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Forum Discussion
Orbi satellite STILL showing connected on orbilogin but not in app in AP mode
I have the same issue as the following threads from 1-2 years ago:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/AP-Mode-with-Ethernet-Backhaul-with-Firmware-2-5-1-16/m-p/1929006#M94964
I have an RBR50 in AP mode and 2 RBS50s running latest firmware V2.7.2.104. I have a connection from my gig fiber modem to a Nighthawk R7800 to an unmanaged gigabit switch to the WAN of the orbi router. situated in the middle floor of the house. I have a wireless satellite upstairs and a wired satellite downstairs. The wired satellite is connected to a LAN port on the R7800 just like the orbi router (through the switch).
In orbilogin I can see both satellites. One is wireless and the other wired and both report good status.
On the orbi app I see one satellite on the main page, but both satellites in the network map. The wireless has a dotted line to the router and the wired a solid line to the router. But the wired satellite is listed as offline and has the purple dot rather than the green one. Neither on the orbiapp nor orbilogin can I see an any clients connected to the wired satellite. Only when I log in to the satellite directly can I see connected clients. So I assume the mesh is working properly. Furthermore, if my phone connects to the wired satellite, the orbiapp cannot connect locally, only through remote access.
In experimenting with this I tried an additional connection between the orbi router LAN and the switch (so both WAN and LAN are connected to the switch). In this case everything works properly as I expect it to in terms of what shows up in the orbiapp and being able to see clients connected to the wired satellite. BUT when I run a speed test in the orbiapp or the orbilogin, my gig speed is cut in half.
Are these results still "normal" at the moment? Come on Netgear, when will this be addressed? I want to be able to monitor my wired sats like I do the wireless ones. In summary this is what I think needs fixing with wired satellites:
1) They should show online in orbi app and show connected clients
2) They should show connected clients in orbi login
3) The orbiapp should still work when connected locally to the wired satellite.
3 Replies
Regardless of which mode the Orbi is in (router vs. AP) my understanding is that the Orbi expects to find satellites connected either over the WiFi backhaul or one of the Orbi LAN ports, not the WAN port. Since it appears that you have two etherent cables running from the router location to the switch, I would try patching the second cable to the cable that is running to the satellite. i.e. not having that link go through the switch. Use a female to female ethernet connector such as this one:
Yes I think you are right. I connected the orbi router from LAN port to a switch and the sateliite to the same switch and now everything is working as expected.
I understand in router mode, but in AP mode WAN/LAN shouldn't matter. Connecting the upstream modem (or intermediary router) to the WAN port in this case makes the orbi router part of the local network, so connecting a satellite to the same network should work 100%. I really hope Netgear addresses this. In my case I only had a single ethernet cable running to the location of the orbi router, so I couldn't connect both a WAN cable and a satellite to it directly. So I ended up moving the router to the basement and having it all connect in daisy chain fashion with wire to the first satellite and then wireless to the second satellite. My preference, however, is to have the router in the middle of the house and have a star topology, and that seems to be the Orbi best practice concensus from what I've read in this forum.A star configuration "makes sense" because there is store and forward activity (although to be honest that might be more of a theoretical issue than a practical consideration.)
There was a post some months ago about a person who used a pair of switches that could create VLAN's to do something similar. As I recall, his wiring hub was in the location where the internet modem was and he wanted to put the Orbi router in his "office" and had only a single ethernet cable to carry the WAN traffic and LAN traffic. His solution is in this post:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Disabling-automatic-subnet-reconfig/m-p/2031354#M110164
Note that these are not the typical dumb gigabit switches that are inexpensive.
