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Forum Discussion
RBS50 satellite keeps dropping a wired device (Fingbox) but other RBS50 satellite does not.
I bought RBR50 and RBS50 pack and the later on, purchased an additional RBS50. All working fine. I also have a "fingbox" for managing access to the network. It is wired into a satellite. The problem ...
0703kb wrote:The problem has been that the fingbox kept dropping off the network - once or twice a day - and would inform me the internet had gone down.
How does the Fingbox notify you that the internet had gone down? (blink a light? send an email? beep? You have a "Find App" running on a separate machine that does something?)
- I get a notification to my mobile phone that the fingbox has dropped off line. I think that the company has servers which monitor for the device and then notify me when it is not seen. In effect, it is telling me my Wifi network has gone down. But In this case it actually means that the fingbox is no longer connected to Orbi satellite. It ceases to be listed as a connected device even though the fingbox is connected directly by an Ethernet cable into the satellite. It works fine when plugged into the one satellite, but gets dropped a couple of times a day when plugged into the other satellite. I can’t see any specific configuration settings that could be made for satellites in the admin pages. Both satellites are running the same firmware. So the satellites behave differently.
0703kb wrote:
I get a notification to my mobile phone that the fingbox has dropped off line. I think that the company has servers which monitor for the device and then notify me when it is not seen. In effect, it is telling me my Wifi network has gone down. But In this case it actually means that the fingbox is no longer connected to Orbi satellite. It ceases to be listed as a connected device even though the fingbox is connected directly by an Ethernet cable into the satellite. It works fine when plugged into the one satellite, but gets dropped a couple of times a day when plugged into the other satellite. I can’t see any specific configuration settings that could be made for satellites in the admin pages. Both satellites are running the same firmware. So the satellites behave differently.Thanks for the explanation. For sure, there are no "settings" on a per-satellite basis. I am at a loss to explain this situation.
I was unable to find any mention on their website of Fingbox monitoring customer servers. Would it be convenient to take a screen shot of one of these messages that appear in the Fingbox "app"?
There is a definite explanation for a WiFi device "dropping off" the Attached Devices display. My Nest thermostat does that when the app is not open. It only sends/receives data packets when talking to the app, so it goes totally quiet when the app is closed for a while. I was able to reproduce the effect by bringing up Attached Devices (no Nest). Open the app and Nest appears. Close the app and in about five minutes Nest disappears again. This probably does not apply in your situation since the Fingbox app is probably running in the background 24/7 on the mobile phone.
The same ethernet cable is being used with both satellites?
You have tried more than one ethernet jack on the offending satellite?
Are both satellites connected independently to the router, or does one satellite "Daisy Chain" off the other?
Thanks for the information.
if we say the RBS50 on which it drops off is "A" and the RBS50 on which it always works is "B", then I did the following:I first had fingbox running on "A" and it drops off one or twice a day. So I moved fingbox to "B" and it did not drop once over a few days. I used the same network cable. So I then switched the satellites around, and placed "A" in the room of B and placed "B" in the room of "A" to fully replicate the scenario where the fingbox was back in the room where it did not work, but now connected to the satellite on which it had worked. (Hope this still makes sense!). It continues to work without any drops. So I concluded that the room / range from the router was not the issue, but instead must be the actual satellite device. I have not tried yet plugging it back into "A" whilst A is still in the room that "B" was in to see if it still drops the fingbox. I expect it will but will try to be sure.
So I have a workaround now in that I have fingbox plugged in where I wanted it by swapping the satellites around. But i would like to understand if I could get Sat "A" to work properly in case I need to plug any other devices into it in future.
i did also change the network cable on fingbox before doing these experiments as fingbox suggested that could be the reason a network stops seeing it. Satellite "A" dropped the fingbox on the old and new cable. Sat "B" worked with both.
I will also research a bit more how Fing notifies. I will get the notification when I am out of the house if fingbox fails to see the internet. Hence why I thought it was a notification coming direct from the company themselves. In fact, thinking about it, our internet properly failed last week (global outage in UK) and Fing notified my mobile with a message saying:
Resolved: Major outage
Outage of Virgin Media resolved after 15 mi
This was the first time I got a message like this. It made me realise they are fully reviewing all internet providers where their fingbox devices are installed.
So I assumed that the notification came direct from fingbox servers to the app on the phone as this was very specific info to UK issue at a specific point in time. But I am guessing on this part and so will research it more to be sure.