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NetGear engineering will be reviewing the debug file I sent. I am out of guesses. Here is what I did the past week. I am posting here in the event others run into the same issue. I am hoping NetGear is able to resolve the issue; if not, I have an ASUS ZenWiFi Pro XT12, arriving on Sunday (and hopefully that doesn't have the issue).
SUMMARY FOR ENGINEERING: PROBLEM: Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Secure Shell (SSH) connections freeze (time varies, usually within a minute; on occasion never) when accessing Virtual Machines and Docker containers when my laptops are connected to Orbi via WiFi. I do not have the problem when connecting my laptops via Ethernet to the Orbi. This occurs both on Windows (Windows 11 Pro 23H2) and Mac (macOS Sonoma 14.0) laptops.
ORBI & NETWORK DETAIL: 1 x RBRE960 (located upstairs, front/middle of house) 1 x RBRS960 (located downstairs, front/right of house, about ~20 feet from router) 1 x RBRS960 (located downstairs, rear/left of house, about ~15-20 feet from router) Orbi is NOT providing DNS nor DHCP to internal networks (handled by a Pihole Docker container on a Synology NAS box); Orbi only handles DHCP and DNS for the Guest WiFi network. WiFi Network Types Enabled: Primary, Primary 6G, IoT, & Guest Internal Orbi Network: 172.20.73.0/24 Guest Orbi Network (left at default): 192.168.2.0/24 Static Routes: I have static routes configured on the Orbi pointing to the respective Proxmox server.
SERVERS: My Virtual Machines and Docker containers are running on a Proxmox (v8.0.4) host. The Virtual Machine is Rocky Linux 9.2 and the Docker Container is Turnkey Linux 17.1. The Physical server is an Intel NUC 13 Pro. The NUC is physically connected via Ethernet to the Orbi router. Server Network: 172.16.77.0/24 The Intel NUC has an IP address of 172.20.73.11, and, an internal vSwitch network of 172.16.77.0/24. Example problem Virtual Machine is 172.16.77.25 and an example problem Docker container is 172.16.77.2. The MAC address for my Windows laptop is <REDACTED> and the name is <REDACTED>.
CLIENT/LAPTOP BEHAVIOR: When the problem occurs (only when connected via WiFi so far), the WiFi connection remains online and other data continues to flow (i.e.- audio, video, web browsing); however, the SSH or RDP session just hangs. I must close the terminal program and reopen it. Upon reopening, it takes usually around 10 seconds or so before I am able to reconnect (prior I receive unreachable errors). When the connection problem is occuring, I am also unable to access other services (i.e. via HTTP/HTTPS) that are running on the Virtual Machine or Docker container; it appears as if all access to the Virtual Machine or Docker container is prevented while I am connected to WiFi (when the problem is occuring). If I connect to the Virtual Machine or Docker Container with my laptop physically connected to Orbi via Ethernet, I never run into issues. If I am away from my house and connect to the Virtual Machine via a Tailscale VPN connection, I never run into an issue.
WIFI TROUBLESHOOTING COMPLETED: 1. Tried shutting off all the Satellites and only using the Router; issue still occurs. 2. Tried with only the Router + 1 Satellite (at a time); issue still occurs. 3. Tried connecting my laptop to the Satellite via Ethernet (the Satellites use WiFi as the backhaul); issue still occurs. 4. Tried turning off the extra SSIDs (i.e.- Guest, IoT, 6E) and accessing with only a single SSID active at a time; issue still persists. 5. Tried accessing with only one band enabled at a time (2.4, 5, & 6); issue still persists on every band. 6. Upgraded to firmware 7.2.6.21_5.0.20; issue still persists. 7. Factory reset of Orbi and reconfigure; issue still persists. 8. Decreased wireless radio power to 50%; issue still persists. 9. Checked NetSpot (screenshot uploaded) and do not see channel conflicts or other WiFi networks from neighbors. The networks I see are few and weak. 10. Wireshark packet capture ran (examples uploaded). I noticed some TCP RETRANSMISSIONS and TCP SPURIOUS RETRANSMISSIONS; however they also seem to occur even when not trying to connect to the Virtual Machines and Docker Containers.
OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE: I had an RBR50 with two (2) Satellites (all sitting exactly where the new Orbi equipment is located) since 2019 and NEVER ran into this issue.
I received beta firmware and loaded it this morning. The issue persists. In reviewing the packet captures, I am still seeing a number of TCP Retransmission and RCP Dup ACK packets.
Keep in touch with NG support. I'd ask if they could send you a 2nd new system to test for comparison testing. With the understanding that if the 2nd system didn't fix anything, you'd send it back. Talk to them about this as an option.
I ordered an ASUS ZenWiFi Pro XT12, system and it arrived today. I have it all set up, and so far, I am not experiencing the SSH and RDP connection problems. Everything is working flawlessly. I am going to continue to test it over the next few days and run some network packet captures. I can say this system is much more advanced and customizable; the software is lightyears ahead of the NetGear Orbi systems.
I think my problem with the Orbi is either a firmware bug, or I agree, possibly a hardware issue. At this point, I do not know if I feel like continuing to work the issue; especially since the ASUS system is so much better.
If I understood support correctly, they are having a known issue with the RDP protocol on the RBRE series. Engineering is working on a fix; however, the agent was not sure of the ETA. The best guess is Q1 of 2024.
I am going to return this system and stick with the ASUS ZenWiFi Pro XT12. It has worked flawlessly, is much more feature rich (much better software), and, about half the price of the Orbi system.
I will say I do appreciate Netgear products and cannot speak negative about the company. I had great success with my RBR50 system, as well as, many other Netgear products over the years. Support and engineering from Netgear on this issue was quite good. I didn't spend much time in lower levels nor did I have to repeat my story repeatedly. The team worked very collaboratively with me and were always extremely polite and calm.
