Network settings have changed please restart system.

Let's try restarting *everything*. Start by unplugging your set top boxes, DVR, WAP and gateway. After a minute or so, plug in just the gateway, and allow it to fully restart. Next, plug in the DVR & allow it to restart. Then plug in the WAP and wait for it to start up. Then connect any wired STBs one at a time. And last, plug in your wireless boxes, one at a time. See if the network settings message occurs after all of this.

Hmm...I had tried restarting everything yesterday.  But I didn't include unplugging the wired stb and the other wireless stb. I guess I'll give that a try later today.  Is there any problem with having a vip2500 and a isb7105 on the same wap?

Also I've noticed if I pause a recording and come back like a half hour later, it'll say this recording cannot be played and then kind of freak out.  The press ok to open recordings bar will appear over whatever is paused and won't work and I have to  change channels and come back to recordings to fix it or channel list is just blank.

The order that you restart everything is important, as is letting every component completely start up before starting the next component. And there shouldn’t be any problem with your mixed wireless STBs.

@davemize So I tried restarting everything slowly in the order you suggested.  It took me over an hour to restart everything.  My 5268ac gateway seems to be taking an absurdly long time to restart, could that be the problem?

After restarting everything, the "new" wireless isb7105 stb, still is having problems.  Once after leaving a show paused when I returned it went to the weird press ok to list recordings bar being on top of the show and not resuming.  

And another time in the middle of watching a recording the box just went black and restarted.

Considering everything was working fine until the old vip2500 box died, my guess is they sent me a bad refurb and I probably just need a new box.   But of course that means sitting on tech support for 2 hours to get them to replace it, with another refurb.  

The box they mailed me the "new" stb in, said manufacture date 4/19, but on the bottom of the actual stb, it says 12/14.  So it's obviously not new.

Any other suggestions to try?

So I tried restarting everything slowly in the order you suggested.  It took me over an hour to restart everything.  My 5268ac gateway seems to be taking an absurdly long time to restart, could that be the problem?

If the gateway has a new firmware pushed to it, it can take quite a while to download and apply it. This shouldn't happen every time, however.

Considering everything was working fine until the old vip2500 box died, my guess is they sent me a bad refurb and I probably just need a new box

I concur, it's not unheard of to get a bad STB shipped out. And most of the boxes and gateways supplied are refurbished units. You should go through 800.288.2020 again to report your issues. You might also try "Chat" instead; can sometimes be a little easier to Chat while doing other things, as opposed to hanging on a phone. Good luck.

Chat is the one who messed me up in the first place and started sending me wired boxes instead of the wireless box I needed.  AT&T's customer service has never been great, but their offshore support is now at the point where it's totally worthless.  

I'm strongly considering leaving AT&T.  I just don't have the time to spend hours on the phone every time the system malfunctions. you'd think for the $1000's of dollars I give them every year, they could do better to keep me as a customer.  

I still can't believe how ancient some of the equipment at&t thinks is acceptable to send out to customers.  They are still sending refurb silver wired boxes like the vip1200, and isb630hd, which don't have nearly enough ram to run at&t stb system.  Those boxes came with uverse when it first started over 10 years ago! It takes forever just to change channels with one of those dinosaurs, and then have the gall to charge the same $10 rental fee as if they sent you modern equipment.  Meanwhile comcast and directv are replacing boxes as early as every 2 years.  Clearly U-verse is on borrowed time and at&t just doesn't care about it.

so now my dvr pace iph8005, has twice started freezing while watching live tv and then about a minute later turned off and restarted itself.  

Another possibility.  I notice when I restarted the gateway, the incoming wire seems to be crimped really poorly where it plugs into the gateway.  I'm wondering if that's why jiggling it caused the gateway to take forever to restart, and if that could be causing some of these issues.

The last time they replaced the wire, I had them install a connector on the wall, so I could just replace the last 6 feet of the cable, as it's plug and play now.  It seems like it's a cat 5e cable with rj-11 connectors on both ends.  Can I just order a pre-mae one off of amazon, or is there something special about at&t's cable?

Nothing special at all about the cable; it's a 2 pair/4 wire cable, just like a telephone cable. Any phone line (recommend short length) should work fine.

I use a telephone extension cord and always have.  But I wouldn't push it beyond about 25 or 35 feet. 

For the sake of completeness the green data cable is actually two twisted pairs.  You can order these cables from this site at varying lengths or a 14' cable from att's own store.

I've never had a green cable.  I've always had the standard white cat 5e the techs hand crimp.  Luckily last time instead of making a home run from the outside box straight to the modem (which is a pain to replace).  I had them had a jack near the modem.  

I'd worry using a telephone cord that it would be bad for line quality without being twisted, but maybe at short lengths it's fine.  Also I have a bonded pair, so I need both pairs.  

@davemize @_xyzzy_ So I hadn't seen any problems for a few days...

Then yesterday, the wireless stb gets another network settings have changed forced restart, and a few hours later it does the weird thing where when you leave a show paused instead of resuming it goes to that weird press ok to watch recordings on top of the show issue.  

Then this morning, I notice there's an extremely high pitched whining noise coming from my 5268ac gateway, which also seems to be a little warmer than usual(although its always pretty warm). The system is working fine at the time before I unplug. I unplug it the whine goes away, and plug it back in.  The whine doesn't start right away.  The gateway takes an excessive 20 minutes+ to restart, which it has been doing lately.  After about 5 minutes the broadband lights start blinking, at the same time the whining noise comes back.  Eventually the service light comes on, it blinks rapidly for a longtime, eventually turns red.  Then it blinks slowly and turns solid green, and the system is back up and running again just fine.  

To me it looks like maybe the gateway has gone bad.  Would you agree?  should I request a replacement?  Is there anyway for forum support @ATTCares to request the replacement for me? or do I have to waste another few hours on the phone with awful philippines tech support?

The gateway shouldn't be whining, it's essentially silent. If you could catch ATTCARES' attention, s/he might help. You could also try Chatting with support. Otherwise, it's 800.288.2020 to have support confirm the issue and send a replacement.

Would a bad gateway cause my other issues with the "new" wireless stb?

It's easy to say "Yes" to the gateway causing just about any error; truthfully, I don't know. Some in the field diagnostics were "swap and hope". Normally, I'd try a gateway restart, followed by a DVR restart for that type of STB issue.

Since I've already restarted everything multiple times, and the high pitched noise is annoying if I'm sitting next to the gateway,  I figure I'll try swapping the gateway and see if that fixes anything.

Honestly though, I've been on hold for an hour and have yet to even be connected to a tech support agent.  Customer retention clearly doesn't care about retaining me, she transferred me overseas and a half hour later someone answered and then she hung up in the middle of speaking to me.  

AT&T needs to hire some real tech support people, the way they treat customers is ridiculous.  It shouldn't take hours everytime you have a minor issue, to maybe get it solved.  And if they don't want to spend money hiring domestic representatives, at least let me do some things myself online.   Like I should be able to order replacement equipment myself, I can run through the F@#$ing checklists myself.   AT&T charges me a small fortune and then wastes money like crazy, overnighting me the wrong equipment constantly?