So late last night before I went to bed I noticed now the 3rd floor RBS had no WiFi connections! So this morning I researched it - as all the devices seemed to be happy.
In short, **this time***, I think it was not reporting any connections but they were there. None of the 3rd floor devices showed up connected to any RBS/RBR in the Router web page's Attached Devices list, or in the Orbi app.
But - they showed full signal in their WiFi icons.....speed tests were very good, as normal - 650-700 Mbps download. The Macs reported Tx rate of 1080 - 1100 Mbps; if the 3rd floor RBS is unplugged, they can usually connect to the 1st floor RBS but at Tx rate of 200 Mbps.
Interestingly, the Access Control list on the router web page showed the devices that did not show up real time in Attached Devices, but it showed them all as Wired when they are not!
One last thing - I used a WiFi analyzer, and it saw 3 2.4GHz RBR/RBSs, and 2 5Ghz - which makes sense, probably wouldn't see the router in the basement from the 3rd floor. BUT the SSIDs were different! They were 1 digit off usually - instead of something like an ending of ...80:FC, it would be ...80:FD. Were the devices connected to some hidden connection? Or was this the backhaul, guest, or VoIP (those two not active), and the WiFi analyzer was not seeing RBR/RBS SSIDs to connect to?
This is all very weird and getting out of my pay grade lol.
So I powered everything down in sequence. But now I got the real 'unable to connect to a RBS' problem again...
For power up I did: - modem - waited for it to complete - router - waited for it to complete, then tested it with ny iPhone which immediately connected - all good - GS105 switch (two two wired RBSs are on this) - GS348 switch - first RBS on the 1st floor - came up BLUE - but nothing could connect to it! I know this because there is a far corner of a room on that floor that can't reach the router - so if the 1st RBS is down it will be on 5G. - eventually after waiting, walking around, turning WiFi off and on, verifying with multiple devices, I powered the RBS down again and brought it up with Wireless backhaul - came up BLUE. Still no connections! I powered it down again, back up with wired backhaul - and it was fine. - powered up the 2nd RBS on the 3rd floor, wireless backhaul - came up BLUE - connections were being made to it (I could tell by checking the Tx rate of devices on that floor.) I then powered it down and brought it back up with wired backhaul. All good connection-wise, and Attached Devices on the router's web page show connections to both RBSs again.
If this happens again, another thing to test for a few days or so, let the RBS connected wirelessly and check for these same behaviors. RBR set to 100%. Just disconnect the ethernet cable and they will auto wirelessly sync.
RBR and switches is 6A. RBss and switches is 5e as it is older and runs through the walls.
One more update - all Wifi working great, BUT Orbi and Attached Devices on router web page are nuts. Just looking at Attached devices, it has all of these as WIRED - iPhone, 2 Macs, 1 Dell Windows PC, 1 Homepod; and my iPad is not showing at all. The 3rd floor RBS has nothing connected, yet WiFi is working great up there - 1 Mac just got 700 Mbps in the speed test. So my conclusion is for this issue, everything is connecting fine, but the NG reporting across the board is NUTS.
Today I have a number of devices on the third floor that are reported as connected to the router 3 floors below. Signal strength and speed tests say that is false, they are running fast and signal strength is what you would expect for being connected to a satellite 10 feet away. I learned to today to check the "BSSID", which shows the access point connected to - and it appears they are all connected to the third floor.
But here is glitch #1 - the 3rd floor satellite ends in 82:32:9C, but the BSSID is 82:32:9E! That's not any other device. What is that, that's being connected to? It sure seems like the 3rd floor satellite.
Second - both the Orbi app and the routers web page show my iPad, iPhone, 2 Macs, and a Windows PC all as "hard wired" even though they are absolutely on WiFi.
