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Unable to bring up Orbi management login page
Something strange seems to have happened this morning.
Yesterday my RBR50 and four RBS50 satellites were functioning just fine, and had been since late December when I added the last two satellites. Previously I had added a second satellite to the system in 2020, and I originally purchased and started using the router & one satellite in May 2018. So I have a lot of experience with this Orbi system. I might also mention that of the two satellites I added last December, one was an RBR50 that I converted to satellite firmware via available instructions in Reddit.
As I said, it's all been working flawlessly the past ~7 weeks. And in December I had upgraded the router and all satellites to the latest firmware.
This morning the first symptom was my Moen smart sprinkler controller announced it had lost its Internet signal. This is not unusual, though I've never understood why it happens. Generally it either reconnects on its own, or I power cycle it. But then I noticed my phone had no WiFi connection either, which is very unusual. I went to my PC that is connected to the router via Ethernet cable, and the Orbi login page would not come up.
I rebooted the router, including a several-minute wait with its power brick unplugged. Still nothing.
Oddly, I can connect using my phone, over WiFi, to the Orbi using the Android app. Unfortunately that app doesn't provide much in the way of control over settings etc.
I've tried a different browser, and have tried the browser on my phone (which normally would work). The page 192.168.xx.1 simply isn't there. BTW, I can ping this IP address as usual from my PC, no problem.
So it seems like the Orbi router suddenly decided to no longer pay attention to HTTP requests!!
The next thing I could try is a factory reset, but I loathe having to spend the time to set everything back up again. I've got a saved list of all the LAN address reservations from late November, which should be pretty much complete, but unfortunately I can't find a saved config file any later than November 2018.
Why is this happening, what is the fix (if any), and what's the chance it will happen again?
OK I'm back in business.
I ended up doing the factory reset, but now I don't think that was actually necessary.
After the factory reset I spent an hour or more re-syncing my 4 satellites, changing the router's IP address to 192.168.21.1, and then adding address reservations for the 20-odd devices that are using my LAN.
Then I went through all the settings of the router to make sure I had set everything up the way it was before.
When I came to "Always Use HTTPS to Access Router" under Web Services Management in Advanced Setup, I didn't remember how I had set that before, but it seemed it would be useful to avoid the constant nag from the browser when I load the Orbi web page.
THAT WAS A MISTAKE!!
After it was applied, it kicked me out, and then I had the exact same issue as before.
I remembered reading that Firefox was the recommended browser, and since I was having no luck with either Chrome or Edge, I downloaded Firefox and voila, it worked. Firefox seems to have more detailed handling of certificate issues. In this case Netgear's certificate was a year or more out of date. Firefox let me proceed anyway, where Chrome and Edge would not.
So in Firefox I immediately unchecked the HTTPS box, and now once again I can access the Orbi from any browser.
My guess is that something got upgraded or revised in Chrome and Edge recently, and today was the first time I tried to access the Orbi management page since that happened. I really have no idea.
But at least now I have Firefox installed in case I have future problems accessing Orbi's page.
21 Replies
OK I'm back in business.
I ended up doing the factory reset, but now I don't think that was actually necessary.
After the factory reset I spent an hour or more re-syncing my 4 satellites, changing the router's IP address to 192.168.21.1, and then adding address reservations for the 20-odd devices that are using my LAN.
Then I went through all the settings of the router to make sure I had set everything up the way it was before.
When I came to "Always Use HTTPS to Access Router" under Web Services Management in Advanced Setup, I didn't remember how I had set that before, but it seemed it would be useful to avoid the constant nag from the browser when I load the Orbi web page.
THAT WAS A MISTAKE!!
After it was applied, it kicked me out, and then I had the exact same issue as before.
I remembered reading that Firefox was the recommended browser, and since I was having no luck with either Chrome or Edge, I downloaded Firefox and voila, it worked. Firefox seems to have more detailed handling of certificate issues. In this case Netgear's certificate was a year or more out of date. Firefox let me proceed anyway, where Chrome and Edge would not.
So in Firefox I immediately unchecked the HTTPS box, and now once again I can access the Orbi from any browser.
My guess is that something got upgraded or revised in Chrome and Edge recently, and today was the first time I tried to access the Orbi management page since that happened. I really have no idea.
But at least now I have Firefox installed in case I have future problems accessing Orbi's page.
ICPete wrote:
When I came to "Always Use HTTPS to Access Router" under Web Services Management in Advanced Setup, I didn't remember how I had set that before, but it seemed it would be useful to avoid the constant nag from the browser when I load the Orbi web page.
THAT WAS A MISTAKE!!
After it was applied, it kicked me out, and then I had the exact same issue as before.
Interesting account. That "use https" setting has bitten people before.
I haven't see your "workaround" before. People usually just disable that to restore sanity.
Your Firefox solution doesn't tie in with my experience. Maybe it is a version thing.
When I first tried that setting, I was on Firefox. I was till left high and dry.
Just shows that it isn't a good idea to rely in just one browser on your system.
Agreed; browser issues are always this huge black box to me.
Maybe Firefox worked because it was a new install, so there was nothing related in the cache.
However I had already tried clearing the cache, cookies, etc in Chrome and Edge, to no avail.
It certainly could be that Firefox' latest version, which I downloaded, has some new features to help deal with certificate issues, while Chrome and Edge are more designed to just be "idiot-proof". If they don't like the certificate, they just tell you the site is not responding.
Since the inability to reach the Orbi management page was new and sudden behavior, I initially assumed there was something "broken" within the router.
But at this point I'm much more convinced it was something that changed in Chrome since whenever I had last accessed the Orbi (may have been several weeks ago). I usually allow Chrome to upgrade whenever it suggests there's a newer version. Maybe that's a mistake...
