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RBR750 Not Reconnecting To Internet
This week I was away on holidays and was hoping I could rely on my HomeAssistant based security system with motion sensors / cameras etc. Many of these rely on WiFi / Internet. However two days b...
CrimpOn wrote:
mark0077 wrote:After plugging each one out and back in, they all connected up to the internet just fine and everything came back online again.
"Plugging" refers to the electrical power? (not any of the Ethernet cables)
Was the ISP device (cable modem or fiber ONT) power cycled as well?
As you have noticed, rebooting the Orbi router clears the Log file. It would have been interesting to see if the log contained anything prior to pulling the plug, but with the entire network down most of us would be more interested in getting the networking again than in investigating things.
Is there any way to determine if there was an electrical power outage during that time? (My UPS, for example, reports the data/time/duration of power interruptions.)
Very frustrating situation since the system is already supposed to react to disruptions:
- If the power goes out and then resumes, the router should reconnect to the internet.
- If the ISP connection fails and then resumes, the router should then reconnect.
Yes plugging in this case means electrically powering the system on and off. I didn't power cycle anything else, just the three orbis. So to me something within the Orbi firmware or options could/should have gotten around this in my opinion. What do you think?
I have some strange feeling the underlying linux kernel or something is affecting these devices in general. My ISP router (which I no longer use) would last about 1 week before going into this state and need a reboot. My google wifi used to last maybe 2 to 4 weeks before needing a reboot. The Orbi in fairness has lasted much longer but it does seem perhaps roughly (very roughly) every few months needs a reboot. I would love if it was even more robust and in circumstances like this is also having some feature to reboot itself assuming theres some weird underlying kernel issue.
I'm thinking back to my days in SunOS where there was the concept of a watchdog that could in exceptional circumstances, reboot a process when it wasn't behaving well. I think in this case it might remove the human from the equation and maybe have a concept like backing up some admin log as part of its reboot process to eventually help fix the underlying issue but essentially reduce the downtime on the user.
Edit: I can tell from my Home Assistant VM that it wasn't a full power outage at least as it stayed powered on during the Orbi outage.
My ancient RBR50 Orbi has gone six months without losing service (until Edison favored us with a power outage to "upgrade equipment")
You are correct that for a long time it was generally accepted that rebooting computer devices every so often was a good idea. (My security cameras have an automatic reboot option of once a week or every day.) Older Netgear routers may have had a reboot option as well (much as they defaulted to different SSIDs for 2.4G and 5G WiFi channels) None of the Orbi products have such a feature. In my case, enabling such a feature would wreak havoc on things. So many things in my house rely on constant internet that deliberately pausing the connection would result in chaos.
If this happens again, it might be worth taking a few minutes to determine:
- Whether the internal LAN is still functional.
- If anything appears in the Orbi log.
CrimpOn wrote:My ancient RBR50 Orbi has gone six months without losing service (until Edison favored us with a power outage to "upgrade equipment")
You are correct that for a long time it was generally accepted that rebooting computer devices every so often was a good idea. (My security cameras have an automatic reboot option of once a week or every day.) Older Netgear routers may have had a reboot option as well (much as they defaulted to different SSIDs for 2.4G and 5G WiFi channels) None of the Orbi products have such a feature. In my case, enabling such a feature would wreak havoc on things. So many things in my house rely on constant internet that deliberately pausing the connection would result in chaos.
If this happens again, it might be worth taking a few minutes to determine:
- Whether the internal LAN is still functional.
- If anything appears in the Orbi log.
Well I can tell a lot from HomeAssistant VM actually. It shows a good insight into what went offline from its point of view. It itself is wired directly into the Orbi via direct wired LAN. I can see connectivity to wired devices like my Living Room Sky box and other wired devices remained fine throughout the outage. It seems only wireless devices started to have issues from both HomeAssistants view, from its logs, history view, as well as from Googles cloud point of view (reporting WiFi devices like doorbells and cameras were offline). So I guess the only thing missing is the orbi log. But as you suggest, its hard to get it if it doesn't survive reboots.
I suggest two immediate Orbi improvements.
1) Make logs survive at least one reboot so that circumstances like this are easier to debug for those who are not so lucky or technical that can get into the orbi logs before reboot.
2) If it is in any way common that this is a WiFi specific issue, and is not easy to fix, provide some option to restart the routers to get around it. I understand it doesn't make sense for everyone but for some users like me who just want a stable network, if a reboot is needed, it should be automatable while a fix is being looked into.
Devices using Cloud services, such as Google gizmos, may be reflecting the loss of internet connectivity rather than WiFi on the LAN.
Netgear provides an Idea Exchange where users suggest changes/improvements to products:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/idb-p/idea-exchange-for-home
From observing the status of some of the more prominent suggestions, I do not have "warm feelings" about the prospects of suggestions resulting in action.
CrimpOn wrote:Devices using Cloud services, such as Google gizmos, may be reflecting the loss of internet connectivity rather than WiFi on the LAN.
Netgear provides an Idea Exchange where users suggest changes/improvements to products:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/idb-p/idea-exchange-for-home
From observing the status of some of the more prominent suggestions, I do not have "warm feelings" about the prospects of suggestions resulting in action.
OK thanks for the suggestion. In my case its more than just "Google gizmos" reflecting no connectivity. When I came home, no mobile devices were connectable to the WiFi nor were our 60~ WiFi bulbs. I'll try via the idea exchange but I fear Orbi will fall into the same trap as my ISP and Google Wifi, slowly degrading to having no connectivity after x days / weeks but have no way to log / debug it to ever actually see it and eventually provide a fix.