I enabled the guest wifi today in anticipation of having some people over tomorrow. I changed the ssid but left it with no security. My intention was to enable it while people are here then turn it off when they have gone. I noticed that when I enabled the guest network (this was the first time since new) it shut off all wifi for a couple of minutes and disconnected everything including both sats. The satellites and router did not reboot, just the wifi got shut off and restarted. Everything settled down, reconnected and went back to normal with the guest ssid now visible and working. I'm wondering if that is the expected behavior and is it going to do that every time I enable and disable the guest wifi or was that a one-time thing..

I did some tests early this morning before everyone was awake. Enabling and disabling the guest wifi is a slow and disruptive event, not something I want to do when a freind stops by. I opted to leave it enabled but added a password.

Possible that integration of all the wireless componets that it takes a reboot and disconnect of the wireless radios to set up the Guest Network so it works through out the system. I would post this to one of the forum moderators to see what the behavior should be...DarrenM would be one to contact.

Ok, Ya, I'll give this a try with mine as well. See what happens. AFter hours LOL. I would contact DarrenM and give him a link to this and give him all your info. I'll post back here with anything I find.

FURRYe38 ... You replied to his question with a conjecture that you didn't test - even though you had the hardware handy to conduct a test - and told him to ask somebody else. That has to be most pointless thing. Roamabout You already know the answer to this question, but I want to add a touch of context. This isn't a netgear-specific behavior. In general, whenever you change the exposed SSIDs or their settings on a radio, the radio needs to be restarted. Since the Orbi's replicate their configuration from the router this chaining reboot is required. Said differently, Orbi restarts are required for any SSID changes - guest or otherwise. Unfortunately, the Orbi's take a while to reboot :-(.

t_kwrote:FURRYe38 ... You replied to his question with a conjecture that you didn't test - even though you had the hardware handy to conduct a test - and told him to ask somebody else. That has to be most pointless thing. Roamabout You already know the answer to this question, but I want to add a touch of context. This isn't a netgear-specific behavior. In general, whenever you change the exposed SSIDs or their settings on a radio, the radio needs to be restarted. Since the Orbi's replicate their configuration from the router this chaining reboot is required. Said differently, Orbi restarts are required for any SSID changes - guest or otherwise. Unfortunately, the Orbi's take a while to reboot :-(.Understood, thanks. I was not expecting it to be quite that disruptive and the combination of the slow start and synch in addition to the somewhat unpredictable behavior after a restart led me to realise that this was not a feature that you just turn on and off when you need it without consequences. I'm fine with enabling it and leaving it on with some security that is not too hard for my visitors to configure.

Orbi Guest network question | NETGEAR Communities

18 Replies

FURRYe38
Guru - Experienced User
Feb 28, 2018
Possible that integration of all the wireless componets that it takes a reboot and disconnect of the wireless radios to set up the Guest Network so it works through out the system. I would post this to one of the forum moderators to see what the behavior should be...DarrenM would be one to contact.
- Roamabout
  Luminary
  Feb 28, 2018
  I did some tests early this morning before everyone was awake. Enabling and disabling the guest wifi is a slow and disruptive event, not something I want to do when a freind stops by. I opted to leave it enabled but added a password.
  - FURRYe38
    Guru - Experienced User
    Feb 28, 2018
    Ok, Ya, I'll give this a try with mine as well. See what happens. AFter hours LOL.
    
    I would contact DarrenM and give him a link to this and give him all your info. I'll post back here with anything I find.
FURRYe38
Guru - Experienced User
Mar 01, 2018
I tested this out, I do see a network drop in connections with wireless devices after I selecte enable Guest Network and Broadcast SSID.
After disabling Guest Network and broadcast SSID, I didn't see any disconnections.

I presume maybe enabling GN seems to cause the wireless system to reboot to get the GN set up and working.
- FURRYe38
  Guru - Experienced User
  Mar 01, 2018
  I got official information regarding this.
  "expected behaviour. when you enable guest SSID, we need to reset the WIFI driver and it will bring down all the SSIDs for a minute or two. This is same behaviour on all the Orbi's and I think all the OEMs as well."
  
  FURRYe38wrote:
  I tested this out, I do see a network drop in connections with wireless devices after I selecte enable Guest Network and Broadcast SSID.
  After disabling Guest Network and broadcast SSID, I didn't see any disconnections.
  
  I presume maybe enabling GN seems to cause the wireless system to reboot to get the GN set up and working.
  - Roamabout
    Luminary
    Mar 02, 2018
    I enabled and disabled the guest wifi a few times to observe what it did. In addition to the client disconnects it also left a satellite in a funny state during one of the restarts requiring me to reboot that sat. The symptoms were that the sat appeared connected as far as the router status was concerned but that sat and anything connected to it were not pingable from anything connected to the router or the other sat. The lesson here is that the Guest network is something that you turn on, deal with the consequences to restabilise the network, and leave on if the guest network is something you will use in the future.

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Orbi Guest network question