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Forum Discussion
How I fixed our intermittent internet connectivity problems with the Orbi
Hello, I'm just putting this here in the hopes that it might help someone down the road. I don't think this would fix everybody's woes with the Orbi, but at the risk of jinxing myself, it's what has fixed the problem at our home.
We have AT&T Fiber internet & TV service and a Pace 5268AC Router supplied by AT&T. And being in a house with 5 people living here we have probably 25 devices always connecting including desktop computers, work laptops, school laptops, cell phones, tablets, amazon dots, TV, FireTV, Roku, game consoles, and so on. Due to the dismal wifi coverage throughout our house from a single wireless access point, we had to install a meshnet solution (Orbi RBR50, +1 sattelite). This worked well for a time until we started experiencing sporatic loss of internet connectivity every couple of hours. The outages would last between 1-3 minutes. We'd just wait it out and the problem would magically solve itself.
Over time the problem became worse. At first just some of the the wifi devices would drop, other times just be devices connected to the satellite would drop, and yet other times (and more recently) everything including wired computers would lose connectivty to the internet. Devices connected to the satellite would show up with connection type "unknown" as well. Nothing in the Orbi logs indicated anything was wrong. I work from home so this was becoming a BIG problem for me.
Needless to say with the help of google I read and tried many MANY different things over a span of 6-8 weeks. Too many to list here. But nothing helped. The only thing I didn't do was call AT&T customer service. (Didn't want to go down that god forsaken rabbit hole unless I had proof it was a problem on their side)
The Orbi is in router mode and was connected to the Pace router in dmzplus mode, which means zero firewalling. wifi on the pace router is disabled and everything in the house connects to the orbi and its satellite. The Orbi was doing it's own firewalling (which in retrospect is not robust enough) and we use Circle for the kids (which I had disabled for a time while troubleshooting). Access control is turned on as well. According to the Pace router manual, dmzplus equals ip passthrough ::shrugs::
Finally, according to the firewall logs on the pace router I figured it might be getting DoS'd. I thought maybe the orbi can't handle it. I still had no concrete proof of it thanks to the poor logging, but troubleshooting computer systems for a living if I have a gutt feeling I follow the lead. I turned off dmzmode for the orbi connection(port) and turned on firewalling for that port on the Pace router. Every firewalling option available is selected. I didn't think not having IP passthrough to the orbi would work, but it does.
I'm happy to say our network connection has been stable ever since. I'm even amazed to see how tolerant we had gotten to the latency, because it feels like we just got a shiny new gift. (I later saw Pace router complaining about "excessive_sess redirect" so i turned on strict udp session control. Could also just turn off those notices.)
Hope this helps someone. ;)
-T
3 Replies
Hi tmmgeekette
Thanks for sharing these tips on what is working for you.
Regards,
Blanca
Community TeamBe aware of what others are seeing with the Pace Modem:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Installing-Orbi-behind-ATT-Pace-5268AC-gateway/td-p/1234191
Modem FW may have broke good speeds between the modem and Orbi in router mode:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/RBK50-Speed-Throttling-Wired-and-Wireless/td-p/1673291/jump-to/first-unread-messageModem Combo Units:
Couple of options,
1. Configure the modem for transparent bridge mode. Then use the Orbi router in router mode. You'll need to contact the ISP for help and information in regards to the modem being bridged correctly.
2. If you can't bridge the modem, disable ALL wifi radios on the modem, configure the modems DMZ for the IP address the Orbi router gets from the modem. Then you can use the Orbi router in Router mode.
3. Or disable all wifi radios on the modem and connect the Orbi router to the modem, configure AP mode on the Orbi router. https://kb.netgear.com/31218/How-do-I-configure-my-Orbi-router-to-act-as-an-access-point and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7LOcJ8GdDo&app=desktop30 feet is recommended in between the Orbi base and satellite(s) to begin with depending upon building materials.
Enjoy.
tmmgeekette wrote:
....... I turned off dmzmode for the orbi connection(port) and turned on firewalling for that port on the Pace router. Every firewalling option available is selected. I didn't think not having IP passthrough to the orbi would work, but it does.
.......Great troubleshooting! Thanks for sharing this information.
One note, when you turned off the dmzmode in the Pace router you ended up with two routers in your network: the Pace router (which is nor a full router when you removed the dmzforwarding) and Orbi. In certain conditions the Pace router will start supplying your devices with IP addresses and this will cause you troubles. You also have now double NAT.
You don't need to change anything now since everything is working fine for you, but be aware of this if you see any access issues in the future.
Good luck!
