Setup on Netgear X4S Router (R7800)

[staybreezy]

Expected Behaviour:

1. Pi-hole IP address can be set as router's DNS server and will filter ads.

2. Pi-hole can be set up for DHCP, DHCP can be disabled on the router, and Pi-hole will filter ads on both wireless and wired clients.

Actual Behaviour:

1. Netgear X4S (R7800) router seems to refuse local DNS servers (pi-hole). The router would let me input the pihole IP but after applying the settings I would not have any internet connection. If I waited long enough, the router would revert to ISP provided DNS. I have no issues setting the router DNS to a public DNS like cloudflare.

2. Since my attempt above didn't work I decided to try pihole as my DHCP and disabled DHCP on the router. In my router settings I'm seeing 10 clients, but in phone I'm only seeing 4 clients, the wired ones. However, I see that pihole has issues 10 clients IP addresses in the DHCP menu. Pihole doesn't seem to be resolving DNS for the wireless clients, but has issued them IPs. I checked my phone's DNS and it has my pihole IP address set, it just doesn't seem to be filtering anything.

Debug Token:

awb2nr1k7y

I just upgraded to a Netgear R7800 X4S and am having a hell of a time getting pihole setup. I had no issues with my previous Netgear router. In the midst of my troubleshooting I did a fresh install of pihole after formatting the SD, just as another point of info. Any help would be fantastic, and thanks for taking the time to read this. I'm a novice at Linux and pihole in general, but I had pihole set up and working flawlessly with my previous router so this is super frustrating for me. Thanks again!

[staybreezy]

I figured out the solution!

It has to do specifically with the R7800's currently most up to date firmware (ending in .62). Reverting back to the previous version (.60) resolved both issues!

There was another post on netgears forum with a user reporting the issue with a pihole, the same router, and firmware versions, they had had the router long enough that pihole worked before, they updated the router and it didn't work after that. The router is brand new to me so I had no idea it was the router firmware and assumed it was my mistake in setting up the pihole. If that Netgear user is also on this forum, thanks so much! You saved me a lot of frustration.