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RBK750 - Devices lose connectivity when moving from base station to satellites (wired backhaul)
I have an RBR750 with two RBS750, all devices on firmware V7.2.6.31. Each satellite is connected to the base station over gigabit ethernet. Once any wireless device successfully connects to the network via the base station or either satellite, connectivity and communication is excellent and completely stable. However, when such a successfully connected device is physically moved such that it connects to a different satellite, communication is often lost for up to several minutes. During this time, other wireless devices connected to the same satellite continue to have excellent throughput -- only the moved device is unable to communicate. Turning the affected device's wi-fi radio off and on does not resolve the issue. It's only after a period of several minutes that it can regain communication.
What I have tried:
Directly connecting a single satellite to the base station (single LAN cable with no switches in between)
Factory reset of base station and satellites
Switch base station between Router Mode and AP Mode
Use a static IP address on the device and adding a DHCP reservation for it
Different devices (iPhone, iPad and Android phone)
The only thing I've found that resolves the issue is using wireless backhaul instead of wired. However, this configuration is not acceptable due to reduced throughput and increased latency.
11 Replies
FYI, we've brought this issue up to NG for review. Will see if we can get some more eyes and feedback on this.
Someting to try as well while we wait, v.31 had been reporting with other users problems. Last good stable FW version was v.21. Could you downgrade your system back to v.21 FW and see if this issue is still seen there? You'll need to factory reset the system and setup from scratch after FW has been applied to the RBS first, then RBR lastly.
Please try RBS wirelessly connected at first, then if you have ethernet support, directly connect the RBS to the back of the RBR and continue testing.
Please provide the following:
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router 📡 and satellite(s)🛰️? 30 feet or more is recommended in between RBR 📡 and RBS 🛰️ to begin with depending upon building materials when wired or wirelessly connected.What channel configurations are currently set on the router?
What security modes are you using on the RBR? WPA2 only or mixed mode WPA2/WPA3?
Current Brand and model# of devices your seeing this issue with.
I have an RBR750 with two RBS750, all devices on firmware V7.2.6.31. Each satellite is connected to the base station over gigabit ethernet. Once any wireless device successfully connects to the network via the base station or either satellite, connectivity and communication is excellent and completely stable. However, when such a successfully connected device is physically moved such that it connects to a different satellite, communication is often lost for up to several minutes. During this time, other wireless devices connected to the same satellite continue to have excellent throughput -- only the moved device is unable to communicate. Turning the affected device's wi-fi radio off and on does not resolve the issue. It's only after a period of several minutes that it can regain communication.
Yes, this is a long-standing bug with the Orbi. As DolceArdore says, it appears to be specific to the wired backhaul (in my case, one wired satellite and one wireless satellite). Moving between the router and the wired satellite will sometimes (not always) cause the iPhone connection to drop and it will not reconnect for a few minutes.
I noticed that when this happened, it was trying to assign some weird IP address and I do think that assigning the iPhone a static IP in the Orbi management screen has reduced the frequency of this happening (although not eliminated it entirely).
I first reported this years ago and it's never changed so I'm not hopeful it will ever get fixed.
Good point Garwoofoo, now I remember that I also tried configuring a static IP address (in the iPhone settings, not in the router settings), which possibly helped a little, but ultimately failed to resolve the issue satisfactorily. Because of this I would be very hesitant to go with Orbi when I eventually upgrade to a Wi-Fi 7 mesh system.
What specific ports on the router and satellites are connected?
Is the system currently in router mode or Access Point mode?
At the moment the router is in AP mode with the Internet port connected to the WAN and Ethernet port 3 (closest to the power connector) connected to a LAN switch. One of the satellites has the port 1 connected to a LAN switch and the other has port 2 connected to a LAN switch. All other ethernet ports are empty.
There have been several posts recently describing issues when Orbi systems are in AP mode and satellites are not connected to router LAN ports. This does not appear to be the issue here unless somehow the LAN and WAN ports are attached to a common pathway.
Does the Attached Devices page show devices attached to the satellites correctly?
It is truly surprising that turning WiFi off and back on again on the device does not result in an immediate connection.
