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Belkin Router Owners Suffering Massive Outages
An anonymous reader writes: ISPs around the country are being kept busy today answering calls from frustrated customers with Belkin routers. Overnight, a firmware issue left many of the Belkin devices with no access to the customer's broadband connection. Initial speculation was that a faulty firmware upgrade caused the devices to lose connectivity, but even users with automatic updates disabled are running into trouble. The problem seems to be that the routers "occasionally ping heartbeat.belkin.com to detect network connectivity," but are suddenly unable to get a response. Belkin has acknowledged the issue and posted a workaround while they work on a fix.
Yeah, we sold an untold number of plastic boxes that don't work correctly if we ever stop responding to pings... Why would that ever be a problem? Companies never go bankrupt, deliberately kill old products, or 'change strategic direction'.
Chongo!
Did Belkin tell you their router was dependent on their site being up?
"When I die, the world ends." - Belkin policy
It's just a bug in the phone-home spyware. Just like Adobe.
No router should ever be dependent on phoning home to a server in order to work. (No router should be engaging in any communication at all that I haven't told it to!) This is BAD - Broken As Designed. I'm awfully glad that I don't use Belkin stuff.
... see our workaround online. Not that I have a better solution, though.
Yeah! Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?
Sounds more like "all of the internets is broken because this one site won't work" complaint I get all the time.
It's a ROUTER. If the physical link is up then try pushing packets through it. That's all.
If you want to show connectivity to a specific site then show that in the diagnostic page on that router. But keep pushing packets.
any type of device, they won't get my money for even a power strip.
They earned my boycott honestly years ago. I still haven't let them off the hook. Comments on that article exposed other reasons not to even give them the satisfaction of wiping your ass their products.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Protip: From now on, run Slashdot and Sourceforge through different routers so they don't go down at the same time.
So, if the router does not connect to the internet, how is anyone supposed to look up the solution that is posted on the internet to begin with?
I know this is supposed to sound humorus, but a few years ago, I had a similar problem with my modem. Tech support on the other end suggest a web page with the solution, and I honestly had to say to the guy "um, no interent, so I cannot bring up the web page. Maybe you can just give me the information for the new settings over the phone."
Outlaw such checks, including for the entertainment cartel.
whats that? joe six pack is not happy
So.... Belkin knows where all its routers are, the ping tells them that. Now add in an NSA backdoor and "Your data belong to us"
Just asking.
It was probably short-sighted to write their main event loop like this:
while (!((date.day == 7) && (date.month == 10) && (date.year == 2014))) {
// rest of router code follows
}
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
And they bought Linksys from Cisco. Deep sigh.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
NEVER use a router that you haven't loaded third party firmware onto.
Which leads to not buying hardware that won't run OpenWRT.....
Which means, nobody but you controls with the router upgrades its firmware or decides to phone home. ALWAYS be the master of your own network.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
timeout...
Asus Router Owners Suffering Massive Smugness
I'm getting a reply back from heartbeat.belkin.com. I don't have a belkin router to test with.
M$ Windows 7 and above has similar feature, calling home from every location on Earth, to provide them with an IP address of Windows' victim.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
It's good to know another company is in bed with NSA, perhaps providing backdoor to the router as well.
That's why I changed it to DD-WRT, some of the weird problems disappeared.
Old cable modems sucked. Mine would often lock up, needing a power cycle to resume working. Very annoying when I was at work.
The quick and easy solution is to monitor the connection status and flip a relay to reboot the modem. But how to monitor the connection? Setting a single host or IP seemed like a bad idea because it would have added an extra, and totally unnecessary, single point of failure.
Instead, my home router (slackware box with 2 ethernet cards) collects the IPs that I connect to (by watching the conntrack stuff in /proc/ ), and if it can ping them, adds them to the ping list. It then pings random selections from that list to verify connectivity. IPs are removed if they are unreachable for a while (until it decides the connection is down; no point purging the whole list because of an outage).
Took me a couple of hours to set up and debug, back in like 2002 or 2005 or whenever I wrote it. I presume that there is some free software to do the same task by now.
Monitoring a single fixed hostname is foolish, at best. And this is like the 3rd or 4th big story (that I can think of) about home routers acting badly because of hardcoded values.
See that "Preview" button?
There workaround is to use Google's public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)???
Looks like you were behind a Belkin router.
Oh boy, they're going to hire at least double the amount of astroturphers now to make up for the negative reviews. (they got caught doing that before).
Shit products at top of the line prices being reason one. But this is a close #2
Do they ever mention anywhere on the box or manual, that their routers need to ping their server to even access the internet?
Things update on their own and then fail awesome!
captcha: newest
Entertainingly enough, I've run into this issue before. You will encounter the same issue when trying to connect the affected Belkin routers through the Cisco Clean Access NAC here (AKA Campus Housing), because devices are quarantined in the VLAN ghetto until successfully authenticated and associated.
So, these terrible, terrible Belkin routers try to phone home, and when they are unsuccessful they redirect all HTTP requests to the router's administration page. Since sessions are required to authenticate via HTTPS, there is no way to login. Extensive investigation revealed no way to disable this behavior on the client side, SOP for anyone calling with connection problems involving a Belkin router became "Officially unsupported. Return it and get something else that isn't a Belkin."
I am beyond pleased that this incredibly foolish decision on Belkin's part has come back to bite them in general, and hilariously entertained to see that Belkin's temporary workaround was effectively "spoof DNS traffic to heartbeat.belkin.com to a server on your local network that will pingback to fix your ISP's broken clients"
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
It might be useful to have a way to disable this 'feature' on the client side.
The bad? There isn't.
The good? This 'feature' already broke connections for anything going through the campus NAC even before their heartbeat server crapped out. SOP for any Belkin-involved problems became "Belkins break RFC2616, they are officially unsupported, go return it and get something that doesn't suck." ...so there aren't any of them still in use to be broken today. Yay!
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
if (ping(my_server) == ERROR) internets.is_broken = true;
Can't wait to see what happens years from now should Microsoft's NLA site become unreachable to one or more address families as the world swashes between IPv6 and IPv4 connectivity as a result of failed NLA probes.
There is no need or benefit for this garbage certainly not by default and certainly no excuse to failure in this manner. Heartbeat is code for more excuses for vendors to be in the loop and collect data when they have no legitimate business doing so.
I just went to www.dd-wrt.com and did a quick scan of their firmware and the results are a bit spotty but possible for some types of routers. But if your router is on the list then I'd get the hell out of the Belkin umbrella altogether. Might wish to check out Tomato, OpenWRT or FreeWRT too. If your router isn't upgradeable, smash the fucker in a fit of rage (it'll feel good, I promise) and after you collect enough empty bottles, go buy yourself a new one that isn't made by Belkin and IS on on of these firmware upgrade lists.
Manufacturer Model Revision Supported Activation required
Belkin 7230-4 v6000tc not possible no
Belkin F5D7130 - yes no
Belkin F5D7130 ver 2001 yes no
Belkin F5D7130-4 v1010 yes no
Belkin F5D7130-4 v1112 yes no
Belkin F5D7130-4 v7002uk not possible no
Belkin F5D7130uk v2115uk yes no
Belkin F5D7130uk v3000ef, v3002uk yes no
Belkin F5D7230-4 1000fr, v1444, v2000df yes no
Belkin F5D7230-4 v1000, v1010, v1111, v1112, v1222de, v1223df, v122 yes no
Belkin F5D7230-4 v2000, v2000de yes no
Belkin F5D7230-4 v3000 yes no
Belkin F5D7230-4 v6000/v6002 not possible no
Belkin F5D7230-4 v7000 not possible no
Belkin F5D7230-4 v8000 not possible no
Belkin F5D7230-4 v9000 no no
Belkin F5D7230-4 vA000 not possible no
Belkin F5D7231-4 v1000df, v1000ef yes no
Belkin F5D7231-4 v1001 yes no
Belkin F5D7231-4 v1100de, v1102, v1103ee yes no
Belkin F5D7231-4 v1212UK, v1213 yes no
Belkin F5D7231-4 v2000, v2001yy, v2001df yes no
Belkin F5D7231-4P v1000 yes no
Belkin F5D7330 - yes no
Belkin F5D8230-4 v1001ea yes no
Belkin F5D8230-4 v1002 no no
Belkin F5D8231-4 - no no
Belkin F5D8232-4 1000, 1021uk wip no
Belkin F5D8233-4 ? not possible no
Belkin F5D8236-4 ? not possible no
Belkin F5D8633-4 v1 no no
Belkin F6D4230-4 v1000 not possible no
Belkin F7D3301 v1 yes no
Belkin F7D3302 v1 yes no
Belkin F7D4301 v1 yes no
Belkin F7D4302 v1 yes no
Belkin F7D7301 v1 yes no
Belkin F7D7302 v1 yes no
Belkin F7D8301 v1 yes no
Belkin F7D8302 v1 yes no
This is not the first time Belkin has done this. Remember in 2004 when the F5D6231 would hijack your web sessions to remind you about the parental control features?
Or just have them spoof their MAC to the upstream MAC of the Belkin (or have the Belkin spoof their computers) and authenticate and associate one-time with the laptop or whatever and then they can plug in the router.
Returning it is probably easier :) .
http://xkcd.com/1258/
I've bought like 3 products from Belkin, everyone of them had catastrophic failure. To me, Belkin is synonymous with failure.
My favorite brand is Logitech. Their stuff is cheap, high quality and lasts.
God spoke to me
You know, cat5 ... maybe?
...
1) Unplug Cat5 from router.
2) Plug Cat5 into computer.
3)
4) Profit, er Internet.
I know, too complicated right?
Windows registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet
EnableActiveProbing = 0
Android terminal:
settings put global captive_portal_server 127.0.0.1
settings put global captive_portal_detection_enabled 0
I once bought a Belkin repeater. It never worked. Hours and hours dealing with their tech support. In the end, the tech admitted to me that it was a known issue and there was no solution, and there never would be.
I've had issues with the last several routers, so I recently bought the very first, 100% OSS router. My thinking is that if it's open source, it's probably high quality code, and it's more likely to get updated than proprietary firmware, where they are cash incentivized to just have you buy the new router rather than fix old bugs.
As far as hardware goes, it's mid-range router hardware, N300 Wifi with respectable antennas and a ho hum 100 Mbit hardware switch. The UI was a little odd, more complex and far more options than your typical Wifi router interface.
However, in the month or so that I've had it, it's been the least problematic Wifi I've had in a few years. I live in a densely populated area with quite a few other hotspots in sight, and I haven't noticed any issues where restarting the router made a difference.
I haven't had the chance yet to hack it, but even as just a router, this is a winner. Also, support products that are consumer friendly like this one. It's not even more expensive! (Currently just $52)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Spent close to 2 hours with this in the AM. First, the ISP; ie, TWC. They directed me to Belkin. So I tried calling Belkin. It took an hour to get tech support. Their phone system kept disconnecting me. Plus I was trying to access their web site via my phone. Of course, their site was hosed, as well.
When I finally got through, it was to someone in India. She was very thorough, but ultimately no help. (Now I know why.) She assured me I would get a call back in about 2 to 4 hours with a solution.
After finishing the call and hanging up, I was out the door and headed to the nearest store. Bought a different router and am back online.
And what a surprise! Belkin never called me back with a solution. I was SO expecting it.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
This isn't the first time Belkin has implemented a hare-brained feature, only to have it cause backlash when it induces catastrophic failures across the world. I stopped buying anything with their name on it (except the occasional cable) over a decade ago, over this little feature.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Of course, this is a shared award...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
i'm sure i've heard of this before, probably a decade ago. wasn't it d-link or netgear back then? if it couldn't get a response from their ntp server it wouldn't even connect.
#include <sig.h>
Can we block http://heartbeat.belkin.com/ to prevent this from happening?
It seems as though installing DD-WRT/OpenWRT/Tomato/other-non-OEM-firmware will fix it on at least some routers made by Belkin.
www.wavefront-av.com