New Release - My Net N900 Router Firmware Update (1/15/13)

WD is happy to announce its release of the My Net Family Router firmware updates for the…

Please feel free to post your experiences in this thread.

Has anybody who was suffering from frequent Internet disconnections (heat related?) noticed an improvement? I don’t see this problem specifically mentioned in the release notes.

I’m not in a position to test for several days, unfortunately. I’m relying on another router for the time being but would like to get back to my WD, if it’s going to behave.

We are still looking into this, so I doubt you will see a fix in this version.  Unless of course it was incidental.

Bill_S wrote:

We are still looking into this, so I doubt you will see a fix in this version.  Unless of course it was incidental.

O.K., thanks for letting us know.

I think I might have found an issue with the new firmware…

  • Updated to 1.06.18
  • Reset to default settings
  • Changed admin password
  • Configured 2.4/5 Wireless
  • switched to AP mode

After a couple of minutes can no longer access the ‘internet’ which really means I can’t acess anything on my local LAN either. Reboot, and again for a few quick minutes things are fine. I was tempted to downgrade to 1.04 but couldn’t find the firmware link and download in time.

Anyways, switched to regular router mode, and surprisingly things are fine now. I’ll keep it like this, but I’m not a fan of owning two LAN subnets…plus seemingly I can’t locate my media servers on my (actual) LAN now

Now that I have a stable internet connection, I’m planning to downgrade to 1.04 or go back to 1.05 in AP mode

NEW BUG!!!

I just updated the firmware and… router no longer works in EXTENDER mode.  Only devices using N900 Router (wireless or wired) can reach the router’s IP address and control screens.  I use a different router as my DHCP server and connection to WAN.  This is completely unusable now.  Can I revert to 1.05?  Suddenly all my Time Machine backups are inoperable due to this new bug. 

Please fix immediately!

Thanks for the updates Bill.  I am DLing the firmware now and will test it out on my N900 7xgb port version.  I was contacted by a tech rep to get a replacement router though so how far I get in testing on my current router will be determined by when they want this one sent in.

Hello WD networking community!

I was hoping to see if this new firmware would have fixes for the Android tablets accessing the SMB shares but  :confounded: sadly this firmware has some other nasty bugs…:angry: with respect to DHCP  which prevented me from further testing on the issues that I had documented Here

Count me in, I was earlier running version 1.05.12 on my WD Net N900 central storage router and just like community member  JASONMUSER I used to run it in “EXTENDER” mode all these days. As soon as I upgraded to version 1.06.18 the router does not properly work in EXTENDER mode.

What happens is that it no longer is able to serve it’s wired and wireless clients a valid “DHCP” address (They all come up with private IP AKA Link Local Addresses or APIPA) and cannot access the WAN thru the primary router. Before the upgrade the Net 900 central storage router and my other N900 used to get IP address served by the other router (AT&T U-verse Gateway) acting as “DHCP” server in Extender mode.

I reset the device to factory and attempted in Externder mode again but did not work then out of desperation I switched the mode to " AP" and was seen to work with my other primary router but I hate having to manage two different IP subnets when I really do not need it.  I would like the router to get it’s IP from one DHCP server from my primary router just like before.

This forced me to downgrade it back to  My_Net_N900_Central_1.05.12.zip on my Net N900 Central Storage router and also  My_Net_N900_1.05.12.zip for My net N900

WD Please take this feedback to your developers and please fix it ASAP.

Thanks!

Cheers!

Maddog82 wrote:

Thanks for the updates Bill.  I am DLing the firmware now and will test it out on my N900 7xgb port version.  I was contacted by a tech rep to get a replacement router though so how far I get in testing on my current router will be determined by when they want this one sent in.

That will be fine.  The first thing they’ll probably do is look at your logs.  So, whatever you do to test, will probably end up recorded in there.  We definitely need a router like yours where there is a distinct difference in behaviour with and without an extra cooling fan.  Thanks for working with us on this.

Vistawall wrote:

Hello WD networking community!

 

I was hoping to see if this new firmware would have fixes for the Android tablets accessing the SMB shares but  :confounded: sadly this firmware has some other nasty bugs…:angry: with respect to DHCP  which prevented me from further testing on the issues that I had documented Here

 

Count me in, I was earlier running version 1.05.12 on my WD Net N900 central storage router and just like community member  JASONMUSER I used to run it in “EXTENDER” mode all these days. As soon as I upgraded to version 1.06.18 the router does not properly work in EXTENDER mode.

 

What happens is that it no longer is able to serve it’s wired and wireless clients a valid “DHCP” address (They all come up with private IP AKA Link Local Addresses or APIPA) and cannot access the WAN thru the primary router. Before the upgrade the Net 900 central storage router and my other N900 used to get IP address served by the other router (AT&T U-verse Gateway) acting as “DHCP” server in Extender mode.

 

I reset the device to factory and attempted in Externder mode again but did not work then out of desperation I switched the mode to " AP" and was seen to work with my other primary router but I hate having to manage two different IP subnets when I really do not need it.  I would like the router to get it’s IP from one DHCP server from my primary router just like before.

 

This forced me to downgrade it back to  My_Net_N900_Central_1.05.12.zip on my Net N900 Central Storage router and also  My_Net_N900_1.05.12.zip for My net N900

 

WD Please take this feedback to your developers and please fix it ASAP.

 

Thanks!

 

Cheers!

Thanks for the testing, Vistawall.  We’re regularly pushing these threads to make sure that the product people are aware of the issues.  So, I’m sure someone with get this. 

Bill_S wrote:


 We’re regularly pushing these threads to make sure that the product people are aware of the issues.  So, I’m sure someone with get this. 

That is *very* good to hear.

I did some more tests last night (Just because I wanted to) with this new firmware for My Net 900 series of routers

and still could not get the router to work in extender mode (now called as “AP” mode :neutral_face:)

After couple of factory resets and attempting from start I did manage to get DHCP IP address assigned to the WAN side of the router (I found out that it takes too long for the router to get itself and IP address) what happens is that while the router does get IP address from my primary router’s DHCP server however it does not assign any IP addresses to the clients attached to the router (Wired or Wireless)

However, if you take time and assign a “STATIC” IP address on the same subnet on the client side it does allow you to get to the GUI of the router but that’s as far as it can do. You cannot access the WAN side as if it has been blocked by a  firewall. You can try and ping the WAN side IP but get no response.

Bottomline: When the router is used in EXTENDER Mode AKA " AP" mode it is not useable. - This is a Serious BUG

Now generally people use this in “router mode” so I continued my tests to see if it is any good but sadly it still does not  work well.

  1. Switching the mode to Router mode does allow the router to connect and get IP on the WAN side - OK 

  2. The Clients attached (Wired and wireless) does get a IP address from the DHCP server of the router - OK

  3. The ping on the WAN side passes -OK

  4. The clients on the routers side (Both wired and wireless) are able to use PORT 80 but that is all it can do.

In this default router mode, The local SMB shares do work (For windows machines only), but the problem with Android explained **Here **is still there (Very sad :confounded:) and the new bug is that while you can ping IP addresses of the Servers and NAS storage on the WAN side it does not allow you to use those NAS shares (Does not route properly) as if blocked by firewall. (I even tried to disable firewall (Which is accessible in router mode) on the router just for test but no luck) I even disabled all other frills like QoS this QoS that but still no luck in getting to the NAS shares on the WAN side.

Basically it looks to me that this firmware was rushed out too quickly without proper testing as EXTENDER mode does not work at all, and the router mode has serious routing issues that forced me to downgrade it back to  My_Net_N900_Central_1.05.12.zip on my  Net N900 Central Storage  router and also  My_Net_N900_1.05.12.zip for  My net N900

 

Please take this feedback and get the new firmware off the website before IMHO it goes out of control

Have you tried setting a routing table entry?  It’s under advanced - Additional features - Routing

I hate this router! After upgrading to the latest firmware “My_Net_N900_Central_1.06.18.bin” now I can’t see my internal hard drive movies any longer. I am using a samsung blu ray which has dlna I was able to see all my vids now the folder is empty on the blu ray menu! This router has been the worst thus far! It drops the connection daily! Now I can’t view my stuff in it as well! What the heck WD!

I confirm, No change in connection drops from this firmware update ! grrr…

Sorry WD Team… that’s it… I’ve had enough… LOVE the product itself… not the many hours I have spent trying to figure out the problems I’ve been having. Going back to the store.  Keeping My 2T MyBook.

I’m getting to the end of my fuse as well. I’ve only had my n900 HD for a couple days and every firmware i’ve tried has some sort of major issue with it. I bought this router after a lot of reading over at smallnetbuilder.com and while the initial review wasn’t the best, they re-reviewed the router once a better firmware was released.

well… i’ve used the original 1.20 or something… then i tried 1.06.18 which was horrific and it kept losing connection with either my Motorola SB6141 or my PC, so I downgraded to 1.04.11 which has been better BUT i just got home after bring gone for about an hour and the connection to my PC (using gigabit) was gone and i had to reset the router manually.

Can anyone tell me what firmware seems to be the most stable? Is it 1.05.12?? Because if I can’t find a firmware that will at least keep me happy enough while I wait for a proper non-alpha firmware… this thing will be going back.

Right now my old Engenius ESR9850 seems like an upgrade from my new n900… :frowning:

I agree.  I have the same issue.

I have updated my firmware to the latest, and now the internal 2TB drive is not showing up again!!!  **bleep**!  Why does this stuff just not work?  Is this not even tested?

I am thinking this second unit is going back to amazon as well.  I just can’t beileve it really just doesn’t work.  Also, while copying 175gb from my work PC to this device at home over the internet, it cept failing, finally loosing connection and not working again.

Not happy with WD at all on this one.

Erik

Well… i thought things were doing better running 1.04.11 but soon after while attempting to transfer a movie file to a 500gb WD drive I have attached to the N900… the transfer failed after only 20 seconds and the router lost connection with my desktop which is wired via gigabit. After resetting both modem and router… i can at least complain here. Guess i wont try streaming anything for the time being.

WD should have stuck to what they do best. Making very good hard disk drives. I have a pair of 74gb Raptors which have been running 24/7 in RAID-0 for 9 YEARS!! I bought those expensive little buggers back in 2003 and had people tellling me “they’d never last”, “they’re only enterprise in name only”, blah blah blah. Never once have I had corrupted data on them, nor a single click.

 

This just bleep so much because for reasons like my seemingly indestructable Raptor drives, I genuinely thought that Western Digital would NEVER release a half-a$$ed product without proper testing. Boy was I wrong. The lesson to be learned is you should NEVER have faith in even the best of companies because the moment you do… they slap you down by selling you a piece of bleep .

 

/edit

 

I just tried the same 12gb file transfer again and it worked properly it seems. Gotta get my samsung blu-ray player online now and check if it will play the file.

My first N900 had many of the same issues.  For me I found it was just getting too hot during med/heavy loading and a laptop cooling pad under it worked great to stop all issues except for the DLNA server dropping after 6 days.  That was on firmware 1.05.12.  Since then I have gotten a new router straight from WD and it came with 1.03.11 on it.  This new router has not had any issues yet going on 4 days now and still on the firmware it came with.  I am going to let it go to 7 days and then upgrade the firmware to see if it has any issues with the more recent releases.  I did noticed that my transfer rates to my 2tb usb drive attached to port 1 are about 1/2 of what they were on my old router (24MBps vs 54MBps on old), but if it’s stable, that is plenty fast enough for me.