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Forum Discussion
Can’t communicate between wireless bands on a satellite
Really disappointed with brand new 373 +2 satellite kit. Hoping I’ve made a rookie mistake but…
My issue seems to be specific to satellites. Client devices on the same SSID can’t communicate between the bands despite being on the same SSID and ip subnet. I’m not using the iot ssid.
So if I have something connected to the 5 GHz band on the satellite, and something connected to the 2.4 GHz band on the same satellite, they can’t communicate with each other - pings timeout.
Whereas, everything on the 5ghz on the satellite can talk to each other and everything on the 2.4ghz can talk to each other fine. And, Communicating to other devices connected to the router or on another satellite is fine too.
This renders the mesh pretty useless in a modern connected house. My laptop can’t connect to the printer, I can connect to some things and not others, it’s just pretty useless.
Anyone else seeing this? Do I have a setting wrong? I don’t seem to have the same issue between clients on different bands connected to the router. So it seems like a satellite specific issue.
thanks!
9 Replies
Please confirm that all of these devices are connected to the primary WiFi SSID, not the Guest SSID.
While most of the devices connected to my system respond to ICMP (ping), there are some that do not. (Amazon Echo Dot for one. a major surprise to me)
Does this happen to both satellites, or just one of them?
Is this system running firmware 12.1.3.11 ?
Thanks for responding. To answer your questions:
Guest turned off and not in use (although annoyingly it’s still being advertised - bug?)
the other satellite is hard wired - it wasn’t happening there, but that one has only got 5 devices on it. The satellite where I see this issue has 30+ and I can’t hardwire it.
latest firmware on all of them. 12.1.3.11
The clients are the type to drop / deprioritise icmp - it’s everything from lightbulbs to raspberry pi to esp32s.
What brand and model# are these devices that are on 2.4Ghz and on 5Ghz?
What channels are you using on the RBR?
If you turn OFF the RBS and connect these devices to the RBR, does same thing happens with the RBR only?
Have you put these devices in the IoT network to see if they can communicate between each other on this network?
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 wired or wirelessly connected.
https://kb.netgear.com/31029/Where-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite 🛰
Here's a practical example. The mac I'm typing on can't ping a tuya lightbulb joined to the same satellite on 2.4ghz. Yet the iphone next to me (joined to the same satellite on 2.4ghz) can ping it fine. The mac is on 5Ghz and can ping anything else on 5Ghz on the same satellite quite happily. It can also ping things on 2.4Ghz hosted on the router or another satellite just fine. I had a raspberry Pi join the 5Ghz on a satellite running some home automation - and of course everything failed as all the iot devices on the same satellite are on 2.4Ghz! (cleared mac arp cache of course, makes no difference).
House - 1500 sqft. Devices are less than 30 feet away from each other. Its an old brick-built house so not like foil from insulation is in the way, and Router connection to satellite says 'good'.
This isn't an issue on the router - pinging between bands works fine. So seems like a satellite firmware bug to me - i.e. looping back to a device on the same satellite but on a different band doesn't work, but I'm a sample-size of 1. Anyone else able to try it? Should be dead easy to prove.
Are all these on the main WLAN netowrk?
Have you put these devices in the IoT network to see if they can communicate between each other on this network?
I'll try this on a different Orbi BE system and see if I can. I recommend opening up a support ticket with NG on this as well.
Yes main wlan (IoT and Guest are switched off). I could open up the IoT and put something on it I guess, I'll come back to you on that!
have opened up a case with support and hope they are reading this thread since I sent it to them. The last advice from them I got was to hard-reset and then re-sync the satellite (ie set it up like it was brand new), which didn’t make any difference.
Thanks for testing, I'll be interested to see if it’s different on another model.
K, will check my system out. Let us know if IoT network changes anything.
So I put a couple of devices on the IoT ssid on the same satellite, checked they were on different bands, and found they could communicate fine, so it seems like the issue does not occur on the IoT SSID, only on the main SSID.
Ok checked my 770 series system. One RBS connected wirelessly to the RBR. Connected up a old ASUS RT-AC66U router in wireless bridge mode connected at 2.4Ghz. Placed the ASUS bridge near the RBS to ensure it connected there. Have on HP laptop connected ethernet to the back of the ASUS bridge. Getting a 192.168.1.110 IP address for the HP laptop. ASUS bridge is set to static IP address of 192.168.1.66. Both connected at the RBS. Have a Dell Desktop PC connected to the same RBS with a AX210 series wifi adapter connecting at 6Ghz here. Getting an IP address of 192.168.1.116 for the DELL PC. All connected to the main WLAN.
Ping is successful from the Dell PC to both the Asus bridge and HP laptop:
Ping from HP laptop connected behind the ASUS bridge is successful as well pinging the DELL PC on 6Ghz.
I'll see if I can get my 370 series online some time this week and check that one. Possible some odd issue with the 370 series.
I recommend that you start a debug log capture on the RBS and have your devices connected to the main WLAN and reproduce the problem. Save off afterwards for NG to review.
