There was a time when Netgear owned the consumer networking router and hub market. Not anymore. Customers are running away screaming. Somehow a Keller MBA must have been put in charge of things. Cut costs by using Agile and TDD so no actual Software Engineering occurs, then further cut costs by getting rid of all actual testing. For the ultimate in cost savings, eliminate customer service and refuse to fix anything. Just declare the product EOL (End of Life).
Before you buy a Netgear product
You need to read this saga. Yes, I have a lot of Netgear products, but I’m through buying them. They pushed out an untested firmware update and pooched the UI so nobody could reserve IP addresses. Yes, DHCP is really nice for many things. Just let the router assign an IP address. It sucks when you need a printer to have a constant address. In order printers you manually set up a fixed IP address in its firmware, then reserved that address in the router.
Most of today’s printers have a list of high IP addresses they attempt to obtain. Once they get one they broadcast to Cups.
Kind of Hilarious Really
A fixed IP address is important when you are trying to set up a synchronization server for Evolution or have your own NextCloud server. It’s kind of hilarious really. When I started in IT we had mainframe and Midrange computers with terminals. We collaborated on documents via the terminals using the program(s) on the computer in the data center. Our email and task lists were on that machine. We logged in via terminal either on-site or remote. The mainframe and the Midrange were declared “bad” by the PC pushing magazines beholden to Intel and Microsoft.
Just what do you have now? A data center that spans multiple stories and buildings.
Yeah, one mainframe that required a special airconditioned machine room was bad, but this is _so_ much greener.
Most of the Messages are Gone
Rather than fix the problem Netgear just deletes the messages.
Yeah, you will see messages from me on the list, but this is the due they basically purged. Like CrowdStrike, Netgear is shining proof Agile and TDD are not Software Engineering.
Just like OpenSource. Let thousands of bugs rot in your bug database then declare the product EOL (End Of Life). The major difference here is people paid for this product. This bug is obviously a result of using Agile and off-shore labor. You cannot use TDD to test user entry. The validation fails IPv6 entry 100% of the time when trying to reserve an IP address. This is a problem caused by the handling of the colons. Even leaving the colons out won’t work around it.
As your Help forum said “Find something else.” The “something else” won’t be another Netgear product … ever … for anyone that has experienced either your support or your, cough cough, Customer Service.
