Firmware 12.1.11.10 iPhone disconnects

What iOS is on the iPhone? 

How was the system updated? Manually or Automatic Update?

Is IPv6 enabled on the RBR? 

What channels are you using? I've been using 1 and 40 and now 11 and 48. No issues seen with my iPhone keeping connected to the RBR. Im now using a 3rd party IPv6 service since my ISP doesn't support native IPv6. Been working good so far. 

iOS 26.6 on an iPhone 17 Pro

I updated via the app and it seemed to go smoothly - all the devices showed the correct FW.  I have made no changes to the setup other than that update.

IPv6 is on the router.  Channels are 11 and 36.

I have the IoT set to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WPA2-PSK and my phone is happy with that and connects OK.

It's the main network that is flakey using WPA3-Personal.  For example, right now my phone shows it as connected to the SSID, but the WIFI status at the top of the phone shows no network, only LTE.  Yet, my iPad sitting next to the phone is connected to the same main SSID and has no problems.  The phone is apparently connected to the router and the iPad to one of the satellites if the connection information is correct.

So, the phone can connect to the SSID but then acts like it has no WIFI even though is shows as connected to the SSID.  Power cycling the phone does no good. Rebooting the router fixes it for a while and then the problem recurs. Or, toggling OFF Wi-Fi 6E Mode on the iPhone - not what I want to do.  Or sometimes doing nothing but toggling between the two SSIDs (main and IoT) fixes it for a while.  I'd say it's random, but that just means I don't know what is causing it yet, so it seems random.

I have not had time to do much troubleshooting and am not sure where to look, other than going back to the previous firmware that had been fine.

I will give each of these a try, one at a time, and see if anything improves over the next few days...

Starting with mixed WPA2 and WPA3

Interesting results so far...

so far, no more disconnects on the iPhone 17 Pro after enabling WPA2 and WPA3 on the WiFi 7 main SSID.  It's only been 24 hours but looks promising.  But why? And why did I choose that as my first thing to try?  Gut feeling?  But I'd been using WPA3 only on that SSID for months with the previous firmware and possibly longer - no idea how long, really.  I'll give it a few more days, and if solid, will flip it back to verify.

Thought that was going to be the solution - guess not :(

Not sure which to try next...channels or IPV6... not optimistic about either.

trying ch 11 & 40 - I have a tool that shows the most open space and those should be good, although no reason the existing 11 & 36 would be bad either - both combinations look wide open.

if this doesn't help, and I can't imagine a good reason that it will, I'll try the IPV6 thing next...

Nothing I have tried works.  And I am not disabling IPv6.  I'm not doing that just because the iPhone disconnects.  What I'd like to do is roll back to version 9.13.2.1 which was working fine...

but when I try on one of the Sats, I get this: Firmware Downgrade Not Allowed

Should I start with the Router and then do the Sats?  Do I have to reset the entire system back to factory or will that just wipe it and still be on the new firmware?

I'm seriously about done with Orbi - this was a huge problem a while back and I thought they had fixed it - and they more or less had fixed it but now broken again and as bad as ever with these latest "12" series updates.

BullMoon​ as FURRYe38​ indicated, Netgear has said to disable IPv6 for now. There are issues on the Apple side with WiFi 6E and 7, as well as the Orbi router side. we've seen improvement with both FW updates and Apple iOS updates over the last 18 months. I have been working/testing directly with QA and Engineering on discovering and documenting issues in the past. FWIW, I can't get an iPhone 16 Pro Max to last 3 days on IPv6. Since I disabled IPv6, the iPhone has stayed connected for many weeks.

What specifically do you have that requires IPv6 right now? I am curious - I did some research on this a while ago in the midst of an IPv6 test session, and here was my list:

- Apple devices — Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, HomePods, etc. do not require ISP/router to provide IPv6 Internet access. Apple software supports and often prefers IPv6 when available, but normal Internet services work over IPv4.

- Smart-home/IoT gear — Ring, Nest, Alexa/Echo, smart TVs, Roku, game consoles, printers, cameras, etc. generally do not require IPv6 Internet access.

- Streaming — Netflix, YouTube/YouTube TV, Disney+, ESPN, Peacock, Prime Video, Paramount+, etc. all work over IPv4.

- Gaming — PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Steam, etc. don’t require IPv6. Xbox in particular can benefit from IPv6 in some networking situations, but it isn’t mandatory.

- Matter is the big apparent exception—but not really. Matter uses IPv6 internally as part of its networking architecture. Thread also relies heavily on IPv6. But that does not mean you need IPv6 enabled on your router’s WAN/Internet connection. A Matter/Thread network can use IPv6 locally while your Internet connection remains IPv4-only.

- Some carrier/mobile technologies can operate on IPv6-only networks using translation mechanisms such as NAT64/DNS64/464XLAT. That’s an infrastructure issue rather than a requirement that your home LAN have native IPv6.

You can try a simple test like that or go thru the time and expense to move to a new network - seems like a simple fix if it works.

I tried disabling IPv6 on the router for the heck of it.  Then the connection appears connected in the iPhone WiFi dialog - it literally shows the SSID with a check by it as if it were connected, but the icon for WiFi in the upper right corner never comes up and there is NO network connection, just cellular LTE.

Toggling IPv6 on / off on the router enables / disables the network connection on the phone almost immediately.  With IPv6 disabled, only the IoT network works.  The Main SSID will not connect at all.  With IPV6 enabled, the Main SSID connection gets dropped, but if I toggle the Wi-Fi on/off on the phone, eventually it reconnects.  So, there's definitely a connection stability issue with IPV6, but there's a different problem that's more basic when using a Manually configured IPV4 address on the iPhone...or iPad too as it turns out.

And I have finally managed to replicate the problem on my iPad:

Configuring a manual IPV4 address on either device breaks the MAIN SSID connection.  If iPv6 is enabled, it may still work - or randomly appear to be disconnected.  If IPV6 is disabled, it will not work at all.  The very same manual IPV4 addresses work fine on the IoT network.  If I set either device to config the IPV4 address automatically, then either SSID appears to work - also apparently masking the random IPV6 disconnects which I assume is some other bug/issue that is unrelated to the Manual IPV4 problem.

This is 100% repeatable here - I can toggle any of these settings and get immediate replication of the bug:

• Manual IPV4 Address with IPV6 disabled, Main SSID - no network, IoT no problem
• Manual IPV4 Address with IPV6 enabled, Main SSID works intermittently over IPV6.  IoT, no problems.
• Auto IPV4 Address - Main SSID works fine over IPV4 and likely intermittently over IPV6.  IoT, no problems.

In short, Manually configured IPV4 address seem to be broken on the Main SSID.

Is this "Manually Configured IPV4 address" issue a known problem perhaps, or do I need to embark on a support call?

Well we know IPv6 has issues so not focused on that at the moment. What really troubles me is that IPv4 with a manual IP is not working.

Oh WAIT!!! Are you using a manual or automatic config for DNS? I remember a bug, if you set up manual IP address, you MUST MUST MUST have a manual DNS configured - manual IP and automatic DNS will not work!

Is that what you have that won't work with IPv4 by any chance?