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Please, Please, Please add "Force Ethernet Backhaul" to settings!!
I love my Orbi system (Router + 2 Sats) but the inability to force ethernet backhaul is such a pain. If the power flickers, all devices reboot and will try to reconnect. Since the router takes a bi...
I did another emulated power cycle. ARP storm happened again with the RBS connected via ethernet with LAN switch, seems to go about 1 minute or a bit longer this time however stopped and the system continued working fine.
I thought maybe having the web page opened on the RBRs web page was contributing to this but no, happens with the browser closed. Seems that a power outage then back on will trigger the storm however only seems to last for about a minute then stops.
It's good that you have a recovery method that works for you. The UPS units should help reduce the number of times per year this might happen. I can't help but wonder if this is somehow related to the specific model of Orbi system or to the switches.
The original Orbi (2016) did not support wired backhaul. The feature was introduced in a firmware update. It is now been a feature for quite some time. It seems (to me) that if this is an across the board issue with all Orbi systems, then any user who has satellites connected with wired backhaul would face this issue on every power outage.
Actually, it seem that the act of simply powering up a satellite that has a wired backhaul would immediately create a loop storm and this could be done at will. Power up. Storm. Power off. Power up. Storm. etc. etc.
My impression is that the router has a timer that checks periodically, "is there a satellite on the LAN?" When it finds one, the backhaul changes from WiFi to wired. If the router says, "damn. it's gone.", then backhaul switches to WiFi. Both backhaul links would have to be up and running at the same time to create a loop. I cannot imagine what tools it would take to document what is going on. The WiFi connection is encrypted, but the Ethernet connection may not be. I guess running Wireshark simultaneously on both the Ethernet and WiFi connections would show if there is traffic on both at the same time.
This is yet another occasion that I wish my house was "wired".
Silly question, but could you define "network loop"?
This seems to be the crux of your problem, but I'm not sure that people are addressing it, and whether it is an edge case created by what seems to be a pretty complicated network topology (various satellites and switches in addition to the router) in your case.
(From my corporate networking days.....)
Sometimes networks create two pathways to reach a device (usually by accident). When a broadcast packet hits the network, the default behavior is to send that broadcast packet to every device on the entire IP subnet. (i.e. "broadcast" Some common broadcast packets are DHCP requests and ARP requests).
A switch sends that packet out every port, including any uplinks. Because of the multiple pathways, that packet arrives back at the switch on a different port and then gets sent back out every other port. Then, it arrives again, and gets sent out again. In a very short time, so many copies of this (single original) packet are being transmitted around the network that they consume the entire network bandwidth and the network becomes unusable.
Here's a description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_storm
I first found this on my 50 series a while ago back on v2.6x FW:
Other users commenting on this:
I was curious about this aswell and wanted to see if the ARP storm was still happening on my 50 series.
Got the RBS wirelessly connected to the RBR first:
The first Down green arrow seems to be interactions of the browser with the RBRs web page as I was on the Connected Devices page and I presume it's updating at these intervals. The 1st Left green arrow is the browser logging into the RBS web page to check status. I logged off soon after. The 2nd Left green arrow me logging out of the RBRs web page. We don't see any interval checks after this.
I then connect a CAT6 lan cable in between the RBS and RBR and let the RBS do it's thing. After about 2 minutes the RBRs web page finally updated correctly:
Logging into the RBS web page shows (Gray) wifi icon between the router and satellite inidcating a wired connection:
I saw no ARP storms happening after I connected the ethernet cable to the back of the RBR. The 1st Down green arrow is where I had connected the RBS to the RBR via ethernet cable and was waiting. The Left green arrow is me logging into the RBRs web page and checking the status.
Saw no storms during this time frame.
I disconnected the ethernet cable between the RBR and RBS and let the RBS re-sync over wireless backhaul on it's own and did so successfully. After the RBS was fully back to ready after 3-4 minutes, I connected up a 1Gb non managed LAN switch (HP J9794A) to the back of the RBR with CAT6 and connected my wired PC to this switch as well. I connected the RBS ethernet cable to the back of the LAN switch. I watched the switches LED and the network activity monitor. I waited for about a minute then logged into the RBRs web page. The RBS had connected via ethernet and status showed as Wired as seen above. Again, saw no indications of any ARP storm happening after connecting the RBS via ethernet to the LAN switch.
I emulated a power brown out by pulling the RBR and RBS power adapters for 30 seconds then plugged back in. Montiored the switches LED and my netwrk monitor app for any ARP storms.
I logged in to the RBRs web page and RBS was in Config Sync status:
After about a minute or more, I noticed my network app saw a short ARP storm at the Left red arrow, that only lasted about 30 seconds then stopped:
Giving it a few more minutes the RBS successfully synced on wired with Good status on the RBRs web page:
Seems that maybe a ARP storm could be seen during a power outage and back ON across the system, however, giving the system time to come to full ready and after the storm passes, the system is working as expected in this configuration.