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Forum Discussion
Orbi firmware v2.1.1.16 discussion
do we need to do nvram wipe for this 2.1.1.16 Firmware just released today? noticed it downloaded automatically.
437 Replies
- I had no issues with the previous firmware. After the auto update everything shows that it's connected to the router. Nothing shows on the satellite. When I am on the admin page from a web browser half of my devices say they aren't connected when they actually are. Any suggestions?
Ludeatude wrote:
...After the auto update everything shows that it's connected to the router. Nothing shows on the satellite....That is a known issue and, ostensibly, is scheduled to be fixed in the next firmware release.
I thought that was an issue with the last firmware for some? Wonder how many months we will have to wait for yet another firmware update. I was excited about Circle but now I am considering downgrading until they get this resolved.
Major issues after update. I can not get my 3rd satellite to connect to the system, even when having it next top router, following the sync button press and also tried 2 different satellites since I had an extra. It just fails. So can if not connect 3 satellites any longer? This update is horrible and killed everything. Also it stated today that it changed the routers IP address so it doesn;t conflict with myn internet provider. Was very weird way this message came throughj. Also was getting blocked access to regular web-sites with a page that popped up stated I needed to enter the serial number of theb router. Is anyone from Netgear going to response on this thread to the issues? I had a raid from them spent a total of $2k, and it died a year later and they wanted me to pay $300 to speak to someone on the phone. I am going to attempt to call them to resolve, but not paying.
Major issues with the RBK50 and 2.1.1.16 firmware. Seeing PS4 issues with VOIP party chat (Constantly dropping connections), and my VOIP phone (actually making it ring constantly). Tried calling support, no real answers there. I’m coming from an R7000 running tomato firmware. And the Netgear firmware is leaving a lot to be desired. Hard coded VPN option, and lack of configuration options.
Not sure if I was seeing any reboots....but overall speeds seemed worse.
I'm also having random reboots since the 2.1.1.16 update.
I found this article while browsing Reddit. What are your thoughts on this?
robertcdh wrote:I'm also having random reboots since the 2.1.1.16 update.
I found this article while browsing Reddit. What are your thoughts on this?
All I can say is that I'm running Oreo (8.0) on my OnePlus3. I installed the Orbi system about 24 hours ago and upgraded to v2.1.1.16. After futzing around with a router I used as a switch and having some connectivity issues, I replaced the router with a Gb switch, disabled UPnP, enabled MU-MIMO and beamforming as well as fast routing.
The debug page shows I've been up for 13+ hours now. I've not noticed any reboots other than the ones I forced. AFAIK, the system is running normally on 2.1.1.16 for me. So far.
orbirick wrote:
robertcdh wrote:I'm also having random reboots since the 2.1.1.16 update.
I found this article while browsing Reddit. What are your thoughts on this?
All I can say is that I'm running Oreo (8.0) on my OnePlus3. I installed the Orbi system about 24 hours ago and upgraded to v2.1.1.16. After futzing around with a router I used as a switch and having some connectivity issues, I replaced the router with a Gb switch, disabled UPnP, enabled MU-MIMO and beamforming as well as fast routing.
The debug page shows I've been up for 13+ hours now. I've not noticed any reboots other than the ones I forced. AFAIK, the system is running normally on 2.1.1.16 for me. So far.
I have 27 devices connected to the network, including Android, Apple, and Windows based products. None of my Android devices are running Oreo.
Four days ago I did factory resets on router and satellite and manually loaded 2.1.1.16. Disabled UPnP, but did not enable any "advanced features". Stability is much better than before the factory reset and reload, but on average I still get random self-reboots on both the router and the satellite. I have had uptimes of more than one day, but never more than a day and a half. Also had self-reboots in as little as four hours.
This morning right before the router self-rebooted, I was looking at the uptime via debug and I noticed that the CPU utilization was around 75%. This seems very high for a router where no one was using any connected devices except me and I was just reading email. A few minutes later, the router self-rebooted. So frustrating.
So this is interesting...I think I am getting DOS attack blocks every time i try and re-add my sonos players back into my system. I am not that technical...is there a way to verify and/or work around it?
I think it was in an earlier post that st_shaw posted about adding Sonos devices to the Orbi network and you have to be careful to not set up the Sonos so it creates it's own network. Sono's tries to do that and then you will get loops in your routing and other wierdness and possibly your DOS.
aaz, tkshaffer If you wire one, and only one, Sonos device into your network, Sonos will create its own mesh network (Sonosnet) on 2.4 GHz. You need to set Sonos to use channel 11 and Orbi to use channel 11, or vice versa, to avoid interference. That's how I have mine setup and it works perfectly. If you wire more than one Sonos device you can create network loops and crash your network.
Alternatively, you can setup Sonos to connect to your WiFi, but if you do that you must not connect any Sonos devices with a wire. As soon as you connect one Sonos device the entire system will revert to Sonosnet.
I have lost an entire day after updating and wonder if anyone has suggestions. Have had the orbi since june with one satellite, pretty much default settings...has been flawless. After it updated my Netgear Arlo's suddenly stopped connecting to the network as did my 10 room sonos system. Basically wireless was fine but anything connected to the router that set up its own network was toast. After several factory resets of orbi and Arlo I now see the camera's...whew. Sonos appears completely dead. I noticed it was an outdated email so tried to switch the email and still no luck. Factory reset Sonos, no luck. I can connect one sonos to the router and it will work, but much like the Arlos it can't communicate with any other device it is supposed to connect to. I literally have 8 hours into factory resets of all of these devices and I think my wife is about ready to throw me out of the house I am getting so ticked off. What is going on with this update???? For what it is worth, xbox both wired and hard wired are fine. Mobile devices all fine.
tkshaffer wrote:I have lost an entire day after updating and wonder if anyone has suggestions. Have had the orbi since june with one satellite, pretty much default settings...has been flawless. After it updated my Netgear Arlo's suddenly stopped connecting to the network as did my 10 room sonos system. Basically wireless was fine but anything connected to the router that set up its own network was toast. After several factory resets of orbi and Arlo I now see the camera's...whew. Sonos appears completely dead. I noticed it was an outdated email so tried to switch the email and still no luck. Factory reset Sonos, no luck. I can connect one sonos to the router and it will work, but much like the Arlos it can't communicate with any other device it is supposed to connect to. I literally have 8 hours into factory resets of all of these devices and I think my wife is about ready to throw me out of the house I am getting so ticked off. What is going on with this update???? For what it is worth, xbox both wired and hard wired are fine. Mobile devices all fine.
I'm far from an expert on this, but am curious if you tried manually installing the earlier firmware that was working ok for you? If that fixes it, I'd be tempted to turn off auto updates if you can figure out how to do that.
This is the first time I have had a problem with this system up to now it has been working flawlessly. The problem manifested itself by the Satellite not granting access to the internet. I then had a look at the router with a web browser, the Satellite had gone. I completed a hard resett on the Satellite which had no effect. I then logged onto the Satellite through its web interface by connecting a laptop to one of its ethernet ports and checked the firmware version it was v2.1.1.16. In summary I could connect to the web through the satellite only by connecting to one of the eithernet ports of the satellite which also allowed me to connect to the Orbi RBK50 and check its firmware it was version v2.0.0.74 clicking on the button in the firmware update page returned a "No new firmware version available" message. I then did a manual update and on rebooting the satellite appeared on the administrators page.
My devices when connected to the satellite are showing the connection type as "wired" as is the satellite.
There is drop of 4Mb in speed of connection when connected to the satellite wifi.
I setup the Orbi router and 2 satellites which came with firmware 1.12.0.18. Powered them up, pulled the cable from my router that went to my PC and connected my PC to the Orbi system (local LAN, no internet connection). I set it up, then tried to manually update the firmware on the satellites from the v2.1.1.16 zip files (unzipped, pointed to the disc image file for the update), but got a message that the file was incorrect.
I've just re-connected my PC to the 'net and got fresh copies of the 2.1.1.16 router and satellite firmware and will try to manually install it again after I post this message. Not exactly a glorius start here.
since update my wifi radios turn off after restarts. and restarting is troublesome. also the satellite won't reconnect unless i reset both units. i'll probably roll back to an earlier firmware after christmas.
I also had a $ in my router password. Removing that appears to have helped stability. It hadn’t been an issue until this firmware apparently since I had no issues in the year I have had this orbi.
At the same time I had Comcast issues, so it was hard to tell what was what.
so I’d suggest removing any $ in your WiFi passwords. Thanks to whoever it was who mentioned that.
TLDR: I have the same issues with my RBK50+2xRBS50 after the auto update which happened around the 19th Dec. My satellites went magenta one day and just stopped syncing with the router even after reboots. After about 6hrs of troubleshooting, I was able to return to a good working state after rolling back to V2.0.0.74.
Full Story:
I bought my RBK53 from Costco this Black Friday (2017) and set it up on Dec. 3rd. I don't recall what initial firmware came with this Costco unit. I also don't recall if i chose to update the firmware during my first initial setup. If I did do an update, it would have likely been version v2.1.1.12 or older. I had no problems setting this up the first time and it worked GREAT the past 3 weeks that I've owned it, exactly what I wanted. I've pretty much left the settings at default. My only changes are the admin password, SSID name/password (wpa2) and 5 ip reservations. Very vanilla setup.
On the morning of Dec 19, 2017 my satellites turned magenta and were not synced to the router. Device connectivity through the router was still good (wired and wireless). Power cycling the satellites didn't work. Rebooting the router via GUI made things worse as now WiFI was off. I noticed that my wifi password was only displaying the first 3 letters of the password in the GUI, where previously it displayed the full password in plain text. This is when I noticed the firmware version was the latest v2.1.1.16 (which is dated 12/12/2017). I was able to get wifi to turn on again by retyping my wifi password in the Wireless>Security Options. My satellites still wouldn't sync so I brought them really close to the router. Power cycling again made no difference, but resetting via reset pinhole (until blinking amber) did finally get them to sync. Once synced and working as expected, I power cycled 1 satellite using the on/off button on the satellite to see if it will automatically sync like it normally should. Unfortunately, it would never sync unless I factory reset using the pinhole method. Additionally, factory resetting the satellite when it's far away where I originally had it on another floor of my house wouldn't work. The satellites needed to be within 20ft of the router.
Rebooting my router always turned off the wifi some reason as well. What a cluster. I rolled back to v2.1.1.12 and did all the same troubleshooting. I had the same symptoms and problems (wifi is off after reboots, Wifi password in gui only shows first 3 letters, satellites won't auto sync after reboots.) Reluctantly knowing the security risks, I decided to roll back to v2.0.0.74 since some users reported some stability there. Here are the steps I used to get to a working state:
1. Rolled back my 2 satellites to v2.0.0.74. Note that Netgear KB articles state to always do firmware updates on the satellites first then the router. Also Netgear articles state to use wired ethernet when uploading and doing firmware updates.
2. Defaulted my Router using the GUI. Advanced>Administratorion>Backup>Revert to factory defaults. Ran through the basic setup and Admin password and setting up Wifi. I skipped setting up the satellites since I am rolling back firmware first.
3. Rolled back firmware on the Router to v2.0.0.74. Immediately I noticed that my Wifi password in the gui is not correctly showing the full password which I took as a positive sign. Additionally, wifi stayed on this time.
4. For good measure, I decided to default the router again (step 2) to run through the first time setup. Only this time I did go and sync the 2 satellites.
After this, I am back to a good working state. My Wifi is still on after rebooting my router, and the satellites now auto sync if they are turned off/on and no longer need to be within 20ft distance from the router. Phew...
For the 3 weeks I had the Orbi, I have loved it.. until now. Damn the auto update! Give us the option to turn auto update off in the GUI!!!! I went ahead and telnet into the router to turn off auto update in nvram. I did not do this on the satellites as I was curious to see if those will auto update with the router configurednot to auto update via nvram config.
On a side note - I noticed in the forum someone did a nvram erase and nvram commit and said it didn't reset their device. I have found that you need to issue the 'reboot' command in your telnet session for for the changes (reset) to take affect.
Has anyone with issues tried steps 1-4 that I mentioned on v2.1.1.12 or vv2.1.1.16? I was going to try this when I have time, but seeing that Netgear has suspended pushing v2.1.1.16, I will take that as an acknowledgment that there are indeed some issues with that code level on select Orbi devices.
Good Luck out there!
Trying an experiment here. I've flashed back to v2.0.0.76, and am waiting to see if I get auto-updated. In addition, I have the Orbi in AP mode, and R7800 in "wired-only" mode. And dd-wrt firmware on the R7800, with "netgear.downloads.com" and "netgear.download.com" blocked via dd-wrt "access restriction". Going to wait to see if the Orbi gets auto-updated...so far, after almost a day, I'm not getting the "there is newer firmware available" message yet, and things are stable and working well.
We'll see if Netgear can find me and auto-update my Orbi :-). Got a while to wait before I'll know.
I confess I’m having 2nd thoughts about setting up the Orbi system. The issues here greatly concern me that I’ll have to nurse the system along to keep it running.
Im starting to reconsider deploying a trio of Ubiquiti USP-AC-LITEs in lieu of the Orbi system and continue to use my AC56U as a router only and disable WiFi on it.
I’d much rather have a reliable system that just works vs dealing with a temperamental system that lives on the bleeding edge to see a performance difference I may not even notice.
Am I reading too much into all these posts about firmware issues?
I agree with aaz...
I'm on the latest f/w, and I'm not having an issues with my Orbi. I've had my Orbi since they were first released welll over a year ago, and it's always worked overall extremely well for me. Some f/w releases here & there have been not so great, but none of them have ever resulted any sustained headaches for me.
Based on the posts you see here, there's clearly something that could be improved in the firmware for some Orbi users, but I certainly don't envy any engineers faced with trying to sort these things out... There are a near infinite number of variables that can make one given Orbi system/setup work perfectly well in one environment, but make that same very Orbi system be a total trainwreck in some other environment.
For me and a lot of other Orbi users out there, the system is really fantastic and reliable. If you have it already, I think it's definitely worth giving a shot.
aaz wrote:
RogerSC wrote:Trying an experiment here. I've flashed back to v2.0.0.76, and am waiting to see if I get auto-updated. ....
Um, you won't get any auto updates since Negear has stopped auto updates over the holidays. You'll get it in the new year.
We'll see how long I can wait, since the latest was working fine for me as well *smile*. I'm not sure that just because I see the "there's newer firmware" message that the Orbi in AP mode will be able to download it with the "wired-only" main router access restrictions in place. Time will tell.
With the knowledge that Orbi recently supported wired backhaul, I was in Costco about a week ago and saw the RBK53 system on sale for $70 off and impulsively decided to splurge on it.
I haven't had time to install it yet, but have already downloaded 2.1.1.12 and 2.1.1.16 for a manual upgrade when I do get around to cracking open the box.
However, reading the posts here, I find myself wondering if Orbi is worth the effort, but then I also realize that only the posters with problems tend to create posts. But man, the Orbi system certainly sounds like a problematic system with as many posting issues as there are.
Regardless, I intend to give it a try and plan to replace my existing RT-AC56U router and RT-N66U configured as an AP. I have ethernet run from my office to the den and living room where I plan to place the router and satellites and know to update the satellites before the router.
Other than that, is there anything special I should do to prep the Orbi system for installation? Are you guys separating the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands using separate SSIDs? It's been my experience with iPads, iPhones, Android phones, etc. that they tend to grab the first signal they get (typically the 2.4 band) and hang onto it for dear life.
I presently have separate SSIDs for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands so the 5 GHz devices can roam and stay with 5 GHz leaving the 2.4 GHz devices to do their own thing on the 2.4 GHz bands.
I have a couple of 8 port Gb switches, but am considering using my old primary router (RT-AC56U as a switch in the office (configured with wifi and DHCP disabled):
Internet/modem->RBR50 WAN port->RT-AC56U (now a switch)
AC56U->RBS50->4k TV
AC56U->printer
AC56U->PC
AC56U->8 port Gb switch on the other side of the house->RBS50, PS3, PS4, Fire TV, TV, etc.
I don't see a need right now for that 2nd 8 port Gb switch.
Once I have the new firmware upgraded, I should have wired backhaul and I expect the upstairs to get excellent wifi coverage with the 3 units positioned pretty much at either end of the house and a satellite near the center.
Any comments/suggestions?
