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Forum Discussion
ORBI RBK53 Region Change
If you'd like to save some bucks and buy Orbi from Costco and bring it home outside the US, but you want to make a region change from North America to your region, try this:
1. Login to Orbi/debug.htm page and enable telnet (tick telnet box)
2. telnet into Orbi and type these:
- root@RBR50:~# rm /tmp/firmware_region
- root@RBR50:~# echo WW > /tmp/firmware_region
3. Check the result, it should return WW
- root@RBR50:~# cat /tmp/firmware_region
Go back to Advance Wireless Settings page and refresh it. You should be able to use Region Selection drop down menu to select your region. Alternately, you can also use artmtd command, see ekhalil's trick.
Good luck!
36 Replies
Nice idea. Does not work with the RBW30.
Nor does artmtd.
I don't have access to RBW30, have you tried loading French firmware and see if that works for RBW30?
For months I couldn't find a solution to my Raspberry Pi (Model 4) disconnecting reguarly from the AC3000. (To be more accurate - it was staying connected to the Orbi wifi, but somehow, had no access to the Internet). The Orbi was purchased in Canada, but the Raspberry Pi came from Europe. I repeatedly tried adjusting the Localisation settings on the Pi - but to no avail.
Then I came across this post. Although it specifies the RBK53, I decided to try it on my RBK50.
It's now 48 hours since I changed my Orbi to Europe and I'm delighted to see that I'm still attached to the Internet. Many thanks.
If someone has an explanation about what's going on here, I'd love to hear it. If my Pi is set to US, and my Orbi to North America, why would it repeadedly disconnect? Why would placing them both on Europe make a difference?
Mike_D_il wrote:
If someone has an explanation about what's going on here, I'd love to hear it. If my Pi is set to US, and my Orbi to North America, why would it repeadedly disconnect? Why would placing them both on Europe make a difference?
My guess, and it is no more than that, is that the communications standards are different.
Stuff sold in Europe is not locked to a region. The browser graphical user interface (GUI) lets us change it, with a dropdown that covers most of the world.
In the USA they lock them down. (I got sent one from the USA.) This is probably because the FCC, or whoever sets the rules, does not allow the use various wifi bands and perhaps other things. So Netgear, and others, may just be following the law.
Mike_D_il wrote:For months I couldn't find a solution to my Raspberry Pi (Model 4) disconnecting reguarly from the AC3000. (To be more accurate - it was staying connected to the Orbi wifi, but somehow, had no access to the Internet). The Orbi was purchased in Canada, but the Raspberry Pi came from Europe. I repeatedly tried adjusting the Localisation settings on the Pi - but to no avail.
Then I came across this post. Although it specifies the RBK53, I decided to try it on my RBK50.
It's now 48 hours since I changed my Orbi to Europe and I'm delighted to see that I'm still attached to the Internet. Many thanks.
...
Glad to hear that this trick works out for you. Thanks for your feedback!
On my setup, it seems to revert back to "US only" now and again. (I DO click Apply). I can't find anywhere that the Orbi automatically updates. What am I missing?
SW_ wrote:
Mike_D_il wrote:For months I couldn't find a solution to my Raspberry Pi (Model 4) disconnecting reguarly from the AC3000. (To be more accurate - it was staying connected to the Orbi wifi, but somehow, had no access to the Internet). The Orbi was purchased in Canada, but the Raspberry Pi came from Europe. I repeatedly tried adjusting the Localisation settings on the Pi - but to no avail.
Then I came across this post. Although it specifies the RBK53, I decided to try it on my RBK50.
It's now 48 hours since I changed my Orbi to Europe and I'm delighted to see that I'm still attached to the Internet. Many thanks.
...
Glad to hear that this trick works out for you. Thanks for your feedback!
Thanks,
Mike
- Hi Mike I also have the same setup RBR50 with 2 RBS50 satellites and was facing the same exact issue like yours. When I checked the serial number of my router it said origin Europe and after reading your post have changed the region to Europe and now my Internet doesn't stop. I have no clue as it why this is happening but this worked for me too so a big thank you as I spoke to the tech support here in India and they were going to send me a replacement satellite. Just hope it doesn't stop again. Thank you once again Mike.
Thanks for letting me know and I'm very pleased it worked for you. From my experience, it seems the revent back to the US pretty frequently. I tried cancelling automatic updates but that didn't help. So now, about once every 2 weeks, I go in and change it back to Europe. It's pretty inconveient, but at least it works.
Mike
Please excuse a couple of basic questions regarding how to telnet into Orbi. I've enabled telnet access and tried to access the router via ssh on my Mac. Mac no longer has telnet included with its OS.
- Do I need to use telnet, or should ssh work?
- If ssh works, would the commands be the same?
- In either case, what do I need to enter on the command line in Mac terminal to proceed? WhenI enter ssh admin@[ip address] access is denied.
Thank you.
Bill
192.168.1.1/debug.htm then select the check box next to Enable Telnet to enable it. You have to enable it first to access telnet.
BillTh wrote:Please excuse a couple of basic questions regarding how to telnet into Orbi. I've enabled telnet access and tried to access the router via ssh on my Mac. Mac no longer has telnet included with its OS.
- Do I need to use telnet, or should ssh work?
- If ssh works, would the commands be the same?
- In either case, what do I need to enter on the command line in Mac terminal to proceed? WhenI enter ssh admin@[ip address] access is denied.
Thank you.
Bill
As far as I can tell, Orbi does not support ssh.
BillTh wrote:Please excuse a couple of basic questions regarding how to telnet into Orbi. I've enabled telnet access and tried to access the router via ssh on my Mac. Mac no longer has telnet included with its OS.
- Do I need to use telnet, or should ssh work?
- If ssh works, would the commands be the same?
- In either case, what do I need to enter on the command line in Mac terminal to proceed? WhenI enter ssh admin@[ip address] access is denied.
Thank you.
Bill
Apple removed telnet cmd from macOS. If you want to get telnet cmd back, check out this how to enable telnet cmd on macOS.
Good Luck!
Thanks for the help! I installed telnet on my Mac and it worked fine.
Hi Bill,
From my recollection it was pretty simple and I didn't need to add anything to my MAC. You should use Telnet, not SSH. Take a look at this:
https://www.siteground.com/kb/mac_terminal_telnet/
Mike
Thanks Mike. Unfortunately, Apple has removed Telnet from its OS in recent releases. Here's a link that talks to that and provides options to install Telnet. I went with the first option.
Regards,
Bill
HI, this no longer seems to work. I tried with my router firmware is V2.3.5.30.
I telnet succesfully and change the file but when I login it doesn't give the option to change region under advanced wireless.
simzhewei wrote:
I telnet succesfully and change the file but when I login it doesn't give the option to change region under advanced wireless.
Can you explain exactly what you did?
What do you mean by "change the file"?
My memory is that this is what I did:
I enabled telnet and telnetted in,
I used both:
- root@RBR50:~# rm /tmp/firmware_region
- root@RBR50:~# echo WW > /tmp/firmware_region
and check the result, it should return WW
- root@RBR50:~# cat /tmp/firmware_region
also
artmtd -r region
The region number is: 0x0002
REGION: WW
I logged back into the router and went to the advanced wireless and refreshed. This is what I see:
I've been fighting to convert my RBK40 pair from US to NZ, and this looks like the right way to go about it!
I can access the debug screen and have enabled the telnet login, but:
- if I Telnet on the default port 23, I get the connection immediately dropped
- if I Telnet on port 8443 (default admin port), the connection doesn't immediately fail like above, but it just "hangs" ie no telnet response.
Any ideas on this? It feels like so close to a solution but not quite working - sooo frustrating!
Thanks in advance.
Andrew
- The remote admin port 8443 is for https only on the WAN port, and is not what you want. Just ordinary Telnet. I use PuTTY. Works great.
CrimpOn wrote:
The remote admin port 8443 is for https only on the WAN port, and is not what you want. Just ordinary Telnet. I use PuTTY. Works great.Indeed. When I wanted to migrate some Orbi stuff I simply did it in Windows. No port management involved
This is the message that bailed me out:
Re: Orbi RKB53 global differences - NETGEAR Communities
This may be the thing you have been using, but it is easy to get lost in these long and rambling discussions that cover a lot of different topics.
