Access Control Question 850

In the eight years I have had an Orbi system, the only times I have enabled Access Control have been when investigating questions people post about their problems with Access Control.

I agree.  If the desktop computer is connected and has an IP address, it should be in the top table.

Also, there should not be two entries for Dining-Room with the IP address 192.168.1.3d assigned to two different MAC addresses.

The reason devices can be added or edited on the bottom two lists is because of the possibility that devices may reappear some day and the Orbi wants to be able to know how to treat them if the appear. (Allow or Block).  Since I never enable Access Control, I regularly empty those lists.

Thanks for your response CrimpOnJr.  But to be clear it sounds like you never pay much attention to the contents of these lists so you empty them? All three? I see no need to restrict access for any reason and, as I said, having things mysteriously blocked caused me fits. If there was never any content in the lists then there would never be a way to block them. And you pointed out there are two entries called Dining-Room. I believe the Dining-Room device is a simple speaker. We have two other similar speakers around the house that are hooked up to WIFI  that play music and you can talk to Alexa or Siri if you get bored.  Something is very flakey. 

What I'm hearing is: 1.) Empty the list. 2.) Dis-able Access Control and 3.) move on with my manual review and set-up. It sounds to me some works needs to be done on the firmware. 

The first list cannot be manipulated by the user because it is supposed to show every device that is currently connected.  (it should match Attached Devices.)

The other two lists are "If these MAC addresses appear again, this is how they are supposed to be treated."  Since I do not enable the feature, they are of no value to me.

If there are multiple speakers, they should have different IP addresses.  There should not be two devices with different MAC addresses having the same IP address.

Yes, concerns over how the Orbi firmware reports information seem to be a significant percentage of questions on the Forum.

Below are two screen shots of my Access Control screen. The shots were taken about 3 hours apart. It seems unusual that the number of devices that are Allowed and Connected can change this much in 3 hours and nothing was done to the router configuration. Keep in mind that all of the devices that are listed as not being connected to the internet are, in fact, connected to the internet. 

Furrye38, I'll read the contents of your link but this movement seems very odd. 

Furrye38 I read your link. It appears this was a different issue. I'm not trying to block anything.

I'm seeing devices in the second list that are, IMO, on the network. Yet this page says they are not. AND, I come back a few hours later after having done nothing to my router configuration and the lists have changed. Now there are even more devices not on the network that are on the network.  What is also funny is the "Computer in the Office" is in both lists but with different MAC addresses. 

Regarding "Keep in mind that all of the devices that are listed as not being connected to the internet are, in fact, connected to the internet."

This may seem like nit-picking.  The Orbi Attached Devices and Access Control display information about the Orbi system. (and nothing else)

• If a MAC address shows up in Attached Devices with an IP address and in Access Control with the same IP address, that substantiates that the device is connected to the Orbi system.
• If a MAC address does NOT appear in Attached Devices, but appears in Access Control as "not connected", that indicates (to me) that it is in fact NOT connected to the Orbi system.
  There are other ways to be connected to the internet. 
  a. They could be connected to a different WiFi system.
  b. They could be using cellular data.
  It might be useful to examine how each of these devices report their network connection.  Does each device report a WiFi connection to one of the Orbi WiFi SSIDs? (primary, Guest, IoT?)

Things are seemingly stable and predictable. Much of what I was seeing were issues due to my lack of understanding (maybe all of what I was seeing). But right now I have I identified all the devices and renamed them to something logical and recognizable. And I removed one device that I could not find. If it comes back I will have better luck understanding what and who's it is. 

I still wonder why some devices connect to a more distant Satellite/Router when there is a Satellite/Router much closer. TC_in_Montana felt maybe I have too much coverage. The power setting, according to the manual, is set with a drop-down yet I didn't see a drop down that would allow me to change it. TC also said I could look for DNS entries in the log files but I need more help with this before I understand what I'm looking for. But if I can't turn the power down........?   I'm not aware of any problems that are being caused by this issue so maybe it would be best to just stay away from this level of detail and go work on my golf game. 

WiFi5 and WiFi6 Orbi routers have an "Advanced Settings" feature to reduce the Transmit Power.  (My understanding is that the WiFi7 products have removed this feature.)

Check the User Manual for details. http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/RBK852/RBK852_UM_EN.pdf

Some users have reported that when their Orbi system reboots, the router begins broadcasting the WiFi signal before any of the satellites.  Every device in the house is waiting for a WiFi network that they recognize to appear, and some devices may connect with the router and quit searching before a stronger signal from a satellite appears.  The solution in this case is to reboot the device, which will cause it to find the stronger satellite signal.