RBK853, wired backhaul: one satellite loses connection to router and daisychains to other satellite

I have an RBK853 mesh system (one RBR850 router and two RBS850 satellites).  The satellites are connected via separate ethernet cables to the router (star topology, wired backhaul).  I want the satellites to use the wired backhaul, obviously.

The satellite on the second floor has nothing hard-wired to it except ethernet in from the router.  The satellite in the basement has ethernet in from the router, and three ethernet out connections, one of which goes to my workstation for work.

I have noticed that the basement satellite will periodically fail to sense the connection to the router, and then becomes daisy-chained to the second floor satellite (almost directly above it, two stories) via a wireless connection.  I "notice" this when the routerlogin.net interface fails to display any item in the "connected orbi" column for the satellite (normal state: would say it is connected to the Orbi Router and give MAC address of router), and the app's network map goes from star topology to daisy chain, router - wired - second fl satellite - wired - basement satellite.  The basement satellite appears to know it is hard wired but it doesn't know it is hard-wired to the router.  I want to prevent any kind of daisy-chaining; there used to be a setting in routerlogin.net where one could disable daisy chaining, but that appears to have disappeared in the latest firmware.

I got smart and switched the satellites.  Interestingly, the satellite I brought to the basement from the second floor, which previously never had a problem, began to display this behavior.

I have a working theory, and I would like any opinion about whether it makes sense and/or what I can do about it.  When I use my workstation for work, which is hard-wired into the back of my basement satellite, I have to establish a connection to my work's VPN via the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client.  My suspicion is that there is something about connecting to the work VPN in this manner, on a workstation hard-wired into my satellite, that causes the satellite not to recognize that it has a wired backhaul to my router....

Any help appreciated.

Firmware: V4.6.3.16_2.0.51