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Forum Discussion
Serious Satellite Connectivity Bug
This is not intermittent or difficult to reproduce. I consistently am unable to connect to devices on my Orbi network. I have seen this problem 15-20 times over about 2 weeks and I have power cycle...
Sounds like you have a complex setup. The fact you had WiFi issues before buying Orbi hints that your problem might not be an Orbi bug, but might be radio interference related.
You also have a lot going on in a small space. Based on your 1,200 feet area, the upper and lower floors would only be something like 22x30 and 18x30. I am covering three floors and 3,000 SF with one satellite. Adding the second satellite could actually be contributing to your problems, because they all share the same channels. You mention trying three satellites, but that could make it even worse. If things worked fine with only one Satellite, the solution might be to go back to that. If you need more wired ports, you could connect a switch to the Orbi.
I'm not familiar with HEOS speakers, but I see some include Bluetooth, which can interfere with WiFi. You have no control over your neighbors' devices either, and they will impact you as well.
I don't know what you've tried, but I would recommend you make sure you've managed your RF environment to the extent possible.
1. Hardwire everything that you possibly can!
2. Turn off the WiFi radios on anything that you can. If you have any old APs, make sure they're OFF.
3. Turn off the Bluetooth radios on anything you can.
4. Try to manage channels, to the extent possible. See what's out there using WIFi scanning software (inSSIDer, etc.). Make sure your WiFi is using the channels with the least congestion. Make sure you're using only channels 1, 6, or 11 on 2.4G. Channel management is more difficult with Orbi, as you don't have a lot of flexibility to adjust channels, and the backhaul uses a lot of the spectrum.
5. Make sure your wirless devices, especially the Orbis, are not sitting right next to other wireless devices. Close proximity will cause issues.
6. You said you swapped satellites, but you should also try moving the satellites to different positions (even swap floors) if possible.
7. Given the small space, you should also try reducing the WiFi power level of the Orbi's.
It's actually somewhat fortunate that your specific issue is repeatable. This should make it easier to isolate the cause.
I will try decreasing the power. I just don't think it's a connectivity problem, but more like a "firewall" or software breakage in the virtualized network connected via the backhaul. It's not that packets drop or bars go down, it's that a whole wing of my network vanishes.
Sat1 -> Router -> Sat2
When I'm on a satellite, every device on the other satellite is invisible about 40% of the time. That whole satellite is gone.
I have everything plugged into a satellite that I can. This is the whole purpose of Orbi, to get a dedicated and separate backhaul. All units in my complex are townhouses so the density is a bit lower than small apartments, by at least half or less. I have every radio turned off that I can and plugged the devices into a port so Orbi can do what it was designed to do. Handle as much traffic as possible on the dedicated wireless backhaul.
Reducing wireless transmit power I can see as a solution because my devices might be hopping too much. But again, I don't even think that's the problem. I never have trouble getting internet, or connecting to devices on the router. It's only the double hops on the backhaul. This seems like a software block or error and something reboots internally periodically that resets it and it works. Interestingly enough it always works great after a power cycle. It would be great if I could turn a satellite into ONLY a backhaul receiver that does not rebroadcast my wifi, but simply gives me bridged ports. I have 3 main areas where devices live that can be hard wired but no Ethernet. If I was willing to cut the walls I wouldn't have gotten Orbi. This is the primary selling point on the box as well as logically.
Sounds like you've done a lot already. You might be able to test your theory about the inter-sat communications by telnetting into a sat and pinging the other sat when you have the problem happening.
The only other thing I can say is it's quite important to try moving the Orbis relative to each other and relative to your other WiFi devices. I've seen it cause problems with my setup with the Orbi apparently saturating another device's radio when they were too close. Also, RF waves bounce around inside and it's possible one satellite is in a bad spot for the backhaul. If you put a switch between your devices and the sat, and put the sat on a long ethernet cable, you can move the sat around quite a bit.
While I'm connected to an Orbi node, I have a rock solid connection to that. When I'm even remotely close to my Kitchen satellite, my Living Room satellite devices are rock-solid unavailable. As soon as I move even somewhat close to the Living Room satellite, my iPhone hops over and suddenly everything is visible. I'm running Fing regularly and lots of devices are grayed out (unreachable) and it quickly tells me which node I'm on and which node is unavailable. But sometimes it works fine without a problem.
I haven't used Fing. I'll check it out.