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I have a DG834N that is sometimes blocking access to specific sites. There are 6 PCs attached, some wired, some wireless. The router has NO firewall config - it is as it came from the box. It is preventing msn messenger from communicating, it blocks access to hotmail and microsoft.com. However google works fine, along with loads of other websites. Of the 6 PCs, one wired and one wireless are affected by this. The others work fine when these two don't. If I hard reset the router, service to all PCs is restored - for a while. I have done a factory reset, but no improvement. Firmware is the latest level, although it looks like Netgear haven't issued a revision for a long time.

I have seen other posts here about similar issues, and just wondered if anyone found a cure.....

Pat

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A few practical points and a short troubleshooting workflow that sit alongside 's experience and 's reaction. Consumer ADSL routers sometimes show selective failures because of hidden ACLs or state-table corruption, buggy ALGs (application-layer gateways), or a corrupted settings file. The checklist below is designed to find which of those is happening and to remove the bad state without reintroducing it.

Quick diagnostic checklist:

  1. Back up the current router configuration to a file and keep it off the device.
  2. Turn on router logging or a syslog receiver and reproduce the problem so you capture relevant entries.
  3. From an affected PC run basic connectivity checks: nslookup example.com (DNS), tracert example.com (routing), and curl -v http://example.com or telnet example.com 80 (TCP/application). These separate DNS, path and TCP-level failures.
  4. Capture packets on an affected client with Wireshark and filter on the router IP. Look for missing SYN-ACKs, or RST/ICMP unreachable sent by the router — that points to the router dropping or mishandling connections.
  5. Bypass the router briefly: connect one affected PC directly to the modem (or use bridge mode). If the problem disappears, the router is the culprit.
  6. If the router is implicated, reflash official firmware and perform a true factory reset, then reconfigure manually (do not immediately restore a suspect backup).

If the issue recurs, collect logs, serial/time-stamped tests and contact the vendor. Long-term fixes are firmware updates, replacement hardware, or using a separate, modern NAT/firewall device in front of the modem.

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Member Avatar for Pat_D

Well I thought I would reply to myself, as no-one else has :-(

It seems that some firewall rules I set up and subsequently deleted somehow got "stuck" in the router, not visible on the firewall setup page, and unable to be removed by a factory reset. I have now done the "secret" factory reset which apparently does a more thorough job than the normal one. So far, the symptoms have not returned.

And the secret reset is..........

Find out for yourselves. No-one could be bothered to try helping me here, so why should I give any of you the benefit of my time and effort? This site comes with lots of nice words about IT professionals helping one another. The reality is very different.

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

oh poor old us...

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