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Forum Discussion
RBRE960 Devices do not stay connected to closest/best satellite.
TLDR Devices do not stay connected to the closest/best node causing a noticable wifi performance drop. Over time, devices appear to migrate to the weakest node signal rather than the strongest. Inve...
An additional thought (other than FURRYe38 's thoughts) - is that you may have way more coverage than what is needed and it may be confusing the devices. If you have the router and two satellites, this supposedly provides coverage for 9,000 square feet (each device provides 3,000 sqft of coverage). Since each of your connected devices appears to be getting a good enough signal to connect to either of the satellites or the router, they could be bouncing around, causing some of the connection issues. There is such a thing as too much coverage.
I am not sure if you are using the LAN ports on your satellites or just using WiFi connectivity for your other floors, but IF you are using only WiFi connectivity, you may want to drop one of the satellites completely and see if your connectivity improves overall. It may require you to reposition the satellite once you drop down to one, but it may not as well. If you are using the LAN ports, then this may be a no-go, but I would think that dropping the power on the devices would resolve that issue.
I have about 3,800 sqft across two floors, and while I currently have the router and two satellites in play, I found no real difference in my connectivity when using only 1 satellite over using 2 for my layout. The main reason I am using the third is to provide wired connectivity in one of my rooms for a couple of machines with crappy WiFi cards built in.
Heya, thanks for the input, TC_in_Montana! Unfortunately (fortunately?) I am using the LAN ports for a couple devices on each of the 3. This is actually how I know the wireless backhaul is amazing and the reason I am willing to put some time into troubleshooting this instead of immediately returning them. I am working around metal venting and other signal destroying obstacles in order to get wifi to some devices of the upstairs & basement, which is what makes the 2-satellite setup ideal.
What is interesting about this situation is that all wireless devices start out connected to the closest node after rebooting the network. And, for the first few hours everything works incredibly well. After about a day, not a single wireless device is left connected to the satellites and they are all on the main router. It makes sense that some devices might bounce around if they have a comparable signal to both a satellite & the router, but all wireless devices?
Since the devices are the ones that choose the node they connect to, it appears that the satellites might be experiencing some sort of problem, possibly due to some sort of misconfiguration. Backing that theory up is the solution one person found:
Their situation sounds very similar to what I'm experiencing. Removing, resetting, & re-adding the satellite(s) appeared to work for them. I'm planning on trying the same to see if it resolves my issue.
Chris_Z wrote:Heya, thanks for the input, TC_in_Montana! Unfortunately (fortunately?) I am using the LAN ports for a couple devices on each of the 3. This is actually how I know the wireless backhaul is amazing and the reason I am willing to put some time into troubleshooting this instead of immediately returning them. I am working around metal venting and other signal destroying obstacles in order to get wifi to some devices of the upstairs & basement, which is what makes the 2-satellite setup ideal.
Their situation sounds very similar to what I'm experiencing. Removing, resetting, & re-adding the satellite(s) appeared to work for them. I'm planning on trying the same to see if it resolves my issue.
Chris_Z Thanks for reading my suggestion. Unfortunately I don't think it is the approach you need since you want to use the LAN ports in you various locations.
I am definitely hoping that removing, resetting, and re-adding the satellite(s) works for you.
Personally, I think the RBKE963 is pretty darned good, although nothing is perfect and sometimes things just don't work.
Fingers crossed for you. Please be sure to come back and fill us in on the outcome.
TC_in_Montana wrote:Personally, I think the RBKE963 is pretty darned good, although nothing is perfect and sometimes things just don't work.
Fingers crossed for you. Please be sure to come back and fill us in on the outcome.
After a reboot and before things start going south, it is really good. Unfortunately, it doesn't last more than a few hours to a day. I've also run into another issue: after a day or two of the satellites being 'up', they stop accepting connections.
I first noticed this with an iPad. Originally, the iPad can roam all 3 floors and swap between the various Orbis. After a day or so, I noticed the iPad could not connect to the wifi unless it was on the main floor (connected to the Orbi router). The iPad would then lose wifi after going downstairs and failing to connect to the satellite. The same situation also occurred on the upstairs satellite. I unplugged/replugged in the downstairs satellite which then allowed the iPad and other devices (such as a PC) to connect to it again. I then repeated the same with the upstairs satellite which then allowed devices to start connecting to the upstairs satellite. (The situation then re-occurred a day or two later.)
I don't know if this is a different issue than my original, related, or all part of a bigger problem. And, in other bad news, resetting & resyncing the satellites did not appear to solve either issue for me.