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Tracking/logging orbi satellite connection outages
I have an Orbi AX6000 kit (RBK852, for some reason, this model isn't available in the model dropdown) and the connection to my satellite keeps dropping randomly. The only way I can tell is because I have three security cameras connected to that satellite, and every night I get a notification that the connection for those cameras went down (through my security software). I know the Orbi have very little when it comes to tools/troubleshooting/options, but I was hoping that Netgear might have a tool that could help me get an idea of how often, how long, etc my satellite is going down, so I could hopefully troubleshoot it. Any thoughts?
kevin009 wrote:
I'm not sure what else I could connect directly to the satellite to test if it's the satellite or not. Maybe another camera that has it's own power source. I'll have to do some digging.
At 2 seconds, missing 90 in a row comes to three minutes of no response. The satellite itself appears to be responding, but devices 'wired' to the satellite have these gaps. Would be useful to know if the cameras experience the lack of response at the same time.
It is getting rare for consumers to have devices with Ethernet ports, which complicates troubleshooting this sort of thing. Does this PoE switch have an IP address?
There have been some posts on the forum regarding 850-series satellite problems. As I do not have an 850, I confess to not paying a lot of attention to the specifics. It might be worth some time skimming the AX forum to see if any posts seem to relate to your situation.
It also might be useful to manually update the firmware to the most recent version on the support web site:
https://www.netgear.com/support/product/rbr850.aspx#download
16 Replies
What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?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 wirelessly connected.
https://kb.netgear.com/31029/Where-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite 📡What channels are you using? Auto? Try Auto and 48 on 5Ghz. Or try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and 40 to 48 channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?Does your security camera only use the internal network or is it accessing the Internet?
Check the times it disconnects, are they all around the same time each night or is it quite random?
Some Internet Service Providers (ISP) will actually drop your Internet connection during the night. For example: If the DHCP server allocates a temporary IP Address with a lease time set to expire in 24 hours each time. For that reason, you want to first rule out it's not a pattern-based or scheduled disconnection.
Next check under the Router's Admin or Netgear Orbi App for the Wifi list and ensure that each Satellite has a "Good" status for their backhaul connection. Also check if each Satellite is directly connected to the router or if it is being daisy chained (Router > Satellite > Satellite)?
No, the cameras are internal only. I don't really want to risk the chance of someone external gaining access to my cameras.
I can't seem to find out exactly when they disconnect. Currently I just have a watchdog that sends me a notification when the cameras connected to the satellite go offline, but I checked my monitoring software and it doesn't have any way to log every time (and length) when the cameras go offline. That's why I was inquiring if there was any way to track the satellite outages. Currently it seems to be random through all times of the day (and this connection is only local, so ISP performance has no impact).
The "Backhaul Status" says "good", and all I have is the main Orbi unit and one satellite.
What Firmware version is currently loaded?
- V4.6.3.16_2.0.51
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?- It's a Shaw Bluecurve CGM4141SHW. Haven't had any issues with the ISP. Our internet connection is solid, it just seems to be the Orbi satellite.
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
- Medium bungalow, about 800 Sq ft.
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)?- 25 feet in a detached garage.
What channels are you using? Auto? Try Auto and 48 on 5Ghz. Or try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and 40 to 48 channel on 5Ghz.
- Currently I'm using 2.4GHz Channel: 01 and 5GHz Channel: 36
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?- Not a lot, but there's a couple.
kevin009 wrote:
I know the Orbi have very little when it comes to tools/troubleshooting/options, but I was hoping that Netgear might have a tool that could help me get an idea of how often, how long, etc my satellite is going down, so I could hopefully troubleshoot it. Any thoughts?If there are tools built into the Orbi to diagnose satellite connection issues, I am not aware of them. There is a debug option on many Orbi products which creates a file of information that can be explored once the file is saved to the user's computer. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any documentation explaining what is in this log file.
The tool most people use to diagnose connection problems is to continuously perform ICMP ('ping') requests and record when they fail. My "go to" ping tracker is PingInfoView from Nirsoft. (free at https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/multiple_ping_tool.html ) That is assuming, of course, that the security cameras respond to ICMP requests. Most devices on my network do respond.
I use the Advanced option to write a line into a log file every time a device does not respond.
PingInfoView would establish a few things:
- Confirm (or refute) that the link between router and devices is failing (perhaps the link between router and satellite if the satellite IP is one of the devices being pinged).
- Create a record of time and duration of the interruptions.
I would not be surprised to find that security cameras do not respond to every ping. If there is a long string of missed responses, say every 2 seconds for over several minutes, that would be evidence of a network issue.
Ok, that is a pretty handy tool. I set it up yesterday to ping all my cameras (they do respond to pings) and the satellite and there were a LOT of failures for everything throughout the night. There were a couple of instances where all of the cameras didn't respond, and there were some instances where everything didn't respond (for about 4 minutes too, so these aren't small outages). So the fact that I'm seeing the satellite not respond tells me (unless I'm misinterpreting this) that there's an issue with the connection between my main orbi and the satellite, but I'm not sure what to do with this information. If it's defective, I think I'm past my warranty period.
I just thought of something. I should have also added my main orbi unit to the list, just to verify that the outage isn't caused by my main router. I'm going to do that now.
kevin009 wrote:
there were some instances where everything didn't respond (for about 4 minutes too, so these aren't small outages). So the fact that I'm seeing the satellite not respond tells me (unless I'm misinterpreting this) that there's an issue with the connection between my main orbi and the satellite, but I'm not sure what to do with this information. If it's defective, I think I'm past my warranty period.
Yes, this should not happen. ICMP is a UDP packet, which does not guarantee delivery the way TCP does. Thus, it is entirely possible to "lose" a request on its way to the target or the response on the way back. I used PingInfoView to ping my three satellites every two seconds for over a day (almost 50,000 pings on each). The result was that one satellite missed zero, one satellite missed one, and one satellite missed 8:
4/10/2022 4:49:51 PM - 4/10/2022 4:49:51 PM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/10/2022 6:07:59 PM - 4/10/2022 6:07:59 PM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/10/2022 8:47:16 PM - 4/10/2022 8:47:16 PM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/11/2022 3:33:56 AM - 4/11/2022 3:33:56 AM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/11/2022 7:18:40 AM - 4/11/2022 7:18:40 AM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/11/2022 9:15:47 AM - 4/11/2022 9:15:47 AM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/11/2022 4:08:13 PM - 4/11/2022 4:08:13 PM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/11/2022 5:00:09 PM - 4/11/2022 5:00:09 PM,192.168.1.70,192.168.1.70,,,,,Request Timeout,1 4/11/2022 8:32:37 PM - 4/11/2022 8:32:37 PM,192.168.1.50,192.168.1.50,,,,,Request Timeout,1Those misses were hours apart and never more than a single time. For the network to go down for 4 minutes is unacceptable.
Firmware 4.6.7.13 has been out for your system for quite some time. (There are some long posts regarding it on the forum.)
It is available on the Netgear support site: https://www.netgear.com/support/product/rbr850.aspx#download
You could update the satellite and router to the latest firmware and see if that changes things.
