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jfoxny's avatar
jfoxny
Tutor
Apr 06, 2021
Solved

Orbi connection drops when renaming the 2.4GHz SSID

I have the Orbi RBR50, RBS50 and two RBW30s for a 4000sqft house plus two car garage. I recently updated them all to their latest respective firmware as of 4/6/2020. Previously I had setup separate SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands to support many iOT devices by setting the wl_ssid config parameter via telnet. After updating the firmware the SSIDs were unified again, ie, the same SSID was used for both wl_ssid and wla_ssid. So, I separated them again but now any device that connects is dropped after a few minutes or less. If I unify the SSIDs, connections become stable again but of course many iOT devices will no longer connect. Any help would be much appreciated.
  • jfoxny's avatar
    jfoxny
    Apr 08, 2021

    I found a simple workaround in this post. Essentially you leave the SSIDs unified but stop broadcasting the 5GHz SSID while connecting IoT devices which only support 2.4GHz. Tried it with one of the problematic devices and it worked. Going to move on to the others next. 

2 Replies

  • jfoxny's avatar
    jfoxny
    Tutor
    Apr 06, 2021
    Firmware versions:
    * RBR50/RBS50: v2.7.2.104
    * RBW30: v2.6.2.2

    Also note: I installed a WiFi signal monitor and let it run overnight after I separated the SSIDs. What I found was that the computer would roam from the router (RBR50) to the satellite (RBS50) every few minutes staying on the 5GHz band.
  • jfoxny's avatar
    jfoxny
    Tutor
    Apr 08, 2021

    I found a simple workaround in this post. Essentially you leave the SSIDs unified but stop broadcasting the 5GHz SSID while connecting IoT devices which only support 2.4GHz. Tried it with one of the problematic devices and it worked. Going to move on to the others next.