New - RBR850 / RBS850 Firmware Version v4.6.7.13 Official Release

OK, for me day 2 on the new firmware, and some devices have gotten more accurate in the devices list. I did reboot my CM1200 modem and router again this morning for good measure.

But there is still the list of unconnected devices in the Access List that is wrong. But to me more important is the Attached devices list. It seems with one exception all the devices that are wrong now, are 2.4HGz wired devices - they all show connected to the Router. This is the list, and it's every 2.4GHz connected device in the house except for a Ring Chime and a Harmony Hub, both of which are probably closer to the router anyway:

3 HP printers (all are on the 3rd floor, router is in the basement)

1st Floor Harmony Hub which is about 8 feet from an RBS850

Ring Doorbell which shows connected to 3rd floor RBS850!

I just checked with WiFi Explorer, and the 2.4GHz signal strength in the 3rd floor room where 2 of the 3 printers are (and the third is only about 10 feet from the room) are:

3rd Floor RBS850 - 99%

1st floor RBS850 - 69%-73%

Router/basement - 55%-56%

So maybe the 2.4GHz signal strength is good enough that the connections are as they are? 55% from printers to the router seems unlikyle with 99% and 69% available...

Basements are not recommended places for any host wifi router. Concrete and steel will cause problems. 

What transmit power setting are you using on the RBR? 100%? 

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donawalt wrote:

OK, for me day 2 on the new firmware, and some devices have gotten more accurate in the devices list. I did reboot my CM1200 modem and router again this morning for good measure.

 

But there is still the list of unconnected devices in the Access List that is wrong. But to me more important is the Attached devices list. It seems with one exception all the devices that are wrong now, are 2.4HGz wired devices - they all show connected to the Router. This is the list, and it's every 2.4GHz connected device in the house except for a Ring Chime and a Harmony Hub, both of which are probably closer to the router anyway:

 

3 HP printers (all are on the 3rd floor, router is in the basement)

1st Floor Harmony Hub which is about 8 feet from an RBS850

Ring Doorbell which shows connected to 3rd floor RBS850!

 

I just checked with WiFi Explorer, and the 2.4GHz signal strength in the 3rd floor room where 2 of the 3 printers are (and the third is only about 10 feet from the room) are:

3rd Floor RBS850 - 99%

1st floor RBS850 - 69%-73%

Router/basement - 55%-56%

 

So maybe the 2.4GHz signal strength is good enough that the connections are as they are? 55% from printers to the router seems unlikyle with 99% and 69% available...

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Been so many issues with Ring products and Orbi over the years, I'm not much help with these devices. They connect or won't. 

If the devices is connected to a RBS thats ethernet connected, it may appear as a wired device since the main connected betwen the RBR and RBS is a "wired" connection. 

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Garwoofoo wrote:

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FURRYe38 wrote:

Might get a list of devices, brand and model #s 

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The one I'd really like to get to the bottom of is my Ring doorbell, which is consistently incorrect.

 

It's a Ring Pro doorbell, basically one of these:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Doorbell-Transformer-Two-Way-Detection/dp/B072KLVTQP

 

The Orbi recognises this as "RingPro-9c".

 

The Orbi dashboard shows this as having a wired connection to the router, which is impossible, because it's a wireless device with no Ethernet connectivity. The Orbi mobile app shows the same thing.

 

However if I go into the status page for the nearest satellite, and look at Connected Devices from there, it shows in there:

 

IP address - blank (every other device connected to this satellite shows an IP address)

Name - RingPro-9c

MAC Address - (shown)

Connection Type - 5G

 

I believe these are the correct details, not the information shown on the Orbi dashboard. Although the blank IP address for this device and this device only is interesting.

 

Note that this behaviour is 100% repeatable. If I reboot my system, the doorbell will reconnect to that satellite and the exact same combination of statuses will be shown as described above.

 

Now here's the interesting thing: this satellite is the one that's been displaying my Hop Count issue. And the only time I've seen that doorbell show the correct info on the Orbi dashboard was when I checked it after the Hop Count had switched to 255. I'll be keeping a close eye on that over the next few days. I wonder if the two issues are connected - the Orbi is having issues with this device specifically maybe and that's causing my other issues? Just speculation here.

 

Hard to test though as I obviously can't disconnect my doorbell for several days...

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(RBS850 not what shows as model in this post) Thanks, but I don't have much choice on where the cable comes in to the house. It was here when I moved it. That said, signal is very strong from the router, it ocvers most of the first floor as well, with WiFi d/l speeds of 400-500 Mbps!

 

To close the loop on this 2.4 GHz connection issue below - it does seem like after the manual firmware update/power cycle etc. etc. the printers were connected to the wrong router/satellite (the basement one, with a marginal 55% signal strength). I got the idea this morning, I re-set up each printer with WPS to the 3rd floor satellite, and that worked perfectly! They are connected there now, and in fact one of the printers that is newer and has 5 GHz support is now connected via 5 GHz.

FURRYe38 wrote:

Basements are not recommended places for any host wifi router. Concrete and steel will cause problems. 

 

What transmit power setting are you using on the RBR? 100%? 

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donawalt wrote:

OK, for me day 2 on the new firmware, and some devices have gotten more accurate in the devices list. I did reboot my CM1200 modem and router again this morning for good measure.

 

But there is still the list of unconnected devices in the Access List that is wrong. But to me more important is the Attached devices list. It seems with one exception all the devices that are wrong now, are 2.4HGz wired devices - they all show connected to the Router. This is the list, and it's every 2.4GHz connected device in the house except for a Ring Chime and a Harmony Hub, both of which are probably closer to the router anyway:

 

3 HP printers (all are on the 3rd floor, router is in the basement)

1st Floor Harmony Hub which is about 8 feet from an RBS850

Ring Doorbell which shows connected to 3rd floor RBS850!

 

I just checked with WiFi Explorer, and the 2.4GHz signal strength in the 3rd floor room where 2 of the 3 printers are (and the third is only about 10 feet from the room) are:

3rd Floor RBS850 - 99%

1st floor RBS850 - 69%-73%

Router/basement - 55%-56%

 

So maybe the 2.4GHz signal strength is good enough that the connections are as they are? 55% from printers to the router seems unlikyle with 99% and 69% available...

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Ok. sounds like you got the printers figured out. 

Your not limited by keeping the RBR in the basement. They make long lengths of ethernet CAT6 cable that can be ran or fished thru walls. 
However, if its all working now, go with it. 

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donawalt wrote:

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(RBS850 not what shows as model in this post) Thanks, but I don't have much choice on where the cable comes in to the house. It was here when I moved it. That said, signal is very strong from the router, it ocvers most of the first floor as well, with WiFi d/l speeds of 400-500 Mbps!

 

To close the loop on this 2.4 GHz connection issue below - it does seem like after the manual firmware update/power cycle etc. etc. the printers were connected to the wrong router/satellite (the basement one, with a marginal 55% signal strength). I got the idea this morning, I re-set up each printer with WPS to the 3rd floor satellite, and that worked perfectly! They are connected there now, and in fact one of the printers that is newer and has 5 GHz support is now connected via 5 GHz.

All 3 printers have flipped back to 2.4 on the router 3 floors away! Oh well - they are working. That makes no sense though, it's clearly a much weaker signal. Maybe it will correc t itself in a few days.

What transmit power setting are you using on the RBR? 

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donawalt wrote:

All 3 printers have flipped back to 2.4 on the router 3 floors away! Oh well - they are working. That makes no sense though, it's clearly a much weaker signal. Maybe it will correc t itself in a few days.

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@ FURRYe38

Where can I see transmit power settings on the RBR? Mine must be set to default

Transmit Power control is default, I didn't change it - 100% for both 2.4 and 5 GHz.

I just checked again though right next to two of the printers, and the 3rd floor RBS850 has 2.4 WiFi signal strength 98%, 1st floor RBS850 is 66%, the basement RBR850 is 55%-60%. So why does it flip off a 98% signal to a 55%-60% one...

What happens if you set the RBR to 50% transmit power? 

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donawalt wrote:

Transmit Power control is default, I didn't change it - 100% for both 2.4 and 5 GHz.

 

I just checked again though right next to two of the printers, and the 3rd floor RBS850 has 2.4 WiFi signal strength 98%, 1st floor RBS850 is 66%, the basement RBR850 is 55%-60%. So why does it flip off a 98% signal to a 55%-60% one...

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FURRYe38 wrote:

What happens if you set the RBR to 50% transmit power? 

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donawalt wrote:

Transmit Power control is default, I didn't change it - 100% for both 2.4 and 5 GHz.

 

I just checked again though right next to two of the printers, and the 3rd floor RBS850 has 2.4 WiFi signal strength 98%, 1st floor RBS850 is 66%, the basement RBR850 is 55%-60%. So why does it flip off a 98% signal to a 55%-60% one...

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Thanks FURRYe38 for the suggestion. I am leerty to do that since a number of other devices on the floor above rely on it, and it seems the system is not always at its best in "exception situations". That said, I ran a wireless test on all three printers. All passed, all said signal quality was good, print is fine on all of them across the network; one interesting thing, (all 3 are HP printers), all 3 reports complained about more than one access point/router matching the SSID - which is of course true in a mesh network. I have 6 entries that show up in the WiFi analyzer: 3-2.4 GHz, 3-5 GHz. So I am thinking now, this may just be HP printers don't handle mesh networks as elegantly as they should when trying to pick an SSID AP/Router to use. They all went on to say "Your HP printer may connect to the wrong wireless network." So it seems plausible that they don't know how to figure out the ideal connection in a mesh network?

Ya how they report wifi signals would be how HP handles that in there FW. I've seen with with some other devices, like my xbox 360. Devcies that may not have or developed understanding of newer wifi MESH signals and such, these devices will report wifi like this. Nothing we can do for this. Mfrs will have to work with that. All you can do is make sure the FW on these devices are up to date. 

Sounds like the printers maybe ping ponging back and forth trying to lock on to one signal and maybe getting confused. Saw this on NEST controllers. Why I mentioned reducing the transmit power. This can help. 

Good point FURRYe38 I just checked the firmware and all are current. Actually in my investigating I found two other things that may help. As mynewest Color Laser is on a shelf about 3 shelves below the RBS850, I discovered I can set it to just connect at 5 GHz. So now it seems stable connected to that satellite! Second my older B&W Laser is sitting next to another Eth outlet - so WiFi turned off, and now it's hardwired too! The little photo printer seems to be behaving so we will see. But in any case they work, so I'll watch it but not get too worked up about it!

Nice. Ya, all three of my printers are LAN connected, though none of them have wireless. :smileywink:

You'll find that if devices support both wireless and ethernet, ethernet is the way to go in some cases.