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Forum Discussion
"Config sync" loop with firmware V2.3.1.44
RBR50 and my two satellites (RBS50 + RBW30) were very stable out of the box for a couple of months now after getting the initial configuration right. However after updating (involuntarily!) to the "auto-updating" firmware and getting V2.3.1.44 pushed out, I now have weird issues where the Attached Devices page shows the two satelittes continually looping between "Good" backhaul and "Config Sync" status.
I have factory reset the router and both satellites and set them up from scratch with the same result -- no change. However what's odd is that the status lights on the router and satellites are fine -- there's no visual indication that anything is resyncing, and the clients attached to each device aren't dropping off or having any connectivity or speed issues when "Config Sync" is being displayed.
So what I'm wondering is, is it just the status page and the app that aren't correctly showing what's happening? In other words, if I wasn't looking explicitly at the status of the system, I'd never suspect anything is wrong -- so maybe it's just a bug in the status and not really happening?
The other thing that's odd is that the network configuration as shown in the app (Android, latest version) has gone haywire since the update to the latest firmware. I have daisy-chain turned "on" in the router settings, but because the router is in the middle of my two satellites and they're at opposite ends of the house, it's never defaulted to a mesh or chain topology before -- it's always a tree with the router at the top. However now, the configuration of the satellites changes in real time from a tree to a daisy-chain and back, and the status indicators in the app change from green to amber to red and back fairly randomly. But once again, the "real-world" behavior of the system isn't anything like that. I think if the topology on the backhaul were really changing like that all the time, I'd be seeing all kinds of issues -- but it's working fine.
Anyone else experience this? Could it just be bugs related to the status reporting only and not anything to do with actual performance?
37 Replies
After you did a reset and setup from scratch, how did you connect the satellites back up? Buttons in back?
Is Daisy Chain enabled?
Wired or wireless connected with the satellites?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials.
Turn on Beamforming.
You might try a factory reset on just one satellite, turn OFF the other. Set up the satellite again and wait for the BLUE led on top. Set up a reserved IP address ON the base router for the satellite.
All good questions!
- For the reset, I took the main router offline first. Then I paperclip-reset both satellites to factory and unplugged them both. Then I turned the router back on and reset *it* next, then set it up completely wtihout either satellite. Then I added back the RBS50 first, got it synched and stable, and then added the RBW30 and did the same.
- Daisy chain is enabled. When I first got the system about two months ago, it was pretty unstable without daisy-chain enabled -- even though as I mentioned it previously only connected in a tree topology and not a daisy-chain.
- Backhaul is wireless on both satellites and has always been super fast and stable prior to the latest FW update.
- Router is sort of "in the middle," in the den where my cable modem is located. One satellite is about 35 feet away with lots of walls in between in the back bedroom, and the other is in the kitchen about 35 feet away in the other direction. (In other words, it's about 70 feet between the two satellites, with the router in between.) Never had any issues before.
- Beamforming is off. I have about 7 Amazon Echo devices, and when beamforming is on they all drop their connections pretty regularly, so I have been running with it off for two months with no issues.
- Both satellites have a reserved IP address (.2 and .3 right after the router, .1)
Lets try and disable Daisy Chain...wondering if distance maybe too far fo satellites to connect to each other if DS is enabled.
- Yes, I had the same experience post v210. You can read this "New firmware 2.3.1.44" thread:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/New-Orbi-RBR50-RBS50-Firmware-Version-2-3-1-44/m-p/1725013#M56821
and search for "config_sync". If you have separate SSIDs, try the suggested solution. Otherwise, the best option would be to stick with v210, which doesn't suffer from this problem.Unfortunately, I am using separate SSIDs. When I first got the Orbi a couple of months ago, I was actually going to reconfigure my roughly 30 or so client devices that were using my former 5G SSID even though I wasn't happy about having to do it. But I noticed right away that a couple of my older iPads which, although they were 5G capable, were definitely *not* happy with bandwidth steering. They were constantly flipping between bands and the throughput was super slow. So as a result of that, and coupled with the irritation of having to reconfigure a bunch of devices with new SSIDs, I elected to set up a separate SSID for 5G just as I'd always had. This worked great up until the new firmware.
So, I think I'll just downgrade back to 210 and see if that solves the problem.
Try doing a reset and setup from scratch. This time, don't separate the SSIDs, Smart Connect and single SSID works.
In recent version of FW, you can temporarily disable either 2.4 or 5Ghz SSID while you get devices setup. This new feature seems to help devices that only support 2.4Ghz on the setup device.
Try this before downgrading.
MrMediaGuy wrote:
Unfortunately, I am using separate SSIDs. When I first got the Orbi a couple of months ago, I was actually going to reconfigure my roughly 30 or so client devices that were using my former 5G SSID even though I wasn't happy about having to do it. But I noticed right away that a couple of my older iPads which, although they were 5G capable, were definitely *not* happy with bandwidth steering. They were constantly flipping between bands and the throughput was super slow. So as a result of that, and coupled with the irritation of having to reconfigure a bunch of devices with new SSIDs, I elected to set up a separate SSID for 5G just as I'd always had. This worked great up until the new firmware.
So, I think I'll just downgrade back to 210 and see if that solves the problem.
Hi,
I've just had the exact same problem as you were having, but I think I've found the solution.
If you have a read of this, https://kb.netgear.com/000060756/RBR50-RBS50-Firmware-Version-2-3-1-44 it states that if you CANNOT update the firmware straight from V2.2.1.210 to V2.3.1.44, you must first update to V2.2.1.212 using the manual update option.
I have done this and all seems to be fine again so far, but it's early days and I've only had it installed for approx 20 mins.
I hope this helps you as it seems to have worked for me.
Kind regards,
Kevin.
So it's not often that I say "Boy was I wrong," but here it is . . .
I listed on the reasons on this thread that I couldn't go back to a single SSID (too many devices already configured with separate 2.4G or 5G SSIDs, difficulty reconfiguring "2.4G only" devices with a single SSID, etc.) -- but here's what finally put me over the edge and made me bite the bullet and do it. I spend most of the workday on conference calls (video and/or audio) over WebEx, and ever since switching to the Orbi about 6 weeks ago I have had constant issues with audio dropouts, robotic "Max Headroom" audio effects, etc., that never happened before Orbi. It didn't make much sense to me because all my speedtests were fine but the WebEx software was always reporting "poor network quality."
Finally I stumbled on this: http://www.dslreports.com/tools/puma6
This a tool originally designed to spot problems in Intel Puma6 chipsets in routers (not relevant here), but it's also a good way of testing jitter and latency of a connection. Well guess what? Instead of a nice green box, I got *mostly* red with my setup. Yes, my downstream was 238Mbps, but the variance in round-trip packet times was off the charts. Literally HALF or more of my times were > 500ms, while others were in the 50ms or below range. In other words, WAY too much variation for things like stable audio or video conferencing. (And yes, I tested direclty to my cable modem as well, bypassing the Orbi, and got great times and all green, so I knew it wasn't my modem or connection.)
So I thought, okay, I wonder if this separating the SSIDs is causing this jitter problem -- so I decided merely as a test to go back to a single SSID, not changing any other settings. Well, wow. Suddenly everything was perfect -- all green on the test, perfect audio/video calls, no more Config Sync looping on the status page, correct firmware versions reporting from all the satellites. Basically eveyrthing I said was "broken" about the Orbi was magically fixed by switching to a single SSID. Oh, and that problem where I coudln't ping between devices a lot of the time? Turned out it wasn't that I couldn't ping between satellites -- is was that I coudln't ping from one BAND to another. Single SSID solved that, too.
Like a lot of people here, I moaned and whined that it was ridiculous and impossible to live with one SSID and bandwidth steering and it was ridiculous to force people to do that. Well, hand me my serving of crow and humble pie for dessert. Advice to anyone wanting to switch to a different 5G SSID: DO NOT DO IT.
And to anyone who has and has had no problems, I'd encourage you to run that Puma6 jitter test linked above. Maybe your setup isn't as great as you think it is.
Thanks for the update!
It's great that you've also provided a different data point and tool for how to troubleshoot splitting SSID problem.
When I first ran into this problem, I almost retired my Orbi setup out of frustration. But I have a backup wireless network, which I switched on while I'm troublshooting the problem. I managed to stumble on the solution by going back to basic, default configs, and root cause the non-default configs in my setup. That's how I discovered the problem and came up with single SSID solution.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
MrMediaGuy wrote:
>> And to anyone who has and has had no problems, I'd encourage you to run that Puma6 jitter test linked above....
I took your advice and try it out. Not sure what to make of this result as I do see some reds.
Maybe, it's okay?
That puma6 test is only for ISP modems and or modem/router combos.
The big issue is with cable modems with Intel chip sets.
You can test Broadcom based modems as well.
Historical information regarding the Intel chipset flaw that was found is here:
MrMediaGuy wrote:
So it's not often that I say "Boy was I wrong," but here it is . . .
I listed on the reasons on this thread that I couldn't go back to a single SSID (too many devices already configured with separate 2.4G or 5G SSIDs, difficulty reconfiguring "2.4G only" devices with a single SSID, etc.) -- but here's what finally put me over the edge and made me bite the bullet and do it. I spend most of the workday on conference calls (video and/or audio) over WebEx, and ever since switching to the Orbi about 6 weeks ago I have had constant issues with audio dropouts, robotic "Max Headroom" audio effects, etc., that never happened before Orbi. It didn't make much sense to me because all my speedtests were fine but the WebEx software was always reporting "poor network quality."
Finally I stumbled on this: http://www.dslreports.com/tools/puma6
This a tool originally designed to spot problems in Intel Puma6 chipsets in routers (not relevant here), but it's also a good way of testing jitter and latency of a connection. Well guess what? Instead of a nice green box, I got *mostly* red with my setup. Yes, my downstream was 238Mbps, but the variance in round-trip packet times was off the charts. Literally HALF or more of my times were > 500ms, while others were in the 50ms or below range. In other words, WAY too much variation for things like stable audio or video conferencing. (And yes, I tested direclty to my cable modem as well, bypassing the Orbi, and got great times and all green, so I knew it wasn't my modem or connection.)
So I thought, okay, I wonder if this separating the SSIDs is causing this jitter problem -- so I decided merely as a test to go back to a single SSID, not changing any other settings. Well, wow. Suddenly everything was perfect -- all green on the test, perfect audio/video calls, no more Config Sync looping on the status page, correct firmware versions reporting from all the satellites. Basically eveyrthing I said was "broken" about the Orbi was magically fixed by switching to a single SSID. Oh, and that problem where I coudln't ping between devices a lot of the time? Turned out it wasn't that I couldn't ping between satellites -- is was that I coudln't ping from one BAND to another. Single SSID solved that, too.
Like a lot of people here, I moaned and whined that it was ridiculous and impossible to live with one SSID and bandwidth steering and it was ridiculous to force people to do that. Well, hand me my serving of crow and humble pie for dessert. Advice to anyone wanting to switch to a different 5G SSID: DO NOT DO IT.
And to anyone who has and has had no problems, I'd encourage you to run that Puma6 jitter test linked above. Maybe your setup isn't as great as you think it is.
- You're correct that it's not *for* the Orbi -- but it's as valid as any other means of showing you that you have packets arriving to the client device way out of sequence. In my case, my video and audio conferencing was almost unusable, because half of my traffic was arriving a half a second or a second too late over the LAN. In my case there was about a 750ms delay on 50% of my traffic when connected to a satellite, and about 250 to 500 milliseconds when connected to the main Orbi router. (Direct to modem, on the WAN, everything was fine.)
So in my case having separate SSIDs was introducing an unacceptable amount of lag and jitter in most of my traffic. Switched to a single SSID, and everything was perfect.
The fact that the tool is designed for something else is kind of irrelevant; it still shows you what you need to see on your LAN. There are a lots of better tools for this, of course, but this one is easy because it's on the web and you don't have to install anything.
The config sync issue comes from users separating the Orbi's SSID which users really shouldn't be doing as this seem to cause this side effect.
I just had a RBK50 system online for over 7 days, both wired and wireless, the RBS did not show a continued Config Sync problem after it was set up.
YES! Lesson learned the hard way. DO NOT separate the SSIDs. If you need to have a separate SSID for 5G, then buy a solution other than the Orbi. I resisted going to one SSID but very glad I did. As noted above, the thing that finally convinced me was a problem I didn't even "see" at first, which was HUGE variation in packet round-trips when conneced to the satellite (and router, too, but less so).
If you're just doing a speed test or downloading files, you won't notice this because when loading a web page or downloading a file, your device can easily reassemble packets out of order. But for things like gaming, audio/videoconferencing, etc., having some packets arrive a second late is deadly. I'd advise ANYONE using separate SSIDs to absolutely check for jitter to see if they have this problem, because it's something that could be really hampering your performance and you might not even realize it.
Thanks MrMediaGuy, I will switch back to single SSID when I get some spare time and see how it goes, I was having issues with newish Iphones and Ipads switching to 2.4Ghz all the time hence why I went for the separate SSIDs. Incidently I have run the Puma test and there were only a couple of reds.
