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Forum Discussion
The RBRE960
Pretty amazing to think that there are dozens of posts on this community site of people having the same issue. The only reliable solution to getting these devices reconnected is to turn everything of...
Thank you for your genuineness and offering help.
My setup is pretty plain as well, I have the latest firmware (7.2.6.21) on all RBs, xfinity isp, a netgear nighthawk modem wired (1.5 ft cat 😎 to the Orbi RBRE 960 router with two RBSE 960 satellites, each wired directly to the RBRE with cat 8 cable. These used to use the wireless back channel to connect, but due to the intermittent drops that wreaked havoc on all the devices, I ran cables to each of the RBSEs directly from the router. I actually have three RBSEs but since it’s in a location I can’t run a cable to easily, it’s acting as a $600 decoration for the time being.
The wireless back channel not being all that reliable is annoying and limits flexibility, but not really a breaking issue to me since I can (and have) run cables to the RBSEs and the connection is faster that way anyway. The breaking issue for me (and many others based on this and other forums) is with device reconnections after power cycles. When there is any power cycle, unless you painstakingly strategically power everything back on, many devices simply will never reconnect to the network. It’s frustrating enough for me to put the satellites, modem, and router all on uninterrupted power supplies to reduce potential power cycles. Obviously, this isn’t a great solution because eventually the system will require a power cycle from setting or firmware updates or prolonged power outages. Last night there was a power outage long enough to drain the satellite ups’s (router/modem stayed on the whole time) and forcing a satellite power cycle when the power came back on. When I woke up about half the smart switches and three laptops never reconnected. I forced a reset of the smart switches and restarted each of the computers and none of them could connect. I unplugged the modem, router, and each of the satellites, the plugged in the modem waited for it to come online fully, connected the router waited for it to boot up, then did the same for each of the satellites individually. This didn’t resolve any connection issues, so what I ultimately had to do (and I have to do this every time no matter how I try to get out of it) is unplug the modem, router, and satellites, turn off all the devices in the house (kill the power in the house), let the modem and router boot, turn everything back on slowly one breaker at a time allowing ~15 seconds between each one, then plug in each satellite and allow it to boot up. This is the only reliable way I’ve found to get everything reconnected and working well, but it’s super frustrating and not very convenient to turn all the power off in the house to get the network back up. I do software engineering, but I’m definitely not a network guru by any means (as a kid my dad used to make me run cable on jobs where he couldn’t fit in the crawl space, but that’s about it lol), but to me it seems like there is a problem assigning addresses when too many devices try to connect at once. I’m considering trying to manually assign the 60 or so devices to addresses but I’m not sure how much that will help.
I mention the cable quality sort of sarcastically because in a residential setting, like you mentioned it’s not really all that relevant but that’s one of the ‘copy/pasted’ follow ups I always see here.
My setup is pretty plain as well, I have the latest firmware (7.2.6.21) on all RBs, xfinity isp, a netgear nighthawk modem wired (1.5 ft cat 😎 to the Orbi RBRE 960 router with two RBSE 960 satellites, each wired directly to the RBRE with cat 8 cable. These used to use the wireless back channel to connect, but due to the intermittent drops that wreaked havoc on all the devices, I ran cables to each of the RBSEs directly from the router. I actually have three RBSEs but since it’s in a location I can’t run a cable to easily, it’s acting as a $600 decoration for the time being.
The wireless back channel not being all that reliable is annoying and limits flexibility, but not really a breaking issue to me since I can (and have) run cables to the RBSEs and the connection is faster that way anyway. The breaking issue for me (and many others based on this and other forums) is with device reconnections after power cycles. When there is any power cycle, unless you painstakingly strategically power everything back on, many devices simply will never reconnect to the network. It’s frustrating enough for me to put the satellites, modem, and router all on uninterrupted power supplies to reduce potential power cycles. Obviously, this isn’t a great solution because eventually the system will require a power cycle from setting or firmware updates or prolonged power outages. Last night there was a power outage long enough to drain the satellite ups’s (router/modem stayed on the whole time) and forcing a satellite power cycle when the power came back on. When I woke up about half the smart switches and three laptops never reconnected. I forced a reset of the smart switches and restarted each of the computers and none of them could connect. I unplugged the modem, router, and each of the satellites, the plugged in the modem waited for it to come online fully, connected the router waited for it to boot up, then did the same for each of the satellites individually. This didn’t resolve any connection issues, so what I ultimately had to do (and I have to do this every time no matter how I try to get out of it) is unplug the modem, router, and satellites, turn off all the devices in the house (kill the power in the house), let the modem and router boot, turn everything back on slowly one breaker at a time allowing ~15 seconds between each one, then plug in each satellite and allow it to boot up. This is the only reliable way I’ve found to get everything reconnected and working well, but it’s super frustrating and not very convenient to turn all the power off in the house to get the network back up. I do software engineering, but I’m definitely not a network guru by any means (as a kid my dad used to make me run cable on jobs where he couldn’t fit in the crawl space, but that’s about it lol), but to me it seems like there is a problem assigning addresses when too many devices try to connect at once. I’m considering trying to manually assign the 60 or so devices to addresses but I’m not sure how much that will help.
I mention the cable quality sort of sarcastically because in a residential setting, like you mentioned it’s not really all that relevant but that’s one of the ‘copy/pasted’ follow ups I always see here.
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?
Is the cable UTP or STP? STP is recommended here.
For this size of home, having 3 RBS is too much. Would be causing too much wifi signal saturation and signal over lap. Please turn OFF all but 1 RBS for now. I would even try 50% power on the RBR.
What channels are you using?
Lets disable Armor for now.
Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update? A complete pull of the power adapters for a period of time after the factory reset then walk thru the setup wizard and setup from scratch with a wired PC and web browser. Recommend setting the default DHCP IP address pool range to the following after applying and a factory reset: 192.168.#.100 to 192.168.#.200. <I use this configuration here and have not seen any DHCP issues here.
https://kb.netgear.com/24089/How-do-I-specify-the-pool-of-IP-addresses-assigned-by-my-Nighthawk-router
I would power OFF the ISP modem for 1 minute. Factory reset the Orbi router and power it off. Power ON the ISP modem and let it sync. Then power ON the Orbi router and walk thru the setup wizard again using a wired PC and a web browser.
Press the back reset button for 15 seconds then release.
https://kb.netgear.com/31486/How-do-I-reset-my-Orbi-system-to-factory-default-settings
https://kb.netgear.com/000062081/How-do-I-erase-the-configuration-settings-on-my-Orbi-WiFi-System
After the FR and setup from scratch using a PC and web browser, don't enable Armor. Leave it for now.
Enable SIP ALG as well under the WAN setup tab.
Possible that if any of this can't help resolve this, the system could be faulty from the beginning and needs to be RMAd. Lets see if some troubleshooting first will narrow things down.
Something odd there. As I mentioned, we have a similar setup other than the Nighthawk modem. I can power all of it down and have everything back online within 5 or so minutes. When we get a power outage, it all comes back quickly. I only have UPS on the XFi, RBR, and Switch - the Sats are just plugged into the wall.
I'd do all of the above - if you back up your settings, a full reset usually goes easily. After that - yes, start with just the RBR. How quickly will it finish booting up after a restart of the modem and RBR? The modem should come up in 2-3 minutes and the RBR should then come up within a few minutes and devices should start connecting. You can filter the log file to see those DHCP connections being completed and could be worth a look to see what's going on. If all that works well - I'd let it run like that for a day if you can to see how it behaves - then try adding one Sat and go from there. The system should perform well enough with just the RBR even if some connections of more distant devices are weak and slow.
It is hard to imagine what is causing the issue you see. I don't know if there could be other interference in the bands you are using or what. It is not typical and I'm on my 3rd Orbi system over the years and have never seen that happen. I have run the system with wired and wireless backhaul, and both work well. If you have access to a channel scanning app, that may be worth a look to make sure you have the clearest channels set. On the PC, I use WiFi Commander and WiFi Analyzer - both free. That said, I see my neighbor's nets show up in the scans and even if we are on the same or near channels, it has never been an actual issue as far I can tell.
Try the reset and the RBR standalone and see how that goes.