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Forum Discussion
CBR750 Wireless devices connect, but no internet
Thanks for looking at this. It has been bewildering to say the least. I have a CBR750 + 1 satellite. Until today, everything was fine (using Coax with Spectrum) no issues with a single device, b...
While I somewhat understand the sentiment, I do feel like we're pivoting from the question posed. If the network as connected was altogether non-functional, I'd just pack my things and go home.
However, Orbi does/did function as a router for about 80% of the connected devices without issue, so I'm more focused on what the problem with the other 20% not sending/receiving traffic is, rather than how to replace the whole system. I understand there isn't a manufacturer manual for this, which is why I'm hoping to find some community knowledge here.
I'd suggest a parallel: a manufacturer won't suggest the best way to place a towel under a door to stop the heat from escaping, but if all I have is towels and I put them under 4 doors and it worked perfectly, but the heat is still leaking from the 5th door, I'm not looking to go buy 5 new doors, but to figure out what's keeping the 5th towel from stopping the heat escaping. If it worked 0/5, I wouldn't bother asking for advice.
I get that throwing money at the problem is *a* solution, but if there are a couple of software tweaks (opening ports, checking device permissions, changing DNS server are some I've considered), that would be *the* solution I'm looking for.
PS: I did swap my R7000 Nighthawk for now, to handle the rest of the devices in the half of the house AT&T router can't reach, but it's clumsy with dead spots and buying a $400+ replacement doesn't excite me. I'd rather try my luck with a different manufacturer if that's the route I'll have to go.
Cheers and Merry Christmas!
IDDQD123 wrote:
However, Orbi does/did function as a router for about 80% of the connected devices without issue, so I'm more focused on what the problem with the other 20% not sending/receiving traffic is, rather than how to replace the whole system. I understand there isn't a manufacturer manual for this, which is why I'm hoping to find some community knowledge here.
The user manual is here: https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/CBK752/CBK750_UM_EN.pdf
This does appear to be a unique opportunity to learn more about combination cable modem/routers.
- On the Orbi case, what do the LED's show? (see manual page 10. Particularly the Internet LED)
- On the Orbi web interface, what does it show in the Internet Menu (or the Internet section of the Advanced Tab home page) for the Internet IP address, subnet mask, and gateway?
(With non-cable modem routers, the AT&T BGW320 will supply a private IP address to the Orbi, such as 192.168.1.?)
Orbi routers can function without an internet connection, so local connections such as media servers should function.
I was referencing that there isn't a manual for setting this Modem Router as Router only (the only option in advanced was whether to use it as a Router - yes by default, and I learned that by disabling it, it acts as modem only and to be accessed again has to be factory reset).
Power and Internet LED's were solid, downstream was blinking white (at least when I looked at it), upstream was off. Probably kept trying to check if there's any data to move on Coax, but there wasn't one plugged in.
Ring LED was amber. The subnet IP was something like 192.168.1.19, gateway showed the subnet IP for the AT&T router. I can't recall the subnet mask.
Seems like it was working as a switch with ethernet connetions. AT&T router saw all WiFi devices (even ones that didn't get internet data) as ethernet connections on its end, but they showed up properly in Orbi's device list as whether wireless or wired.
IDDQD123 wrote:
I was referencing that there isn't a manual for setting this Modem Router as Router only (the only option in advanced was whether to use it as a Router - yes by default, and I learned that by disabling it, it acts as modem only and to be accessed again has to be factory reset). I understand now.
Power and Internet LED's were solid, downstream was blinking white (at least when I looked at it), upstream was off. Probably kept trying to check if there's any data to move on Coax, but there wasn't one plugged in.
Ring LED was amber. The subnet IP was something like 192.168.1.19, gateway showed the subnet IP for the AT&T router. I can't recall the subnet mask.
Seems like it was working as a switch with ethernet connetions. AT&T router saw all WiFi devices (even ones that didn't get internet data) as ethernet connections on its end, but they showed up properly in Orbi's device list as whether wireless or wired.
The BGW20 seeing all connections as wired makes total sense. The BGW20 has no idea that a WiFi network exists and sees all devices appearing on one of the BGW20 ethernet ports. ergo: all 'wired'.
Perhaps some of the devices remember too much. Orbi typically uses a DHCP lease of one day (86.400 seconds). If devices remained powered on during the transition, perhaps they remember the IP address that they got from the Orbi and have not asked to renew the lease with the BGW20. Do the IP addressed in the BGW tables match the IP's in devices that are no longer working? For the devices that are not working correctly, have those devices been power cycled?
It's an interesting thought. I didn't look at IP addresses too closely between the routers, but a couple of things throw a wrench into that theory.
1. There were several in-kind devices some of which carried over from Orbi being modem and router to just router(-ish thing), so I'd expect them to have the same rules for renewing IP (2 LG TV's 1 year model apart and 3 chromecast devices, out of which one didn't get data, as well as Nest Hello and Nest Indoor cameras again getting 50/50 success rate).
2. I did power cycle the devices that were not getting data as well as did a couple of factory resets on both Orbi and BWG320 after the topography change, so I'd guess that each time they came online and got set up, they would assign new subnet masks all around.
3. I did specifically observe that subnet assigned to Orbi changed when I changed the ethernet ports that it used to connect to BWG320 (something like from .119 to .132) because BWG can show a list of devices it has allocated IPs to on the network and when you disconnect, it remembers it, but shows it turned off until you purge the devices list and force scan (or presumably after a time period). So, it would show Orbi as offline on the old port and online on the new one, then I'd force to rescan it.
One theory I came up with is that when Orbi is not connected as a modem, but just gets data from ethernet, it starts behaving like a switch (with WiFi). It could make sense since it does have 4 ethernet ports that it could manage, so there's some number of channels it can act as a switch for, but then maybe it's not meant to be a powerful switch so it's very limited to what it can handle as far as distributing packets?
I don't know, I'm grasping at straws here. I think that I'd be less annoyed if it just didn't work at all 😅