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A curious bug: NETGEAR-Guest whether I want it or not!
I wanted to try enabling the 6Ghz-only SSID on my RBKE963B (firmware version V6.3.7.10_3.3.3). When I applied the change to enable that SSID, it instead enabled NETGEAR-Guest and NOT the 6Ghz SSID I...
jeburnett2022 wrote:
Was any of this documented and something I just didn't read carefully enough?
Documentation? You jest. It's only speculation, but my guess is that when the Orbi is in router mode, the WAN interface is on a separate IP subnet from the LAN interfaces. It is impossible for a satellite to have an IP on the WAN subnet, so there is no point in looking for a satellite out the WAN port. Once the code is written, nobody thought, "Well, if it is in AP mode, then maybe we should look for satellites on the WAN interface, too?"
Once people got their hands on the 960 where both the router and satellites have a 2.5G port, there was a batch of posts about which 2.5G switches people were using to network the router and satellites together. Those discussions were always in terms of the LAN side. The only documentation I am aware of about using wired backhaul is this one:
It shows the switch on the LAN side.
Just to update; after some minutes the NETGEAR-Guest SSID did finally stop being publicized. Must be some delay between disablement in the web GUI and the actions being taken...
jeburnett2022 wrote:
Must be some delay between disablement in the web GUI and the actions being taken...
Any time the user changes WiFi parameters, the system 'resets' the entire WiFi radio apparatus (on the router and every satellite). This does not happen instantly. (far from it).
In addition, the Orbi web pages also do not update instantly.
This is going to be a tough thing to persuade Netgear on. There have been many posts on the forum about the 960 and no one has yet mentioned that the 6G network cannot be turned on.
It would be helpful if can replicate this phenomenon (do it several times). When I read the RBRE960 user manual section describing the 6G capability, there is no mention of "guest". In the primary and guest WiFi, enabling the feature enables both the 2.4G and 5G networks. There is no "choice". (This was point of frustration for users, which one might imagine led to the creation of the "IoT" network in the 960 product.)
One might also imagine that the 6G network does not provide a guest option because devices supporting 6G are not common. If someone comes over and has a device that supports 6G, then either (a) they can live with the 5G and 2.4G WiFi until they go somewhere else, or (b) you can share the 6G WiFi password with them.
NETGEAR-Guest implies that you never changed the guest WiFi SSID. Perhaps it would be a good idea to do so before experimenting with the 6G WiFi network again. (If NETGEAR-Guest appears after the SSID was changed, that would indicate one problem. If the new guest SSID appears, that would be a different problem.)
Having zero devices which support WiFi6E (6G), I would not be able to observe whether a 6G network was created (or not).
If you can replicate the problem at will, something is definitely "amiss".
- Guest WiFi is not enabled, and the guest SSID is not NETGEAR-Guest.
- Enable the 6G network with a unique SSID/password.
- Observe with a WiFi6E capable device that the 6G network does not appear.
- Observe that a guest WiFi network has appeared on the 2.4G and 5G channels.
Netgear has forum moderators who have the ability to report issues to Netgear support. With this kind of evidence, they would almost certainly do so.