Ok, so we face two or two potential "issues":

Under some conditions (cause still unknown), not all Netgear Plus switches (GS108E, GS305E in your example can be discovered successfully by the Netgear Discovery Utility

Ok, I guess I’m not all that worried about it then, since as I stated I know my design is working as intended. It’s just a little frustrating that if I ever want to modify the ports/VLANs I already have setup, I need to do a factory reset and do a complete new setup on that swith

Some routers tend to "forget", marking devices "Offline" after some time once these are no longer talking to the router (IP-wise) or to the Internet.

Interesting, as this seems to be what’s happening. I’m running PFSense on Protectli Vault FW4B - 4 Port, Firewall Micro Appliance/Mini PC - Intel Quad Core (Celeron J3160), AES-NI, Barebone as described on geekpub’s website here: https://www.thegeekpub.com/14863/the-best-pfsense-box/

I’m sure what’s happening with the switches showing offline is as you described.

The first cause is still unclear to me. This "99" network looks like the typical flat (untagged) IP address network Ubiquity does use since there is a Unify controller and there are several AP

If memory serves, this is exactly why I have the 99 network. I was following along on some suggested Ubiquity setup process. The idea is that the 99 network carries all the data for my network and then I have a smart switch that segregates that info to the appropriate ports. So my IP Camera data travels from the cameras to say port 5 of my switch, then it travels via the 99 network to my PFSense box and gets segregated there to the appropriate location on my network to my desktop running my IP Camera software.

Do these Netgear switches in question operating on locally configured static addresses or operating on DHCP with reserved IP addresses on the router?

The setup on the switch itself is DHCP, but I have them all assigned on my PFsense box as static IP’s.

Depending on the traffic on the network, I know the simple IP stack and Web UI isn't the most reliable thing on earth, a simple cold reboot (power reboot) does commonly recover very quickly.

It didn't work for me when I attempted this previously.

Regarding to the GS108Ev3 (and the Discovery Utility): According to GS108Ev3 Firmware Version 2.06,24 release notes, I take it the legacy discovery, using the legacy [Wikipedia] Netgear Switch Discovery Protocol (NSDP) was probably substituted by the more industry standard [Wikipedia] Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) or a combination of both. The legacy Plus Utility can continue to be used for these switches as it was desperately wanted by some users again, despite the known huge security vulnerabilities - with the recent Plus switch updates, the NSDP usage for config features was disabled, the discovery part remains active.

I will look into this.

Overall, I really can’t thank you enough for taking the time to read and respond to this. As I said, I’m a novice, but I enjoy learning more about this stuff and seeing if I need to take any action on my current setup.

THANKS!!!

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