Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
Reply

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

donawalt
Virtuoso

Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Hello, this has been an ongoing issue from time to time over the last 2 weeks. @FURRYe38 has been very helpful so far in helping me try some things. The original problem was my wife's iPhone SE appears to disconnect from the WiFi when sleep/do not disturb (DND) is on.

 

After some more testing, I have the following status/updates:

1. The problem does not happen every day. Sometimes it goes 2-3 days before it happens. Then, it seems ot happen more frequently.

2. I have the latest firmware, V3.2.16.6_1.4.4

3. I have removed, re-added, and sync'd both satellites. The RBR850 is in the basement, the RBS850's are on the first and second floor.

4. I have narrowed the issue down - it appears to happen now only when the iPhone is on the second floor, at the opposite end of the house from the RBS850 on that floor. That's about 45-50' apart I think. So today, I took my iPad, which has never had an issue, and put it in DND, asleep, and left it in the same place. BOOM! Same problem! So it's not the iPhone SE.

5. I started to think this is just a dead spot. But I quickly wake the iPad, and it appears to be on WiFi from looking at the icons at the top of the creen, which I can see immediately.

6. I ran Airport Utility, to scan and see what networks it can find. It sees my network on channel 11 - the 2.4 network - which makes sense as the 5GHz signal may not be good where this device is tucked away on the opposite side of the house. So it sees a good network why does it appear unconnected in the Orbi app and orbilogin.com? Is there a problem that the RBS will not connect a 5GHz device if 5GHz is not a good signal?

7. Just now, I powered off the RBS850 on the 2nd floor, powered it on - it came up and sync'd fine, blue light. I bet I won't see the problem for a couple of days now, we'll see.

 

What do you think, any ideas how to troubleshoot this further? I am trying to think of a way I can truly determine if the sleeping device is on WiFi or not. None of the device scanners will do I think, because I have been told by one of the utility authors that they build their list from an ARP command, which means the device WAS online in the last 5-10 minutes or so - it's not really ever a true snapshot of what's online *this instant*. I guess I could turn off cellular and ping the device?

 

So at this point I don't really know if the device is truly offline from WiFi or not. I suspect it is online, and this is some reporting problem. Any ideas on how to proceed? Thanks!

 

 

 

 

Message 1 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Message 2 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

OK, I'll try that - strange if it works! I'll report back in 3-4 days!

Message 3 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

@FURRYe38 , one night in with no problems after removing the satellite RBS850 from the bedroom 1!! I'll keep watching.

 

Please anyone with ideas -- in anticipation this works, the question becomes, do I need a second satellite? So I went around the house measuring RSSI and SNR today at the locations where people are likely to be using WiFi, and here is what I got:

 

Basement:

Desk next to router (RSSI:-37, SNR:57) EXCELLENT

TV room in basement (RSSI:-62, SNR:32) VERY GOOD

Basement office (RSSI:-62, SNR:32) VERY GOOD

 

1st floor:

Office/Desk near RBS8500 (RSSI:-45, SNR:48) EXCELLENT

Living room (RSSI:-71, SNR:24) OK/GOOD? What I read recommendation is SNR:25+

Kitchen (RSSI:-63, SNR:32) VERY GOOD

 

2nd Floor:

Bedroom 1 (RSSI-65, SNR:28) VERY GOOD

Bedroom 2 (RSSI:-69, SNR:26) VERY GOOD

Bedroom 2 (RSSI:-83, SNR:10) POOR/MARGINAL SIGNAL

 

The worst are living room/1st floor and bedroom2/2nd floor, both of which are in the front of the house. The router in the basement is near the front of the house, and the RBS850 is near the back of the house.

 

Are there any guidelines that might help me avoid the clashing of signals that may prove to be the cause of the WiFi disconnects? I know router and satellites should be at least 30 feet from router, it seems I should have the 2nd satellite somewhere to help in the living room and especially Bedroom 2. Assuming the disconnects go away from only having 1 satelllite, is there a way to know where to put the 2nd satellite, or just try it; or given my measurements would you not add the second satellite?

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

 

 

Message 4 of 19
Chuck_M
Mentor

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

One thing to consider:  There are known cases of Electro magnetic interference (EMI) due to unshielded (cheap) LED lights and other electronics...  That may only  be on at certain times/conditions.   Perhaps something like this is contributing to your issues.

 

Do you have any LED lights, ceiling fans, etc that may be on during failures?

Message 5 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Thanks @Chuck_M, nothing like that going on on the second floor. It’s pretty docile up there during the evenings. No TVs, or other electronica equipment on either.
Message 6 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Ok, I saw same experience after disabling my 2nd RBS while in the living room yesterday, not 1 disconnect with my mac book. I believe that the placement and distance will be key here. I presume that maybe 30 feet isn't far enough if two or more RBS are in play and depending on placement in the home, wifi singles may have much over lap even at 30 feet. Unfortuneatly I can't move my 2nd RBS out farther in the dining room area, I suppose I have a bit of room left to move the one in the basement. 

 

Something else to try, switch off the opposite RBS and turn on the one RBS you turned off and check operation. I might do this as well, See if my mac book does same thing. 

 

You can try maybe turning down the power out put of the RBR and see as well with both RBS online, I would set at 50% or 25% 

 

Possible that for the size of the home and building materials, having too many RBS maybe a problem if not placed out well in distance.Smiley Surprised


@donawalt wrote:

@FURRYe38 , one night in with no problems after removing the satellite RBS850 from the bedroom 1!! I'll keep watching.

 

Please anyone with ideas -- in anticipation this works, the question becomes, do I need a second satellite? So I went around the house measuring RSSI and SNR today at the locations where people are likely to be using WiFi, and here is what I got:

 

Basement:

Desk next to router (RSSI:-37, SNR:57) EXCELLENT

TV room in basement (RSSI:-62, SNR:32) VERY GOOD

Basement office (RSSI:-62, SNR:32) VERY GOOD

 

1st floor:

Office/Desk near RBS8500 (RSSI:-45, SNR:48) EXCELLENT

Living room (RSSI:-71, SNR:24) OK/GOOD? What I read recommendation is SNR:25+

Kitchen (RSSI:-63, SNR:32) VERY GOOD

 

2nd Floor:

Bedroom 1 (RSSI-65, SNR:28) VERY GOOD

Bedroom 2 (RSSI:-69, SNR:26) VERY GOOD

Bedroom 2 (RSSI:-83, SNR:10) POOR/MARGINAL SIGNAL

 

The worst are living room/1st floor and bedroom2/2nd floor, both of which are in the front of the house. The router in the basement is near the front of the house, and the RBS850 is near the back of the house.

 

Are there any guidelines that might help me avoid the clashing of signals that may prove to be the cause of the WiFi disconnects? I know router and satellites should be at least 30 feet from router, it seems I should have the 2nd satellite somewhere to help in the living room and especially Bedroom 2. Assuming the disconnects go away from only having 1 satelllite, is there a way to know where to put the 2nd satellite, or just try it; or given my measurements would you not add the second satellite?

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

 

 


 

Message 7 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

So I switched off my basement RBS and turned on the dining room RBS. Sitting here in the living room with my mac book has lost the connect a few times. So seems there is a placement and distance issue with my 2nd RBS and the RBR and wifi over lap. Something the mac book doesn't like. I'll need to do some re-arranging a bit I guess to help with this. For now I'll disable the RBS in the dinning room. Probably not really needed. Smiley Wink

Message 8 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Thanks! One question I have, does the 30 foot requirement mean just between router and satellite or does it also mean between two different satellites?
Message 9 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Also means between RBSs as well, 

Message 10 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system


@FURRYe38 wrote:

So I switched off my basement RBS and turned on the dining room RBS. Sitting here in the living room with my mac book has lost the connect a few times. So seems there is a placement and distance issue with my 2nd RBS and the RBR and wifi over lap. Something the mac book doesn't like. I'll need to do some re-arranging a bit I guess to help with this. For now I'll disable the RBS in the dinning room. Probably not really needed. Smiley Wink


Let us know if you do more work on a second satellite! I am not going to do anything with that until it's been 7 days without disconnects, that will prove that removing the 2nd satellite fixed it for me. That said, I am concerned about the weak signal in parts of the second floor, so I think I would probably like to try something.

Message 11 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Same here, I wanna see how my laptop does for a few days with just 1 RBS running. 

 

I try and figure what my next step is with the 2nd RBS. I play around with power ouput as well on the RBR. Smiley Wink

Message 12 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Thanks @FURRYe38 , let us know how it goes! Maybe a setting will help. For me, this is the second morning with 1 satellite, and the iPhone on the second floor is off the internet. I tried pinging it, and nothing. So I think it's really off, but in sleep mode. I am running out of ideas, I know now the signal is not great on the second floor, I will probably try and place the 2nd satellite somewhere else on the 2nd floor, but I am curious to see how your tests and findings go.

 

For me, it's always the second morning - things run great for about 36 hours and then it reverts back to dropping devices that move around the house. It's like the algorithm in the mesh is not quite working, and the device gets lost between radios or something, I don't know..

Message 13 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

UPDATE: I decided to add back in the 2nd Satellite on the second floor. I placed it a little closer to the door, same height, in BR 1 as before. I figure, if I am going to get periodic disconnects, I might as well get excellent signal on the second floor. I think I have a pretty good setup: Router is near NW corner of the house in basement; satellite 1 is NE corner on 1st floor; satellite 2 is South edge on 2nd floor. Pretty spread out! All lights are blue on sync.

 

I hope some of @FURRYe38's testing, or anyone else, might find a tweak to improve this, like power or something. I really think there is an issue in the mesh somehow, what I did this morning was set up the 2nd satellite RBS, use my Macbook to measure RSSI and Noise (thereby calculating signal-noise ratio, SNR), then use my iPad to measure speeds. Things got a lot better of course, yet it never did show the iPad connected to the 2nd floor satellite as reported by the Orbi app. And, at one point, the Macbook was showing SNR of 52 consistently, yet the Orbi showed the laptop was connected to the Router in the basement! No way. Eventually it showed the MAcbook connected to the 2nd floor satellite, but maybe 5-10 minutes later.

 

Maybe Netgear folks will see this thread and/or already know their mesh algorithms need some more tweaking, or maybe it's just an app bug in reporting connections, who knows what radio the devices are truly connected to! 

 

Results: (before: 1 satellite on 2nd floor, router in basement; after: adding 2nd floor satelllite. Measuring Ookla d/l speeds.

 

BR1 - 28 SNR before, 52 SNR after; 130 Mbps d/l before, 655 Mbps after

 

BR 2 - 26 SNR before, 29-30 SNR after; 80 Mbps d/l before, 458 d/l after

 

BR 3 - 10 SNR before, 36 SNR after; 45 Mbps d/l before, 545 Mbps after

 

Living Room 1st floor (did not measure SNR) - 195 mbps before, 465 mbps after

 

(Note: I found that closing doors of rooms didn't change any of the test results at all! Good to know, and consistent with what we have been told that usually only things like metal and concrete stop the signal).

Message 14 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Please pass all this on to NG support. This needs to be reviewed by them. If your still having problems with just 1 RBS in play, this should be working with two. There maybe sometihng going on with iOS and FW as well. 

Message 15 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

PROBLEM SOLVED!

 

Sorry for all the analysis, but this problem really piqued my curiosity!

 

This is working as designed. After reading a lot of material, the key was this - The WiFi Multimedia Extensions that the Orbi supports (and is configurable on/off - see Advanced/Advanced/Wireless Settings, "Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings" for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) ALSO includes a special kind of POWER SAVING mode now!

 

From Netgear's own site:

"The Wi-Fi Alliance has added Power Save Certification to the WMM specification.  Power Save uses mechanisms from 802.11e and legacy 802.11,to save power (for battery powered equipment) and fine-tune power consumption. This feature of WMM to save power might cause disconnects under certain conditions."

 

This quote derives from a brief explanation from Wi-Fi Alliance's own web site.

 

I suspect that this requires cooperation/certification from both the router and the device. This is because the certification provides an indication that the certified product is targeted for power critical applications like Mobile/Smart Phones and portable power devices, i.e. devices that require battery/recharging. I doubt you will see this on networks with older routers, which is why this is new to me since my prior router was a ~2005 era Google WiFi.

 

So my working theory was the iPhone goes into a hibernate mode yet is still listening for WiFi data based on WMM. My wife gets very few emails or anything else that sends notifications. So her iPhone is the device that this happens to a lot - whereas my iPhone gets a lot of notifications, emails etc. during the day, plus as soon as I pick it up in the morning to look at it, it's not sleeping any more so quikly out of hibernate/WMM. Her phone needs the Home button to be pressed to light it up, so she could wake up, eventually carry the phne downstairs, and leave it on a table for an hour before checking it - all the while it's remained in WMM/hibernate.

 

Now I had to test it - I waited for the orbilogin.com to report my wife's phone is not on the network. Once that happened (it was sitting on a table on the 1st floor, which does have very good WiFi signal), I stood next to it, sent my wife's phone a text message, and it lit up right away with the text notification, PLUS I could see clearly it was on WiFi. When I have looked at this in the past, I would just pick up the phone, press the Home button, and it very briefly had the cellular icon before it quickly switched to the WiFi icon. So today, I ras soon as I saw the text message come in, I quickly refreshed orbilogin.com's device list, and her phone was 'active'!

 

So I think that proves my theory. I guess, to be 100% sure, (or if anybody else wants to try this), I would do 2 more things:

1) Turn off cellular, so in the test it only gets the Text Message if WiFi is active. (Of course, I don't know if the WMM/hibernate still happens if there is no cellular service; does that force the phone to rely more on WiFi?). I really do believe it was on WiFi and not on cellular however, from visual inspection.

2) Go into orbilogin.com, and turn off Advanced/Advanced/Wireless Settings, "Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings" for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz). My theory is that the 'disconnects' or more accurately stated, the WMM/Power saving would no longer occur on any device you are having the issue with.

 

Cased closed as far as I am concerned! What do you think? 😎

 

 

Message 16 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

So did you have WMM enabled before or disabled. I believe by WMM is enabled by default. So it's enabled now and things are now working as expected? 

Message 17 of 19
donawalt
Virtuoso

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

@FURRYe38 I do have WMM enabled, and I have never turned it off. I am comfortable leaving it on once I knew that the behavior was correct, even though it appears the iPhone disconnects from WiFi- it actually hasn't. I guess if someone didn't want to see that happen, they could try turning WMM off.

Message 18 of 19
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Ongoing: devices that do not show as connected to WiFi on RBR850 system

Ok, just checking to see what you have been using. 

 

Seems like that maybe a iOS and intereaction with Orbi then. You seem to have been the one that posted about this. I haven't see anything from what I have experienced. Thought I do have a older iPhone. Smiley Wink

Message 19 of 19
Top Contributors
Discussion stats
  • 18 replies
  • 1417 views
  • 0 kudos
  • 3 in conversation
Announcements

Orbi WiFi 7