NETGEAR Orbi AC3000 satellite LAN ports stopped working

All this testing with the satellite directly connected to the Orbi router with out any switches in the mix? 

Has a full factory reset been performed and setup from scratch? 

How about a re-load of FW on to the satellite and router, reset and setup from scratch? 

There is a known issue with Daisy chain and others have mentioned it working in opposite order with the check mark in the UI. Some say the check mark in the UI acutally disables DS while unchecking enables it. This does seem to cause problems with wire connected satellites and mixed satellite connections. NG is already aware of this and is not a STP issue. Others have been able to get a mix of wired and wireless satellites connected with out seeing this issue. 

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orbira wrote:

Just to complete the loop (pun intended :smileyhappy:), as I said, I ordered a cable tester. Upon testing I did not find anything wrong with the cable. So to rule cable out completely, I connected the cable directly to my PC in basement and that did not create any issue. I was suspicious that the issue has to do something with spanning tree protocol because instead of disabling wireless backhaul, the router is choosing to disable lan ports to break the routing loop. Doing some googling on Orbi and spanning tree, seems like this was an issue with older firmware which should have been resolved in current firmware. Debugging further I noticed this innocent setting "Daisy chaining satellites" and turning that off fixed the issue altogether. Now with same cable I am wired backhaul for one of my satellites. Now my theroy is that there is still some bug/issue with spanning tree algorithm and can be explained as below (will only manifest if one satellite is connected over wired and other is over wifi)

 

• Sattelite connects over wifi
• Switches to wired for backhaul
• So now there is one satellite is over wired and other satellite is over wifi
• The wired satellite's wifi backhaul goes through other wifi satellite (assuming bug in code, the wifi backhaul should be turned off on both satellite and router, but it seems only gets turned off from router side)
• This causes loop again, and this time instead of turning off both satellites, router chooses to turn off lan ports
• Turning off daisy chaining resolves this issue as the wifi backhaul for wired router has no path to reach the router.

Just a hunch, but hopefully some capable engineer from Netgear is reading this and can dig down further in code logic. Happy to repro the problem if someone from Netgear is willing to work together. Alternately, it might be a good idea to add, user selectable backhaul in the UI, so that for whatever reasons, STP/code doesn't do the right thing, users can choose to fix it manually.

 

FURRYe38 wrote:

Sounds like you found the culprit. Sometimes cable or the cable plug ends can be a cause of a problem. This would probably cause any routers LAN ports to fail possibly. The troubleshooting you did would be the best way to isolate this. You did that. 

 

I don't think logging would mentioned this, however you might look at the logs after testing the cable in the LAN Port, then look at the logs to see if it noted anything. 

 

Glad you found the main problem. Be careful with the Green Ethernet switch, seen others with problems with those kinds of switches. The 608 should well best. 

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Thank you, thank you!  Your research saved me from resetting my system!  I disabled Daisy chaining and everything is back to normal.  I only have 1 satellitel that is not hardwired, but that setting, when turned on, seems to have caused all of my issues.

Thanks for you hard work!

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orbira wrote:

Just to complete the loop...

 

Debugging further I noticed this innocent setting "Daisy chaining satellites" and turning that off fixed the issue altogether. Now with same cable I am wired backhaul for one of my satellites. Now my theroy is that there is still some bug/issue with spanning tree algorithm and can be explained as below (will only manifest if one satellite is connected over wired and other is over wifi)

 

• Sattelite connects over wifi
• Switches to wired for backhaul
• So now there is one satellite is over wired and other satellite is over wifi
• The wired satellite's wifi backhaul goes through other wifi satellite (assuming bug in code, the wifi backhaul should be turned off on both satellite and router, but it seems only gets turned off from router side)
• This causes loop again, and this time instead of turning off both satellites, router chooses to turn off lan ports
• Turning off daisy chaining resolves this issue as the wifi backhaul for wired router has no path to reach the router.

Just a hunch, but hopefully some capable engineer from Netgear is reading this and can dig down further in code logic. Happy to repro the problem if someone from Netgear is willing to work together. Alternately, it might be a good idea to add, user selectable backhaul in the UI, so that for whatever reasons, STP/code doesn't do the right thing, users can choose to fix it manually.

 

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orbira wrote:

Just to complete the loop (pun intended :smileyhappy:), as I said, I ordered a cable tester. Upon testing I did not find anything wrong with the cable. So to rule cable out completely, I connected the cable directly to my PC in basement and that did not create any issue. I was suspicious that the issue has to do something with spanning tree protocol because instead of disabling wireless backhaul, the router is choosing to disable lan ports to break the routing loop. Doing some googling on Orbi and spanning tree, seems like this was an issue with older firmware which should have been resolved in current firmware. Debugging further I noticed this innocent setting "Daisy chaining satellites" and turning that off fixed the issue altogether. Now with same cable I am wired backhaul for one of my satellites. Now my theroy is that there is still some bug/issue with spanning tree algorithm and can be explained as below (will only manifest if one satellite is connected over wired and other is over wifi)

 

• Sattelite connects over wifi
• Switches to wired for backhaul
• So now there is one satellite is over wired and other satellite is over wifi
• The wired satellite's wifi backhaul goes through other wifi satellite (assuming bug in code, the wifi backhaul should be turned off on both satellite and router, but it seems only gets turned off from router side)
• This causes loop again, and this time instead of turning off both satellites, router chooses to turn off lan ports
• Turning off daisy chaining resolves this issue as the wifi backhaul for wired router has no path to reach the router.

Just a hunch, but hopefully some capable engineer from Netgear is reading this and can dig down further in code logic. Happy to repro the problem if someone from Netgear is willing to work together. Alternately, it might be a good idea to add, user selectable backhaul in the UI, so that for whatever reasons, STP/code doesn't do the right thing, users can choose to fix it manually.

 

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Excellent analysis orbira, thank you for sharing your troubleshooting steps and analysis.

I think that you have found a bug. It seems that Daisy Chain should always be disabled when combination of wired and wireless backhaul is used in the Orbi network.