D-Link DGL-4500 Firmware Fiasco

alex_law

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 13, 2004
Messages
132
The short version of the story: D-Link released a new firmware a few weeks ago for their flagship DGL-4500 Gaming Router, the main feature of which seems to be that every couple of days the router grinds to a halt and requires a reboot.

D-Link haven't even apologised for the chaos this has caused to their users, and we're all still waiting for a fix.

Here's the thread over at D-Link:

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=5580.0

Boing Boing Gadgets thread:

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/06/12/hey-d-link-youve-got.html
 
well good thing i didnt upgrade to that 1.20 firmware yet :)

btw there is a new one on their ftp

1.21


1. Fix potential security leak with CAPTCHA.
2. Fix When DCC set dns = 0.0.0.0,router don't force setting dns ip.
3. Fix SharePort for HP printer
4. Win 7 Support
 
I have the same router and also have not upgraded from 1.15 or whatever was the release before 1.20
 
It seems like the DLink firmware updates released in the last 12 months have been utter crap. On my DIR-655 I just recently tried 1.21 and experienced problems causing me to downgrade to 1.11. On the DIR-655 the 1.3x firmware series has been a major fiasco as well.
 
It seems like the DLink firmware updates released in the last 12 months have been utter crap. On my DIR-655 I just recently tried 1.21 and experienced problems causing me to downgrade to 1.11. On the DIR-655 the 1.3x firmware series has been a major fiasco as well.

d-link routers have had problems with firmware and needing resets since the dawn of wireless. I had so many problems with a d-link router and multiple replacements for it that I ended up physically destroying the router so myself or anyone else would never have to deal with it again =O
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
I never updated beyond 1.02 and I am very happy because of all the firmware problems.
 
Update

Initial reports by users in the D-Link forum indicate that the "1.21" beta firmware that was supposed to fix this issue didn't help at all. Also, the changelog doesn't even mention the problem.

I'm not sure what to say other than "WTF".
 
A week has passed since the most recent beta firmware, and D-Link still hasn't fixed the issue; the DGL-4500 is currently unusable.

The thread over at D-Link is at 17 pages this morning.
 
A week has passed since the most recent beta firmware, and D-Link still hasn't fixed the issue; the DGL-4500 is currently unusable.

The thread over at D-Link is at 17 pages this morning.

They had problems with some of their earlier wireless routers for years and never fixed the problems. I know how frustrating it is to keep pulling the plug on a router ever other day, I hope your routers get updated in a timely manner :(
 
They had problems with some of their earlier wireless routers for years and never fixed the problems. I know how frustrating it is to keep pulling the plug on a router ever other day, I hope your routers get updated in a timely manner :(

Thank you! I'll be sure to follow up with a happy ending, if there is one.
 
I have 2 issues with my D-LINK DGL-4500 since I have updated the firmware to 1.20.
After 3 or 4 days,
1) Wireless Network gets slow as hell
2) Shareport is unable to correctly detect my Canon printer (it says that it is active...)

I reboot the rooter through the GUI and my problems are solved... for a few days.
I have paid $150 for this device and it is unacceptable that D-Link releases crappy firmware like that.
 
Many of you already know about the DGL4500 Firmware 1.20 fiasco (and several other models as well) and the many victims that are the result of really bad business on the part of D-Link. Well I'm also a victim of this mess and after reading the following thread I posted under the nick of "dageek" a strong suggestion to people that they immediately file a Better Business Bureau complaint.

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=5580.210

Before anyone says anything please understand what's been going on. D-Link released the firmware May 11th 2009 and since then there has been a constant stream of complaints about problems it's apparently caused. Since then they have had people go through a maze of this, that and the other thing but as of this post still haven't done anything about it. Worse they still have the firmware available as a download knowing that serious problems exist.

Not only have they banned me but they have removed the posts and the responses. My posts were on page 16 and 17 of the thread again under "dageek". Others also were banned for similar statements or trying to pin D-Link down in resolving the problems. Since there were warnings they were doing this in the thread I took the liberty of taking several screenshots.

D-Link violated a fundamental rule of crisis mitigation and evidently has been engaged in this activity now for some time. Consumers have a right to appropriately vent their frustration and yes even on the company forums have a right to work together to come to a resolution and that includes involving a 3rd party such as the Better Business Bureau (Given the circumstances D-Link should be damed glad that's all we've done so far). But this isn't going away by a long shot, in fact we're just getting started.

I strongly recommend that D-Link immediately make these and any other customers who have become victims by recent firmware upgrades regardless of model whole by whatever means necessary including but not limited to replacement and repair at D-Linik's expense including shipping both ways. If they don't the actions of the last 48 hours will seem mild in comparison, that they can be sure of.

Consumers have a right to get what they pay for. They have a right to get exceptional customer service after the sale and they have a right to seek recourse when the manufacturer acts in a manner that damages the customer in any way and that includes releasing firmware updates that damage or make the customer's item unusable or unable to perform as advertised when purchased REGARDLESS of warranty status. If the firmware caused the issue then the company is responsible for it.

D-Link time is of the essence. Every day you delay in taking care of your customer this information and much more is being communicated throughout the community and while you can't feel the pain now, you'll soon be faced with the fall holiday spending cycle. Right about the time when all of these efforts will be coming to a head....I can hear the sleighbells and Santa now....but when when WE think of D-Link it won't be "Ho Ho Ho"....it's gonna be "No No No"

There is no excuse for D-Link's behavior and all D-Link victims are advised to immediately file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at »www.bbb.org.

Feel free to contact me as well if needed. There are significant rumors of a class action lawsuit.

Evidence below....

dlink1.JPG


THIS IS MY ORIGINAL POST

DLINK2.JPG


HERE IS THE RESPONSE TO MY POST

DLINK3.JPG


HERE WAS MY RESPONSE JUST PRIOR TO GETTING BANNED
 
Many of you already know about the DGL4500 Firmware 1.20 fiasco (and several other models as well) and the many victims that are the result of really bad business on the part of D-Link. Well I'm also a victim of this mess and after reading the following thread I posted under the nick of "dageek" a strong suggestion to people that they immediately file a Better Business Bureau complaint.

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=5580.210

Before anyone says anything please understand what's been going on. D-Link released the firmware May 11th 2009 and since then there has been a constant stream of complaints about problems it's apparently caused. Since then they have had people go through a maze of this, that and the other thing but as of this post still haven't done anything about it. Worse they still have the firmware available as a download knowing that serious problems exist.

Not only have they banned me but they have removed the posts and the responses. My posts were on page 16 and 17 of the thread again under "dageek". Others also were banned for similar statements or trying to pin D-Link down in resolving the problems. Since there were warnings they were doing this in the thread I took the liberty of taking several screenshots.

D-Link violated a fundamental rule of crisis mitigation and evidently has been engaged in this activity now for some time. Consumers have a right to appropriately vent their frustration and yes even on the company forums have a right to work together to come to a resolution and that includes involving a 3rd party such as the Better Business Bureau (Given the circumstances D-Link should be damed glad that's all we've done so far). But this isn't going away by a long shot, in fact we're just getting started.

I strongly recommend that D-Link immediately make these and any other customers who have become victims by recent firmware upgrades regardless of model whole by whatever means necessary including but not limited to replacement and repair at D-Linik's expense including shipping both ways. If they don't the actions of the last 48 hours will seem mild in comparison, that they can be sure of.

Consumers have a right to get what they pay for. They have a right to get exceptional customer service after the sale and they have a right to seek recourse when the manufacturer acts in a manner that damages the customer in any way and that includes releasing firmware updates that damage or make the customer's item unusable or unable to perform as advertised when purchased REGARDLESS of warranty status. If the firmware caused the issue then the company is responsible for it.

D-Link time is of the essence. Every day you delay in taking care of your customer this information and much more is being communicated throughout the community and while you can't feel the pain now, you'll soon be faced with the fall holiday spending cycle. Right about the time when all of these efforts will be coming to a head....I can hear the sleighbells and Santa now....but when when WE think of D-Link it won't be "Ho Ho Ho"....it's gonna be "No No No"

There is no excuse for D-Link's behavior and all D-Link victims are advised to immediately file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at »www.bbb.org.

Feel free to contact me as well if needed. There are significant rumors of a class action lawsuit.

Evidence below....

dlink1.JPG


THIS IS MY ORIGINAL POST

DLINK2.JPG


HERE IS THE RESPONSE TO MY POST

DLINK3.JPG


HERE WAS MY RESPONSE JUST PRIOR TO GETTING BANNED

I think you are taking this way too seriously. companies have been producing and selling flaky wireless equipment for years. not every device is perfect, some get worse with firmware, some get better. this is not going to change anytime soon, and the same thing applies for motherboards, gps devices, media players, and whatever. point here is that you are trying to make a huge stink with stuff that goes on all the time in the pc industry.

also remember that you upgraded your firmware by choice, and there was likely a warning on d-link's page telling you not to do so if your router was functioning properly. sure it sucks, however if this whole thing is really bothering you so much, it might be a good idea to just toss your router and get something else.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
I think you are taking this way too seriously. companies have been producing and selling flaky wireless equipment for years.

if this whole thing is really bothering you so much, it might be a good idea to just toss your router and get something else.

How will D-Link have the opportunity to improve their process unless they're given feedback? This is a real-world business scenario. D-Link's customers are (justifiably) frustrated.

Your complacency is part of the problem, not the solution.
 
How will D-Link have the opportunity to improve their process unless they're given feedback? This is a real-world business scenario. D-Link's customers are (justifiably) frustrated.

Your complacency is part of the problem, not the solution.

Threatening class action lawsuits and participating in flame wars on their forums is not "feedback". I am sure they are more than aware that this situation is not going terribly well for them, however threatening to bust open a class action lawsuit because people need to reset their router every 2 days is not the best way to get them to care.

And as far as my complacency goes, at work we recycled every single piece of D-Link (and Netgear) wireless hardware we had and replaced it after having various issues with reliability. Then when it came time to upgrade a few thousand ports to gig ethernet, we did not even consider using D-Link rack hardware and told the reps why.
 
Last edited:
We're probably not going to agree.

My opinion: sure it's feedback. If I do a poor work for a client, the client telegraphs their frustration to my higher-ups, and I'm told to get my act together, and I do so in order to not lose the client.

I don't really understand why quietly suffering is a better plan.
 
We're probably not going to agree.

My opinion: sure it's feedback. If I do a poor work for a client, the client telegraphs their frustration to my higher-ups, and I'm told to get my act together, and I do so in order to not lose the client.

I don't really understand why quietly suffering is a better plan.

i don't have a DGL4500, however yeah I never quite understood how and why I have to adopt the "buyer beware" approach for things that I buy with money.

I thought there're consumer protection laws meant for "vendor be fair"?
 
i don't have a DGL4500, however yeah I never quite understood how and why I have to adopt the "buyer beware" approach for things that I buy with money.

I thought there're consumer protection laws meant for "vendor be fair"?

That is fine, however its going too far when the consumers are saying what D-Link did is "criminal" and pulling out Class Action Lawsuit threats over what amounts to an optional router upgrade. Its not like they released an upgrade that bricks 100% of all routers it is applied to. It is no surprise that dageeks's posts all got deleted off the D-Link forums.
 
My opinion: sure it's feedback. If I do a poor work for a client, the client telegraphs their frustration to my higher-ups, and I'm told to get my act together, and I do so in order to not lose the client.

I don't really understand why quietly suffering is a better plan.

Exactly, and if D-Link does not rectify this situation, they lose those customers. In the end their bottom line suffers.
 
Its not like they released an upgrade that bricks 100% of all routers it is applied to.

It's not really far from that, though. If you read through the thread, _almost_ everyone who has applied the update is experiencing failure approximately every 48 hours.

Further, D-Link _still_ has the faulty firmware for download via their website.

Whatever, though. We can each deal with it in the way we feel most appropriate.
 
That is fine, however its going too far when the consumers are saying what D-Link did is "criminal" and pulling out Class Action Lawsuit threats over what amounts to an optional router upgrade. Its not like they released an upgrade that bricks 100% of all routers it is applied to. It is no surprise that dageeks's posts all got deleted off the D-Link forums.

I see.

Maybe next time someone thinks of filing a class action lawsuit, they'll seek your permission to see whether it's the vendor or the consumer that's going too far.
 
I see.

Maybe next time someone thinks of filing a class action lawsuit, they'll seek your permission to see whether it's the vendor or the consumer that's going too far.

No one needs to ask my permission thanks! People make themselves look bad threatening to sue people anytime something goes wrong. Often this is just thrown out there by Chicken Little end users looking for attention. This forum is literally packed with people having problems with everything from power supplies to motherboards to video cards to game consoles and media hardware. And of those various threads, go take a look around and see how many are threatening class action lawsuits. Pretty much none of them. Now you go and figure out who is going too far.
 
So... why in god's name wouldn't D-Link remove the bad firmware from the website and issue a rollback firmware for those who wish to go back to an earlier firmware revision?
 
So... why in god's name wouldn't D-Link remove the bad firmware from the website and issue a rollback firmware for those who wish to go back to an earlier firmware revision?

No idea why they wouldn't remove the bad firmware. As for a rollback, D-Link has stated that it's impossible to rollback from 1.20. This is part of the frustration.
 
Well, thank you for giving me much needed laughter for the day. I needed it after dealing with the DGL-4500 fiasco.

There has been countless class action law suits in tech industry. Specially, when the company did not deliver what they advertised(ati grahpics card HDCP suit for example), or they made a defective product(I had an old Toshiba laptop lines with overheating problem).

It's not that people that are complaning want nor demand a perfect product for $150. Every tech product has it's up's and down's. However, there are fine line in between a product being functional and defective. If a router randomly reboots every day or two and doesn't keep wireless connection...is it functional?

This is not, a problem that just poped up just 2 weeks ago. The router has been out in the market for over "ONE YEAR." Chicken little end users looking for attention you say? They did release a FAULTY FIRMWARE that makes day to day usage unbearable. They still have that firmware on their website, and exact same problem still exists after 5+ beta codes. Since the newer shipment of this particular router ships with the faulty newer fairmware as defaults...People are now going to get DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS until they remedy this problem in my opinion.

Router is something that affects everyday users on everyday usage, regardless if the user is surfing, downloading, or gaming. Judging by your signature, is it ok if MSI released bios update for your motherboard that can make your crash your computer every 4 hours?
What if they make it so you can't go back to old firmware? If their current motherboard ships with the same faulty bios with no progress of fixing for months, is it not a defective product in your stance? It almost sound like you are a person that's so rich, it is ok for you to eat a $150 sandwitch that taste totally like a horse shit. Well, good for you. What about tons of others who will read the ad and buy this peice of crap defective hardware in the mean time? How about every DGL-4500 owner who has 1.5 or higher firmware that can't even get their wireless connection going or router rebooting everyday?

You are right in one thing. There are tons of hardware discussions going on this forum.
There isn't a class action law suit talk in those forum because the manufacturer takes their time to actually fix their stuff. They communicate with the buyers, send representative to respond, issue RMA, or come up with the fix. $150 price tag isn't that cheap on average hardware price either.

Bottom line is, all D-Link has done is for last half year is stalling and censoring their forum from the angry mob of users. There has been no public apology, no status update of when it will be fixed, or even what is being done. If they stall about three months more, they probably don't even have to do RMA because most of people's warranty is going to run out. They blame Ubicom for the firmware not being able to roll back. Sure!
Why didn't they pull the firmware off their website and rma current units with the working 1.02 firmware in the beginning? Would that have costed more than the possible class action law suit?
 
Its very typical for home use, dare I say SHIT, like this to operate poorly and have terrible support. D-link has been churning out garbage for years. I'm surprised people still have the balls to buy their products.
 
Silly question, but did you try disabling "DNS Relay" in your router settings? On the DIR-655 forums it's seemed to get folks a bit more stability. I suspect the DGL-4500 is a close cousin of sorts to it
 
No one needs to ask my permission thanks! People make themselves look bad threatening to sue people anytime something goes wrong. Often this is just thrown out there by Chicken Little end users looking for attention. This forum is literally packed with people having problems with everything from power supplies to motherboards to video cards to game consoles and media hardware. And of those various threads, go take a look around and see how many are threatening class action lawsuits. Pretty much none of them. Now you go and figure out who is going too far.

Posted by Chicken Little end users looking for attention? Really?

The last time I checked, people who police the Internet whining about posts they don't like, are the ones who look for attention. Reality is they don't get any attention in life.

Maybe tomorrow, I'll release some product and sell it. Then when problems arise, I'll keep quiet like dlink. You'll defend me, right? Or won't you? Please tell me you will scold those people who threaten lawsuit against me. I'm a poor businessman, oh no. :(
 
Silly question, but did you try disabling "DNS Relay" in your router settings? On the DIR-655 forums it's seemed to get folks a bit more stability. I suspect the DGL-4500 is a close cousin of sorts to it

I haven't tried that, no! Curious. Trouble is, relaying DNS is a feature I very much like. Thanks for the info, though.
 
haha ! Too bad you guys can't use DD-WRT! The stock firmware on basically EVERY consumer router SUCKS. I have been running DD-WRT on my router and wifi ap for years now...
 
Ya Da geek can keep to spamming that crap on the DLink form an not on Hardocp. That's why your shit is getting deleted over there.

And i'm currently a DGL4500 owner with a 1.15 firmware and no issues.

I think alot of people learned a lesson here don't update the firmware just because one is released.

If I go to the update feature in the router it says 1.15 is the newest firmware and never shows 1.20 or 1.21 so i'm assuming you guys grabbed from thru forum post or the FTP site.

I'm not defending D-link at all and hope the issues get resolved good luck with a class action!
 
Funny thing is, I came to this sub-forum looking for a new router/modem. Well, now this makes things easier for me. Now I know what brand not to buy, hehe.
 
Depends i've had no issue with the router and its the best home router i've owned very stable. However the issues with that firmware are real, if you buy the router it comes with a much lower version firmware and aslong as you stay away from 1.20 you will be fine.

But if you want to install custom firmwares then yes its best to look elsewhere
 
Perhaps this router should not be recommended in the "choose a router" sticky?

I really wanted to buy it but there is no way I will deal with a company that is unable to deal with such a major problem for such a long time.
 
It hasn't :(

Update

Initial reports by users in the D-Link forum indicate that the "1.21" beta firmware that was supposed to fix this issue didn't help at all. Also, the changelog doesn't even mention the problem.

I'm not sure what to say other than "WTF".
 
Absolutely.

How will D-Link have the opportunity to improve their process unless they're given feedback? This is a real-world business scenario. D-Link's customers are (justifiably) frustrated.

Your complacency is part of the problem, not the solution.
 
On the flip side, my 4300 runs and has run smooth as butter, either as a switch, router, or both.
 
On the flip side, my 4300 runs and has run smooth as butter, either as a switch, router, or both.

Amen. The 4300s are still very good routers. The only reason I stopped using mine was that it had a problem with the Nortel IPsec vpn client. Otherwise, no complaints.
 
My latest round of email from DLink "Support" instructed me to downgrade back to firmware 1.15.

I will let everyone LOL now...
 
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