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Orbi rebooting itself daily
Hi all, Ever since getting my Netgear Orbi I have been experiencing regular reboots. When the WiFi connection drops on whatever device I am using, I immediately go to check the Orbi and sure enou...
FURRYe38 , CrimpOn Well I've gone through the process of the RMA and whilst Netgear explicitly asked me to only return the router and not the satellite, they have sent me a replacement kit containing both! It is an RBK50, but I believe the reason why they've sent the whole kit is because there is an RBR50v2 and RBS50v2 inside. Could be likely that the RBS50 is not compatible or they don't want to take that risk?
Can confirm as others have mentioned that the power adapters on the V2 revision are lower output and look smaller, yellower and cheaper. I haven't looked into whethere there are any other differences on the actual router or satellite hardware yet. But, to be honest, if that's what comes in the new kit I don't really care as long as it is all stable and works.
I've just set it up and done a firmware update in the app to V2.5.1.8. It says there is no newer firmware version available in the app. On the Netgear support page, however, for the RBR50v2 it says the latest current version is the same as the original RBR50 - which is the 2.3.5.34 Hot Fix! I'm now very cautious about applying firmware updates from the support page on this router as they seem to be on a completely different branch (2.3.x.x instead of 2.5.x.x) and there is absolutely no mention of a 2.5.x.x even in the previous versions! Weird!!!??
So, I will refrain from doing a manual firware update at this point and just see how it all goes from here!
FURRYe38 wrote:
Usually Mirror WAN to LAN 1 is disabled when used in router mode. Are you using the RBR in AP Mode?
Not necessarily. My RBR50 is in router mode and the option to mirror WAN to Port 1 is clearly available.
There have been a number of these posts about ISP connection dropping regularly, and in several cases they match exactly with the expiration of the DHCP lease. The way DHCP is supposed to work is the device will request to renew the lease when about half of the time remains. The device will continue to request until the time expires, when it will stop using the IP and begin the discover process again. This is described in the Wikipedia article under "Reliability". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocol
DHCP packets are UDP, which does not have the same acknowledgement protocol as TCP.
A trace of the WAN port would show the exchange between the Orbi and ISP. i.e. did the Orbi actually send the request? Did the ISP answer? Did the Orbi eventually "give up"?
My DHCP lease from Spectrum is for 24 hours (and it always gets renewed). If this were happening to me, I would set up a Wireshark capture of all WAN traffic and capture 24 hours (Yuck). There was one post where the DHCP lease was something like one hour, and the ISP said, "Yep. That's the way we do it." That would require a lot less traffic to document what is going on.
I know the feature is available, however for most configurations in router mode, Mirror WAN to LAN shouldn't be needed or used when using the RBR in router mode with a ISP modem in front of it. A WAN LAN capture in the debug logs also doesn't need this feature to be enabled.
FURRYe38 wrote:A WAN LAN capture in the debug logs also doesn't need this feature to be enabled.
This is true. I have a couple of reasons to support using the WAN capture via Port 1:
- We know the Orbi log file is cleared when the Orbi reboots. I do not know what happens to the debug file when the Orbi reboots. Does it stay? Does it get overridden by the new debug file? I have no knowledge one way or the other. What I DO know is that once packets leave Port 1 and are captured, nothing that happens to the Orbi will erase them.
- It may take hours (or days?) to capture one of the "disconnects". Orbi has a limited amount of storage space available, whereas an external computer can capture gigabytes. PLUS, if a person runs something like Wireshark to capture packets, Wireshark can capture only UDP packets. That eliminates 99% of the WAN traffic. (Hmmm. I have a Raspberry Pi that isn't doing anything right now. Maybe I can run an experiment myself.)
This must be a very frustrating experience. I am so happy it does not happen to me. Although it has come up before, I do not remember if the problem got resolved or not.