Numerous brief losses of connection with RBK760 mesh system

[jeffreywilens]

Got RBK760 system (router and 3 satellites) on Black Friday.  Installed with assistance of technical support and nothing but trouble since.  I noticed web pages were slow to load, zoom kept reporting poor connection and dropped the connection during the meeting.  Downloaded Net Uptime Monitor (NUM) which pings 3 popular servers every designated number of seconds and if pings don't respond with 200ms (or a designated time) reports a connectivity failure.

3 desktop computers are connected by ethernet (one directly to the router and the other two to a switch).  NUM reported 50 or more failures in 3 hours.  Ran the system for 2 days with multiple calls to technical support who made various suggestions:  power cycle, update firmware manually, turn off DOS attack protection, turn it on, change MTU setting, etc.  Nothing works.

Note that wifi devices also suffered loss of connection as well but seemed more stable somehow.  

Cables swapped around and replaced with new cables.

Finally I temporarily switched to a $50 Linksys router.  In 24 hours, there were a few connection failures and those were only for 5 seconds or so.  With the Orbi mesh system, there would be hundreds.

I opened a ticket but waiting for someone to call me back or email me about this problem.

The system did dramatically improve my wi-fi range and speed in remote areas of the house (over 5,000 square feet) and devices outside as well, so a single router is not a solution either except temporarily.

Any ideas what could be the problem.  It seems to me either the router is defective somehow or is not working well with my Spectrum Time Warner 1 GB cable modem for some reason that does not apply to other routers I have had in the past.

[FURRYe38]

What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?
Be sure your using a good quality LAN cable between the modem and router. CAT6 is recommended. 

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 wirelessly connected.
https://kb.netgear.com/31029/Where-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite 📡

What channels are you using? Auto? Try Auto and 48 on 5Ghz. Or try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and 40 to 48 channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?

Is Armor, Smart Parental Controls or Traffic Meter enabled.

[jeffreywilens]

I have the absolute latest firmware (not in front of the unit right now) because I manually downloaded it from the support website with tech support help.

I only know the brand of Spectrum's modem which is Hitron.  The one that supports 1 GB speed.

I have tried multiple cables including a new one and that is not the issue.

The router is about 30 feet to the nearest satellite but that is through a floor and wall.  Other satellites are similarly positioned.  I am not sure that is relevant because failure is occurring on LAN connected desktop computers.

I did try various channels at direction of tech support, but again how is that relevant since LAN connected desktop computers are affected.

Again, my $50 backup router is not having these problems and it uses the same cables, is subject to the same neighbor wi-fi signals, etc.

No armor, smart parent controls, or traffic meter.

I did search this forum and there was one discussion about DOS attack protection somehow causing the interruptions of internet service through false alarms, however after I turned off the protection (not just the logging but the protection) at tech support suggestion, there was no improvement.

I signed up for the "plus support" at extra charge and will continue to press Netgear to fix the problem or send me a new router.  But i thought someone here might have experienced the same problem in the past.

[FURRYe38]

Is there a model # seen for the Hitron modem please? 

Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?

What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?

Is Armor, Smart Parental Controls or Traffic Meter enabled.

Please try a factory reset and setup from scratch with the RBR and RBS.
Power OFF The ISP Modem as well for 30 seconds then back on. Walk thru the setup wizard and be sure to write down all important information. Be sure not to enable Armor, Circle, Access Controls, QoS or Traffic Meter on the RBR. 

Then set wifi channels to 1 and 40. 

Set the RBR default DHCP IP address pool range to the following after applying and a factory reset: 192.168.#.100 to 192.168.#.200.

Enable SIP ALG as well. 

Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. v\Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

[jeffreywilens]

Is there a model # seen for the Hitron modem please?  EN2251  (I have found some online complaints about this modem but they date back a couple years)

Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?  Lots, at least two separate networks from neighbors including another Orbi.

What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?  5000

Is Armor, Smart Parental Controls or Traffic Meter enabled.  No.  

After getting back from vacation, I gave it another try with technical support but they ultimately just told me to request a replacement router.  Apparently it went beyond their script.

The router and satellites are functional in part.  I can get great speed although sometimes my phone next to a satellite might say data link is only 6 Mbps but then later it will be over 200 Mbps.  That's on the Orbi app, which may or may not be accurate because even if it says data link is only 6Mbps, speedtest shows over 100 Mbps download.  I also got some error messages trying to log in with some devices (such as a Tesla) "Unable to obtain IP address. Please check DHCP Server Settings."

Regarding some of your suggestions,

There was a button to disable SIP ALG, but I left it enabled.

I don't see a DHCP address pool, but it is set to get Internet IP address dynamically from ISP.

There is a button to Enable 20/40 MHz Coexistence, but nothing to specify 40 Mhz only.  (there are preamble modes)

I tried channels at 1 and 40 but 11 and 40 were slightly less crowded.

Firmware is set at v6.3.6.4_1.2.68 for the RBR 760 router and V6.3.6.4 for the RBS 760 satellites

The biggest problem remains numerous losses of connection.  Most of the time, the loss is only noticeable if I was trying to load a page, streaming video or because I am running Net Uptime Monitor.  For example, between 12 noon and 11 pm, my desktop computer had 46 logged "fails" meaning ping tests failed 3 servers for anywhere between 5 seconds and 4.5 minutes.  That's not counting when I intentionally took it offline while rebooting etc.  During the longer disconnections the Windows 10 network symbol turned to "globe" meaning offline, but the other times Windows 10 did not recognize the interruption although you could notice it if you were browsing, streaming, etc.  I suspect online gaming would be completely disrupted.

Summary:  There are some issues with the mesh network but maybe those can be worked with, but there's something wrong with the router itself in terms of losing connectivity.  (or the ISP Spectrum Time Warner is to blame but they say their equipment and service is fine)  While I am waiting for a replacement Orbi router, I will try out the Spectrum router they have now provided me.

[jeffreywilens]

Also here's another bit of information, I ran a command  ping -n 50 www.orbilogin.com

Pinging www.orbilogin.com [192.168.1.1] with 32 bytes of data
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=72ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Request timed out.

[then it kept going for the rest]

As you can see, I got two time out messages and another got stuck for 72ms. I ran another 50 and got a couple time out and an 80ms 

I then ran a similar ping test for my IP address provided by the ISP and got 7 time out out of 50 attempts

This does not seem acceptable to me.