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jkevincook's avatar
jkevincook
Aspirant
Oct 03, 2020
Solved

Orbi RBR50 connects to Internet but devices don't

Thanks in advance for any community responses and assistance!   Summary: My Orbi connects to the internet, but devices (both wired and wireless) cannot connect to the internet.  This is NOT a doub...
  • jkevincook's avatar
    jkevincook
    Oct 11, 2020

    Mikey94025 Mstrbig 

    Really interesting: 

    I telnet-ed into the Orbi and noticed that resolv.conf was NULL.  I editied it so that it contained working DNS, rebooted and viola! 

     

    System works!

Mstrbig's avatar
Mstrbig
Master
Oct 04, 2020
jkevincook wrote:

Mikey94025 Mstrbig 

Thanks so much to both of you for your wisdom here.

I'm attaching a pdf with a bunch of screen shots that might better illustrate what's going on.  All of this was done in router mode.  I have to switch back to AP mode and put my old slow Zyxel router back into the mix to get back on line.

The MAC address of the router and the MAC address of the internet port are different.  Is that normal or could that be the problem?  Also the logs show a bunch of malicious attacks which tells me that the orbi can see incoming requests from the WAN.

On your page 3, there should be assigned DNS servers populated under the Domanin Name Server (DNS) Address. Yours is blank.

For testing purposes put the following Google Public DNS servers there and see if you get internet:

8.8.8.8

8.8.4.4

Mikey94025's avatar
Mikey94025
Hero
Oct 04, 2020

Very peculiar - I did not see anything obviously wrong in your PDF.  I don't know how the Orbi is saying 's speed test is working and how it's getting a WAN IP, but maybe it is Comcast blocking your switching of the modem.  I use Comcast myself and incur short periods of connection failures when changing from bridge mode or whatever (but again, different from what you're reporting because my Orbi fails its DHCP request to get a WAN IP).

 

I use 1-800-COMCAST automated system to reset and reboot my modem whenever making changes to what's in my house and connected to the Comcast IP.  You can also go to https://www.xfinity.com/ , Account Settings, Services, Manage Internet.  Does your CM1200 show up under Devices?  If so, is there a Restart Modem link under it and what happens if you click it and wait for a bit then restart your Orbi?

 

  • jkevincook's avatar
    jkevincook
    Aspirant
    Oct 05, 2020

    Mstrbig Mikey94025 

    Thanks again for your attention here.

    I've put in Specific DNS servers - Not sure why they are not showing in the screen shot. 

    Similarly I have done a modem reset - but that does give me an idea. 

     

    I'm going to ask Comcast to re-provision the modem.

     

    I won't be able to reply for a couple of days...  

     

  • Mstrbig's avatar
    Mstrbig
    Master
    Oct 05, 2020
    jkevincook wrote:

    Mstrbig Mikey94025 

    Thanks again for your attention here.

    I've put in Specific DNS servers - Not sure why they are not showing in the screen shot. 

    Similarly I have done a modem reset - but that does give me an idea. 

     

    I'm going to ask Comcast to re-provision the modem.

     

    I won't be able to reply for a couple of days...  

    You may have found your problem.Try letting the ISP prove the DNS servers. Many users have had multiple issues using 3rd party DNS servers. And others have had no issues.

  • jkevincook's avatar
    jkevincook
    Aspirant
    Oct 07, 2020

    Thanks Mikey94025  Mstrbig for all your assistance but I am going to assume I have a bad unit.

     

    I've set  the orbi to use ISP provided DNS and specified google and open DNS.  No joy.

     

    I used telnet to get into the Orbi command line and from there I could ping and Traceroute with no errors.

     

    Also called Xfnity support and had them check traffic with my old router and the Orbi as AP and with the Orbi only as the router.  As expected they saw zero traffic when the orbi was in router mode unless I was initiating traffic from the Orbi CLI.

     

    I must assume that the orbi hardware is bad.  Asking Netgear for a replacement.  

     

    Sad

  • jkevincook's avatar
    jkevincook
    Aspirant
    Oct 11, 2020

    Mikey94025 Mstrbig 

    Really interesting: 

    I telnet-ed into the Orbi and noticed that resolv.conf was NULL.  I editied it so that it contained working DNS, rebooted and viola! 

     

    System works!

  • Mstrbig's avatar
    Mstrbig
    Master
    Oct 11, 2020
    jkevincook wrote:

    Mikey94025 Mstrbig 

    Really interesting: 

    I telnet-ed into the Orbi and noticed that resolv.conf was NULL.  I editied it so that it contained working DNS, rebooted and viola! 

     

    System works!

    Now that is odd. That should be automatically updated after a factory update, DNS servers and IP address changes, etc.. You may want to report this as it could be a firmware issue.

    I'm glad you figured it out and I'm saving your solution in case I run accross the same situation.