Hi all, I have an Orbi 50 system with one satellite and approximately 40-50 devices connected (of which 10 wired through a switch and the others on wi-fi). Since a couple of months, after overcoming the threshold of 30 connected devices, I have been experiencing significant delays in network restart after rebooting / repowering the router and satellite. In particular, the Orbi struggles to reconnect all the devices. Checking throught the app interface after reboot, the number of devices is growing to somewhere between 20 and 30 than keeps dropping and increasing also for hours before reconnecting all devices. I have not found a way to ensure a fast restart of the network apart from multiple reboots (every 30' or so) that eventually achieve a stable network. The issue seems to be related to the wireless connectivity since wired devices reconnect within seconds. Hoping to reduce DHCP overhead, I have been reserving IPs for most of the IoT devices in the house (approximately 30 devices that cannot be powered-off during reboots). This seems to help, but did not solve the issue. The Orbi is running on the latest version of the firmware (V4.6.5.14). Has anyone experienced a similar issue and has found a solution? Thank you in advance for your help! Stefano

some additional details: 1. What firmware is on the router and statellite 2. what modem/gateway is the router connected to? A couple things to check/try. 1. When its having issues, check to see if devices are connecting to the satellite. If everyting is connecting to the router for some reason, it could be to many on that one device. 2. Maybe its actually the satellite causing the issue. Try powering it off and seeing if the router can manage everything. It wouldn't be the first time a satellite issue caused problems. 3. Sometimes a device just needs the firmware reinstalled, then to be factory reset and a clean install done. by clean I mean not using a backup. I've seen corrupt firmware or even old settings cause issues.

xyzw wrote: Hi all, I have an Orbi 50 system with one satellite and approximately 40-50 devices connected (of which 10 wired through a switch and the others on wi-fi). issue seems to be related to the wireless connectivity since wired devices reconnect within seconds. ... The Orbi is running on the latest version of the firmware (V4.6.5.14). Has anyone experienced a similar issue and has found a solution? It would help to know the specific model number of the Orbi (from the product label on the bottom of the router). xyzw wrote: Hoping to reduce DHCP overhead, I have been reserving IPs for most of the IoT devices in the house (approximately 30 devices that cannot be powered-off during reboots). This seems to help, but did not solve the issue. DHCP has practically zero overhead. Only six tiny data packets are required to secure a 24 hour lease (86,400 seconds). All of those devices go through exactly the same sequence whether an IP has been 'reserved' for them or not. This is not to argue against assigning IP's to devices. Every device that regularly connects to my Orbi has an entry in the LAN Setup table. The point is that this is not the right area to focus on. Rebooting the router every 30 minutes is probably doing more harm than good. When the Orbi system reboots, the router begins broadcasting WiFi significantly before the satellites do. If those IoT devices detect a poor router WiFi signal, they may 'stick' to it. Rebooting the IoT device may be the best way to address this issue. There are definitely concerns about satellite behavior in some of the newer AX models of Orbi.

Hi piemans and CrimpOn, thank you for your help. As per the configuration0. the exact models of the router / satellite system are- Router RBR750- Satellite RBS7501. both router and satellite are running fimrware V4.6.5.14 (I believe this is the latest available)2. the modem is proprietary and provided by the ISP, but network management options should have been fully tuned down (no DHCP service, no UPnP, port forwarding for used ports, ...).3. Unfortunately most IoT devices are hard wired (e.g. Shelly or Tuya switches) and the only way to turn them off is through a power cycle at electric meter level, turning off and on the router / satellite as well. I made a couple of tests and1. devices try to connect both to router and satellite and they keep dropping off both for a while2. the router definitely struggles as well alone. However in this case network quality is significantly worse for 10-15 devices3. a clean firmware installation might be quite painful in terms of time. Is there any further step to troubleshoot the issue before resetting everything? Thank you all for the help! Stefano

xyzw wrote: 1. devices try to connect both to router and satellite and they keep dropping off both for a while I am interested in how "dropping off" is observed: The devices appear in the Orbi Attached Devices (or 'app') and then later do not appear, or The smartphone app that manages the devices says they are not on-line?

CrimpOn, thank you for your question. The devices appear in the Orbi app, in the "Network map" section by pressing on the router / satellite icon. They initially are listed with a green dot on the left (apparently) in a consistent way with the list of attached devices in the "Device Manager" section of the same app. When they "drop" they drop both from the list in the Network Map (being listed with a gray dot below conneted devices) and in the list in the Device Manager section. This is not always consistent with feedback from third party apps that may or may not see the devices independently from the status reported in the Orbi app. Direct calls to local IPs from a web browser are not always successful either also when devices appear to be "connected" according to the app. Looks like my Orbi has some issues in building the IP table for the wi-fi network, but I have no specific evidence supporting my guess. Thank you for your help! Stefano

Orbi RBR 50 - Struggling to reconnect devices after reboot

12 Replies

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plemans
Guru - Experienced User
Jan 01, 2022
some additional details:

1. What firmware is on the router and statellite

2. what modem/gateway is the router connected to?

A couple things to check/try.

1. When its having issues, check to see if devices are connecting to the satellite. If everyting is connecting to the router for some reason, it could be to many on that one device.

2. Maybe its actually the satellite causing the issue. Try powering it off and seeing if the router can manage everything. It wouldn't be the first time a satellite issue caused problems.

3. Sometimes a device just needs the firmware reinstalled, then to be factory reset and a clean install done. by clean I mean not using a backup. I've seen corrupt firmware or even old settings cause issues.
CrimpOn
Guru - Experienced User
Jan 01, 2022
xyzw wrote:

Hi all,

I have an Orbi 50 system with one satellite and approximately 40-50 devices connected (of which 10 wired through a switch and the others on wi-fi). issue seems to be related to the wireless connectivity since wired devices reconnect within seconds.

...

The Orbi is running on the latest version of the firmware (V4.6.5.14). Has anyone experienced a similar issue and has found a solution?

It would help to know the specific model number of the Orbi (from the product label on the bottom of the router).

xyzw wrote:

Hoping to reduce DHCP overhead, I have been reserving IPs for most of the IoT devices in the house (approximately 30 devices that cannot be powered-off during reboots). This seems to help, but did not solve the issue.

DHCP has practically zero overhead. Only six tiny data packets are required to secure a 24 hour lease (86,400 seconds). All of those devices go through exactly the same sequence whether an IP has been 'reserved' for them or not. This is not to argue against assigning IP's to devices. Every device that regularly connects to my Orbi has an entry in the LAN Setup table. The point is that this is not the right area to focus on.

Rebooting the router every 30 minutes is probably doing more harm than good. When the Orbi system reboots, the router begins broadcasting WiFi significantly before the satellites do. If those IoT devices detect a poor router WiFi signal, they may 'stick' to it.

Rebooting the IoT device may be the best way to address this issue.

There are definitely concerns about satellite behavior in some of the newer AX models of Orbi.
- xyzw
  Aspirant
  Jan 01, 2022
  Hi piemans and CrimpOn,
  
  thank you for your help.
  
  As per the configuration
  0. the exact models of the router / satellite system are
  - Router RBR750
  - Satellite RBS750
  1. both router and satellite are running fimrware V4.6.5.14 (I believe this is the latest available)
  2. the modem is proprietary and provided by the ISP, but network management options should have been fully tuned down (no DHCP service, no UPnP, port forwarding for used ports, ...).
  3. Unfortunately most IoT devices are hard wired (e.g. Shelly or Tuya switches) and the only way to turn them off is through a power cycle at electric meter level, turning off and on the router / satellite as well.
  
  I made a couple of tests and
  1. devices try to connect both to router and satellite and they keep dropping off both for a while
  2. the router definitely struggles as well alone. However in this case network quality is significantly worse for 10-15 devices
  3. a clean firmware installation might be quite painful in terms of time. Is there any further step to troubleshoot the issue before resetting everything?
  
  Thank you all for the help!
  
  Stefano
  - CrimpOn
    Guru - Experienced User
    Jan 01, 2022
    xyzw wrote:
    
    1. devices try to connect both to router and satellite and they keep dropping off both for a while
    
    I am interested in how "dropping off" is observed:
    
    The devices appear in the Orbi Attached Devices (or 'app') and then later do not appear, or
    
    The smartphone app that manages the devices says they are not on-line?
Trent41
Aspirant
Oct 19, 2022
Hello I am having the same exact problem. I've never owned a router set that took hours to reconnect devices following a simple power cycling I came from Nest WiFi which was SO much more simple to manage, but had poor wireless throughout.

I'm seriously hoping to find a fix for this issue as I dropped close to $500 for this setup.
- KevinLiT
  NETGEAR Moderator
  Oct 21, 2022
  Hello Trent41,
  
  Please ensure your firmware is on version 2.7.4.24. If your firmware is not up-to-date please download the firmware from the link below. I also included manual installation instructions for you to successfully update your RBR50.
  
  Please navigate to the link below for the download file for your RBR50:
  https://www.netgear.com/support/product/RBK50#download
  
  For more information on manually updating your RBK50 please navigate to the link below:
  https://kb.netgear.com/31573/How-do-I-manually-upgrade-firmware-on-my-Orbi-router-using-orbilogin-com
  
  Please let me know if this helps!
  
  Best,
  Kevin
  Community Team

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Orbi RBR 50 - Struggling to reconnect devices after reboot