Cannot connect RBS850 and RBS750 satellites to RBR850 as soon as I put it in AP mode

[bhsharp]

Wow, even entering this question felt like navigating a maze - the "model #" dropdown doesn't have any of the literal model#s like RBR850 or anything, you have to figure out that they want you to enter "RBR50" because the 8 is the version... man, starting to question my decision to go with Netgear. Anyway:

I think this is super simple but it just isn't working:

I have an RBR850 router and one RBS850 satellite and an RBS750 satellite. I had them set up with the RBR850 as a router and the two connected as satellites and everything was fine. But the router is on the end of a long cat5e cable coming from my building garage, and we put another router (old google wifi) in the middle so we could have wifi down there. Everything still worked fine with the Orbi router taking the Cat5e from the google router into its WAN port.

Then I decided I wanted to let devices in my apartment see devices in the garage (I have a 3d printer down there I need to directly connect to from the apartment.) So I went to convert the setup into LAN-to-LAN, in the following way:

I moved the ethernet cable from the WAN/Internet port of my Orbi router to one of the LAN ports.

I went into the setup and switched the Orbi router to behave as an access point.

I set its IP address to be static and picked a value outside the google router's DHCP range.

I set its DNS and gateway to be the IP of the google router.

All good so far! Internet works if I connect directly to the router, and I can see devices in the garage network from my apartment now.

Except the satellites won't connect to the router anymore. No matter what I do - I've held the Reset button down for 15+ seconds on the router and both satellites. I have them physically right next to the router and hardwired via ethernet directly into the router's free LAN ports.

It's sort of spastic - I can sometimes get them to flash blue after a while when they're hardwired in, but the router diagnostics still only shows me one of them connected even when both flash blue (it never thinks the RBS750 is attached.) And then after a while they usually disconnect anyway.

Is it just not possible to connect satellites when the router is in AP mode?? Or am I doing something really obvious wrong?

Thanks for any help!!

[bhsharp]

Also, to add: The setup for adding satellites says to plug them in and "wait two minutes until the light is solid white." That never happens; the light flashes white forever, or sometimes after many minutes turns magenta.

After factory resets this is super weird to me - these things aren't behaving even remotely like what the UI says they should.

Also, how on earth is it possible they can't pair to the router when they're 6 inches away and hardwired to it via Ethernet?

[bhsharp]

I'm seeing other questions on here from people having the same problem (can't connect satellites when router is in AP mode) and some answers from people saying "try X it should work just fine" but ... nobody actually coming back and saying they got it working.

I have now tried for hours, factory resets, deleting the satellites from the router list over and over, hardwiring them, putting them right next to the router, putting them further away, plugging in only one at a time, and so on.

At some point it's hard to miss that if you go through the normal wizard path of "internet plugged into WAN port, everything exactly as Netgear expects" it just works, trivially, everything connects instantaneously, etc.

And if you try to do anything else, it lets you attempt to connect satellites when the router is in AP mode but the interface lags, satellite lights don't flash the way the UI says they should, nothing ever actually works.

I'm starting to realize the Orbi system is just built to work in exactly one way and if I want anything but the super vanilla home network I probably need to do Ubiquiti or Unifi or something that isn't optimized for one simple home use case. 😞

[Lazza17]

Hi. What are you using as the router? Why not set the RBR850 as the router and set you peripherals as APs?

[W1lliam]

You will need to keep that Ethernet for RBR850 on its WAN/Internet port (even when RBR850 is configured as AP mode) so connected Satellites can access to Internet via RBR850.

[bhsharp]

If I connect the incoming internet to the WAN port, won't the RBR850 create its own subnet?

I specifically want to use the RBR850 and satellites to *extend* an existing LAN so that devices connected to the upstream router and devices connected to the orbi satellite can all see each other directly.

[bhsharp]

So my setup is this: My fiber comes into my garage, which is on the ground floor, 60 feet (and a lot of walls and metal) below my home. The orbi router + satellites cover my home very well. But I've built a small shop in the garage and now have some devices down there that I want both online & visible to the devices in my home. For example, I have a 3d printer in the garage and I want to be able to send print jobs to it from my laptop in my home, and they need to be on the same LAN for that.

I have another router, so I wanted to put that router in the garage, and then run ethernet straight from that router to the orbi router and set the orbi router up as an AP off the main router.

I could move the orbi router to the garage but then the two satellites I have wouldn't be enough to cover my whole home. And of course I could buy more satellites, but orbi wifi6 satellites are expensive! And I already have this other router... and it seems like there's no theoretical reason why it shouldn't work to just chain the orbi router off the other (asus) router and set it as an AP to extend the same LAN.

I just don't understand why Orbi satellites won't connect to an Orbi router when you set it to AP mode...

[W1lliam]

once RBR850 is configured as AP mode, it stays on the same network as your main router, RBR850 no longer providing DHCP service in that case.

[bhsharp]

Good to know - but regardless of where I plugged the incoming ethernet cable into, once I put the router in AP mode, I couldn't get the satellites to connect to it at all. Even with no internet connection plugged into it at all. It just seems like when the router is in AP mode, satellites don't connect to it at all.

[W1lliam]

my configuration is similar to yours, here is what I did for my network

Connecting RBR850 (need to be on AP mode of course) WAN port to the main Router (am using Asus AX11000), so RBR850 will be getting IP address from AX11000.

RBS850/RBS750 was connected to RBR850's LAN port to be synced before moving toward planned location, either wire or wireless.

Once Satellites are syned with RBR850, then put them into planned location. It's better on LOS (Line Of Sight) location to minimize the impact of RF signal between RBR850 and Satellites.

All the devices, regardless if they are connected with RBR850 or RBS850/RBS750, will be seeing each others as on same network.

If you have any devices connected to Ethernet port of the main Router, should be seen from the devices on Orbi system as well. 

[FURRYe38]

Regardless of router or AP mode, the WAN port on the RBR needs to be connected using the WAN port. 

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@bhsharp wrote:

Good to know - but regardless of where I plugged the incoming ethernet cable into, once I put the router in AP mode, I couldn't get the satellites to connect to it at all. Even with no internet connection plugged into it at all. It just seems like when the router is in AP mode, satellites don't connect to it at all.

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[Lazza17]

I have my modem on the south side of the house. I the Rbr is 30 feet away in the center on the house hardwired of course. North and West I have the rbs satellites wireless connected to the rbr. I have a cable from the rbr back to the Southside in the room where the modem is and there I have an old netgear r7000p as an access point. Can you set up something like this....? I am thinking the Asus in the garage as the access point? I understand that you want all on the same visible network and that appears to be the thing that makes it difficult to just set Netgear to router mode since the Asus is now the primary.