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Forum Discussion
device not connecting to closest satellite
It looks like many have a similar problem. I have an RBR50 along with 2 satellites. My router is on my main floor with 1 satellite upstairs and 1 satellite in the basement. In my master bedroom, I...
Faced the same issue and then I realized two things
1. My satellite firmware was not updated to the latest one
2. The back haul link status as coming as poor.
Version upgrade did not solve my issue but resolving the backhaul status by repositioning the satellite did the trick.
Hope it helps
1. My satellite firmware was not updated to the latest one
2. The back haul link status as coming as poor.
Version upgrade did not solve my issue but resolving the backhaul status by repositioning the satellite did the trick.
Hope it helps
It’d be nice if the Orbi router would block client connections when power cycling until it detected all satellites reporting online so then clients could better detect a closer AP. This might not be ideal but could help this situation with clients not connecting to the closest AP.
Interesting that their dropdown when writing a post doesn't have an option for the RBR850. But I agree with you 100%. There are times when I power cycle the units, brief power outage, etc. and when everything is back up and running, some satellites have no devices connected to them. How is that possible? My wish: devices connect based on 5GHz first - check router and satellites for that connection first and if there is one that has a sufficient signal, connect to it. If the signal for 5GHz isn't suficient, drop back to 2.4GHz, but connect to the one that has the strongest signal. When I look at my devices and determine what each one is connected to, for many of my devices, it makes no sense to me at all, where it's connecting. Yeah, I wish Netgear would fix this.
Ekcj wrote:
There are times when I power cycle the units, brief power outage, etc. and when everything is back up and running, some satellites have no devices connected to them. How is that possible?
Simple: The clients are able to establish a wireless session to the primary router, the signal isn't poor enough.
Ekcj wrote:
My wish: devices connect based on 5GHz first - check router and satellites for that connection first and if there is one that has a sufficient signal, connect to it. If the signal for 5GHz isn't suficient, drop back to 2.4GHz, but connect to the one that has the strongest signal.
Well, this is not how wireless clients are working. We configure them to connect to a certain SSID, the first at that moment best radio will be connected. Decent WiFi clients re-evaluate the situation (alternate BSSIDs - these can be the same or a different band and/or device), modern WiFI clients will also evaluate the RRM radio resource management information providing a list of BSSIDs for the same SSID and re-associate to what the client does find suits better.
The AP could under certain conditions reject the connection on a certain device or radio. This can again cause unexpected issues especially on "dumb" WiFi clients (like certain IoT).
schumaku wrote:
Well, this is not how wireless clients are working. We configure them to connect to a certain SSID, the first at that moment best radio will be connected. Decent WiFi clients re-evaluate the situation (alternate BSSIDs - these can be the same or a different band and/or device), modern WiFI clients will also evaluate the RRM radio resource management information providing a list of BSSIDs for the same SSID and re-associate to what the client does find suits better.
Please note that the "We" in "We configure them" is the user of the WiFi device. When the user enables WiFi on a device, the device goes through a process of:
- Searching for WiFi access points by listening for WiFi beacon frames, often on all 11 (or 13 in the EU) 2.4G WiFi channels and also in the 5G WiFi channels. The default setting for most WiFi access points is to broadcast a beacon frame every 102.4ms (almost 10 times a second) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_frame
- After collecting information about available WiFi access points, the device software looks to see if any of the SSID's match a WiFi SSID that the user has set to "connect automatically". If so, the device selects the BSSID that seems most appropriate and makes a connection request.
- If none of the SSID's match one that the user has set to connect automatically, the device displays a list of SSID's and waits for the user to select one.
- This process provides convenience because it can take place totally without user intervention. When the device has no active WiFi connection and one of those "connect automatically" SSID's becomes available, the device can connect without user intervention. This is really helpful when I arrive at home or at the office: Walk in the door, and my phone changes from LTE to WiFi. Lose power, and when power comes back on, every device in the house reconnects without me having to do anything.
What I cannot find information about is (a) the specific process typical WiFi software uses to scan for WiFi access points and make a decision, and (b) which devices continue to scan and which stop looking after they make a connection. i.e. Is it typical to scan all 11 WiFi 2.4G channels and (which?) WiFi 5G channels? How long does a device typically spend scanning? There is a lot going on "under the hood" and it would be really interesting to find references about how it works.
This article, for example, seems pretty clear, but seems to gloss over the basic question raised by this post: "Why are devices picking access points that are so obviously wrong?"
https://netbeez.net/blog/how-wifi-connection-works/
Did the device pick too quickly? Or... what?
