to improve this over time.

[Infoseye]

Just my thought to be fair first time buyers including myself, we assumed and where sold on the idea it's out of the box ready which isn't the case.

I mean watching Netduma adverts etc I can't blame consumers for assuming that, cause we all just want to plug and play.

DumaOS is fantastic, routers are okay to fully enjoy; benefit and truly maximise it's potential you need to fine tune and find what works for you. This is what we all have done over the years, some day it would be a plug and play device ☺️

I have had my fair share of things not working we all have,  but I have to give them credit in terms of support. Netduma team have been brilliant over the years, they have offered great support.

I'm not just praising the team, Its what I have experienced with the team of the years personally. Which I know for sure I wouldn't get 1 to 1 support from another company that sells gaming router.

I'm happy despite my challenges I come across with the router, I'm better of with netduma router than plugged in directly to my ISP router not saying it's doesn't work but the difference is clear when in use.

My advise to you is to be patient, give it another go and find what works for you.

I'm sure the team are more than happy to get you sorted, along side with geeks on here will help you out.

 

 

 

[Glynn_A]

After much personal debate, I decided to reattach the duma using the above in QoS and even trying it with Qos turn off, this was both optimised and unoptimised.. It did work but at 42mb, much lower than I'd expect it to be because reattaching the sky one gives me an average of 52mb.. Once again it is disconnected and sitting on my shelf doing nothing, a paperweight.. I'd like to swap that papowerweight back for the cash I spent on it..

[Netduma Fraser]

So you used this rule here and you still weren't able to reach your max speeds?

On 8/6/2021 at 4:43 PM, Netduma Fraser said:

Was that with QoS completely disabled you got 20? With it enabled make a custom Traffic Prio rule:

Source 1-65535
Destination 1-65535
Protocol TCP/UDP 

and see if it speeds up please

[David824]

Though I understand your frustration, to be honest I don't think its your R2...it has to be something with  your ISP provider and their equipment. I live in the US in north Carolina and I had Spectrum as my ISP and with the R2 XR500 and XR700 I have always got my speeds. I have since switched to AT&T on their fiber and they make me use their modem but do a IP Passthrough and I'm using the R2 and I'm getting around 990 up and down out of my gig. So that's 2 companies and I'm still getting my speeds.

[Glynn_A]

1 hour ago, Netduma Fraser said:

So you used this rule here and you still weren't able to reach your max speeds?

Yes

[Glynn_A]

22 minutes ago, David824 said:

Though I understand your frustration, to be honest I don't think its your R2...it has to be something with  your ISP provider and their equipment. I live in the US in north Carolina and I had Spectrum as my ISP and with the R2 XR500 and XR700 I have always got my speeds. I have since switched to AT&T on their fiber and they make me use their modem but do a IP Passthrough and I'm using the R2 and I'm getting around 990 up and down out of my gig. So that's 2 companies and I'm still getting my speeds.

No, because I removed their equipment, taking a 3rd party modem and it still did not work as it should. The duma ran at full speed of my isp for around 4 weeks before it started messing about 

[David824]

7 minutes ago, Glynn_A said:

No, because I removed their equipment, taking a 3rd party modem and it still did not work as it should. The duma ran at full speed of my isp for around 4 weeks before it started messing about 

Well theres no doubt it might not be your R2...why dont you let them send you a new one and just see if maybe that went bad?....wouldn't hurt...if you get the same thing then you for sure would know its the routers on Sky.

[Netduma Fraser]

Interesting, can you disable the protection options and IPv6 in WAN Settings, IPv6 in LAN settings, then reboot from the interface, wait 2 minutes then connect and check the speeds

[Glynn_A]

37 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Interesting, can you disable the protection options and IPv6 in WAN Settings, IPv6 in LAN settings, then reboot from the interface, wait 2 minutes then connect and check the speeds

Already tried disabling IPv6 earlier today after reading an article about it.. no change.. Also if you remember, previously I used it just as a glorified lan extender due to only getting a max of 20mb and it still interfered until I removed it from the equasion 

[Glynn_A]

42 minutes ago, David824 said:

Well theres no doubt it might not be your R2...why dont you let them send you a new one and just see if maybe that went bad?....wouldn't hurt...if you get the same thing then you for sure would know its the routers on Sky.

Because I'm simply fed up with messing with it.. 

[Netduma Fraser]

34 minutes ago, Glynn_A said:

Already tried disabling IPv6 earlier today after reading an article about it.. no change.. Also if you remember, previously I used it just as a glorified lan extender due to only getting a max of 20mb and it still interfered until I removed it from the equasion 

Did you disable the protection options? They can drop packets and so could be a cause of reduced speeds

[Glynn_A]

I went through all the options I could find one at a time.. hence why I am getting so ticked because I have wasted days on this!

4 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Did you disable the protection options? They can drop packets and so could be a cause of reduced speeds