XR500 WAN won't connect

[mwbuss8]

I've been using an XR500 for about a month without issues after a few initial hiccups with HybridVPN. I haven't changed any settings since. I'm on the latest firmware and there haven't been any updates since I got the device. Last night, I lost the WAN connection. I went through the typical troubleshooting steps. Multiple reboots, different ethernet cable, resetting the internet connection settings in the GUI, nothing helped. It would get an IP address, say "checking", then switch to "disconnected".  Fortunately, I had another router to swap in. The other router is working fine in it's place. I feared it was a HW issue, but after a full reset, it is working fine again. Unfortunately, I cannot trust putting it back as my primary router, as I can't afford to have it drop out again. Since it's unfortunately one of the XR500s affected by bad flash blocks, DD-WRT and OpenWRT are out of the question, short of learning how to modify the firmware binary to skip those blocks. I guess I have a rather expensive paperweight now.

[Bert]

If you can't afford your internet dropping you need to buy something else than a consumer grade or gaming router.

 

Also how do you know your router is affected by bad flash blocks? Many people running DD-WRT.

[mwbuss8]

Expecting a WAN port to function isn't setting the bar especially high, even for a consumer grade router. Having to perform a factory reset and reconfigure the whole thing when this happens takes a lot of time that I don't have, since myself and my kids (teacher and students) are attending school via Zoom due to COVID.

I know it has bad blocks because I have tried flashing DD-WRT. After having to TFTP back to stock, I opened it up and watched the serial output while booting. The stock firmware detects the bad blocks and skips them. The exact 2 blocks are identified, but learning how to edit the binary file isn't at the top of my priority list right now.  This is a common issue on XR500s and R7800s, discussed multiple times in the DD-WRT and OpenWRT forums.

[Netduma Liam]

1 hour ago, mwbuss8 said:

Expecting a WAN port to function isn't setting the bar especially high, even for a consumer grade router. Having to perform a factory reset and reconfigure the whole thing when this happens takes a lot of time that I don't have, since myself and my kids (teacher and students) are attending school via Zoom due to COVID.

I know it has bad blocks because I have tried flashing DD-WRT. After having to TFTP back to stock, I opened it up and watched the serial output while booting. The stock firmware detects the bad blocks and skips them. The exact 2 blocks are identified, but learning how to edit the binary file isn't at the top of my priority list right now.  This is a common issue on XR500s and R7800s, discussed multiple times in the DD-WRT and OpenWRT forums.

There is actually a full DumaOS 3.0 firmware available for the XR500 now, I'd suggest upgrading to this then factory resetting the XR after doing so. Let us know if you still have some stability issues after this.

https://kb.netgear.com/000064346/XR500-Firmware-Version-2-3-2-130

[mwbuss8]

I saw that after the factory reset today & installed. I have it setup off to the side behind my current main router to see if it runs into any further issues.

[Netduma Liam]

1 hour ago, mwbuss8 said:

I saw that after the factory reset today & installed. I have it setup off to the side behind my current main router to see if it runs into any further issues.

Sure thing, let us know how you get on!