RBR and RBS reboot under Load

[Cyv]

Hi folks,

I just got my RBK853 which replaces my 763s. and updated it to the newest firmware V7.2.6.21.

To verify that it is faster than my old system I use iperf to measure the speed of wifi.

First I connected to the RBR and startet iperf for 60 seconds and after some time I lost conneciton to the wifi and saw the RBR flashing white light. It recovered very fast, but this problem can be reproducted.

Same with the Satellites, if I test the maximum speed they just reboot after some seconds. 

Any suggestions?

[FURRYe38]

Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update?

Is Armor or traffic meter been ever enabled on the RBR thru the Orbi app? 

Does the system work under normal load on the home network? 

[CrimpOn]

Assume two devices are running iperf3 ?

https://iperf.fr 

What are they?

I've used iperf3 on my ancient RBR50 system many times, with no problem.  (Do not have an 850 to test against.)

[Cyv]

It‘s in AP-Mode and no security or speedmeter active.
The whole system was never configured before. Its brand new. I see no need for a factory reset, it just came from the factory…


I use iperf2 or iperf3 from my mac. Server is my router/modem. It has an option for that. Its cpu should be the bottleneck, not the wifi. But I also tested with 2 macbooks.
The orbis just reboot when I testing max speed.

On normal workload I just saw one satellite rebooting by accident. The 850series is very fast at reconnecting. 750/760 were acting up more. Further strange is, that I see my guest- and IoT-Network while the rbr is booting. Bith is not configured… after a while both disappear.

[CrimpOn]

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@Cyv wrote:
 Server is my router/modem. It has an option for that.

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Wow. A modem/router that includes iperf3?  Can you share the brand/model ?

[Cyv]

It's from a manufacterer in germany, it's called avm.

All their routers have an iperf-Option, which needs to be activated.

I use an "Fritzbox 7490" which is now 10 years old... 

[Cyv]

Um potentielle Fehler auszuräumen habe ich mir es angetan einen Factory-Reset zu machen, 90 Minuten später steht das System wieder stabil, obwohl die Firmware weitere Bugs gezeigt hat.

1. Der Factory-Reset auf dem RBR musste 2x inkl Powercycle durchgeführt werden, bis er nicht wirklich alles vergessen hat.

2. Nach der Konfiguration in den AP-Mode waren ebenfalls 2 Powercycles notwendig, da der RBR nur APIPA-Adressen verteilt hat und den Link zur Fritzbox ignoriert hat.

3. Nach dem erstmaligen Verbinden der Satelliten, blinken diese munter weiter in weiß, obwohl die Einrichtung abgeschlossen ist und bereits Verbindungen usw aufgebaut werden. Eigentlich müssten diese 3 Minuten blaues Licht zeigen, aber sie blinken einfach weiter in weiß... Im GUI werden sie mit guter Signalstärke und 5GHZ angezeigt.

Einen weiteren PowerCycle später war das Problem dann auch behoben.

Geändert an diesem Problem hat es nichts.

[FURRYe38]

Englisch Bitte

[Cyv]

There are 2 scenarios here:
1: I reproduce the error while I am in the Wifi of the RBR itself:
The entire network including backhaul collapses, all satellites flash white and reconnect. The router restarts the wifi without an optical signal.
2: I reproduce the error while I am in the Wifi of a satellite:
The satellite's wifi breaks down, the backhaul for all satellites is gone and all devices in range switch to RBR. The backhaul syncs again.

Debug-Page doesn't change in that time. All the Orbi-Stuff stopps being responsive in any kind. It reboots in the next 20-30 seconds.

[F_V]

I know this doesn't really answer your question but just to add a little info, these RBSs and RBR exhibit strange behavior.  I can also collapse my connection by saturating the bandwidth, and if I use my LAN portscanning app (which also saturates things) just the portscanning alone will cause the RBSs to completely disconnect.  Also blocking ICMP will cause constant reboots.

[FURRYe38]

Can you test this under load while the RBR is in router mode? 

If you can do this, please enable debug logging on the RBR and RBS with WAN/LAN capture and start debug when reboot option, then run the test for a short period, maybe stop the test before you think the system is going to crash. Then save off the debug logs from the RBR and RBS. Then enable logs again and run the test and when the system crashes, see if you can capture the logs, if not, reboot and after it's back to ready, capture logs. 

Where do you have iPerf installed on the test PC? Mac or Windows?
Is iPerf Test PC wireless or wire connected to the RBR when running the iPerf test? 

I'll be looking into this this coming weekend, barring anything else happening. Supposed to snow here all this weekend so would be a good time to take a look.

Any configuration and setup details you can post, please do.

[CrimpOn]

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@F_V wrote:

 Also blocking ICMP will cause constant reboots.

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This sort of makes sense.  Orbi units most likely use ICMP to determine if they are "connected".  No ICMP means no connection.  Time to reboot.

There is a similar behavior on the web interface Home Screen. Open the page, and the top left "Internet" Box will say, "waiting".  Then in a few seconds will change to "Good".  What can it be waiting for? The Ethernet cable to the modem is connected.  My guess is that the router attempts to connect to some specific internet resource.  If it can connect, "Internet" is Good.

[F_V]

It does make sense, "sort of."  I have been blocking ICMP traffic on my LAN for quite some time, and this is the first mesh device that I've owned that would literally boot loop until I unblocked it.  No matter, ICMP is small potatoes traffic, but I am sure this has caused others some others heartburn as they didn't know about this behavior.

[FURRYe38]

Will need to find out if @Cyv is blocking anything or not. 

I know that v4 FW, Armor was a problem for some users that if enabled, would crash the system when downloading large sizes files and such. Was fixed in beta FW and I haven't seen this problem since. 

@F_V can you run some iPerf testing on your system and see if you can reproduce anything. If you can run normally and with out blocking anything and be sure Armor, Access Controls and Traffic Meter and SPC are not enabled. IF you can. 

Would like to see both wired and wireless testing if possible. I don't have a router or modem that has any iPerf support so I'd have to setup a 2nd PC to test with which I have. I haven't done any performance testing in a long while. 

[F_V]

I ran iperf between a host (server) and my gateway device (client) which has iperf installed as well.  Ran it about 5 times, both connected to RBR via wifi and wired using the RBS backhaul, connection was stable for all runs.  Are you specifying any non-default parameters in iperf? 

[FURRYe38]

I saw @Cyv posted this morning and I see it got mis-removed. Having NG check the the issue. 

[Cyv]

Yes, where is my post?

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WiFi-6-AX-and-WiFi-6E-AXE/RBK853-bootet-unter-Last/m-p/2347519...

[FURRYe38]

We don't know what happened. Please post it again. 

Also posted here:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WiFi-6-AX-and-WiFi-6E-AXE/RBK853-bootet-unter-Last/m-p/2347519...

[FURRYe38]

Any updates on this? Any feedback from NG since you posted in the German forum from that Moderator? 

[Cyv]

Nothing new, just time-wasting with the support which gives me monkey-work like uploading the receipt. 

They would better invest the time working on the problem. The rbr is still rebooting under load or whenever it likes... Some minutes ago all satellites reconnected and glowed blue. Looking in the logs the rbr just says: 

[Time synchronized with NTP server] Thursday, Jan 18,2024 18:25:53
[Internet connected] IP address: 192.168.178.XX, Thursday, Jan 18,2024 18:25:24
[Initialized, firmware version: V7.2.6.21_5.0.20] Thursday, Jan 18,2024 18:25:17
[Internet disconnected] Thursday, Jan 18,2024 18:25:16

This is it, thats all.... Ridiculous....

I will never find out why it bootet. Support does nothing, they wait for the 90 days support running off ... This is annoying. It tell you what, this bullsh.. is going back to amazon again. This is absolute clown software and clown support. 

[CrimpOn]

This one of the frustrating features of the Orbi.  When the router reboots, the log file is cleared.  There is no option to write the log to non-volatile memory.

[Cyv]

Even my 10 years old router can write logs to a remote destination. And this thing never rebooted itself in 10 years. This is very annoying that this 700€ hardware is so unreliable and simple features are missing.

[CrimpOn]

This is just a guess, but writing logs probably would make no difference because whatever kills the router would stop it from writing log entries anywhere.

[FURRYe38]

Can only say that maybe what you have is a faulty system out of the box or something in your environment or configuration of the system maybe causing problems. We had seen odd reboots back on v4 FW and we were able to narrow down some with email loggings and installing CAT6A STP cabling in between the RBR and ISP box. This part stopped the mysterious reboots for me going from UTP to STP. After v7 as announced, many of us had a opportunity to beta test v7 last year for months. Was nobody that seemed to experience these mysterious reboots while V7 was loaded. Or while in AP mode. 

Checking my histrory, I see mine was online 10+ days on uptime:

Someone with 87 days uptime:

v7 FW was tested well. 

Heres a few forum users uptime as well:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WIFI-6-AX-AND-Wi-Fi-6E-AXE/Share-your-Orbi-3-7-8-or-9-series-s...

Hope you can find something that works for you needs. 

Good Luck.