Pretty amazing to think that there are dozens of posts on this community site of people having the same issue. The only reliable solution to getting these devices reconnected is to turn everything off. Start the modem, wait for it to boot -> Start the router, wait for it to boot -> Wait 10-15 minutes -> Start each satellite one at a time and waiting for it to boot and an additional 10-15 minutes before going to the next one. For a house with an Orbi router and three satellites this takes over an hour for a minor power cycle. Do any of your suggested configuration changes resolve that? I appreciate your response but I’ve tried everything you’ve suggested before and none of those changes actually correct this or even have the potential to correct this, these are just copy/pasted suggestions I’ve seen dozens of times on this site. Netgear is doing a bad job supporting these systems and is not fixing glaring problems. For a premium setup that costs $2k, this is outrageous. I use Cat 8 gold plated network cables and wired each satellite to the router and still have intermittent connection issues which is beyond frustrating considering I work remotely and need a reliable connection.
I think with situations like that, it can be complicated. And here's why I say that - I have a 960 with 2 Sats connected to an Xfinity xFi gateway. I can restart the entire system including a 16-port switch and it takes 3-5 minutes. I rarely restart the Sats unless things get out of joint, but that is atypical. If I do that, it may take longer to all come up, but once the main Orbi is up, I at least have connectivity. So, a 960 system can work...or some odd combo of things can screw it up and be hard to sort out.
That said, I don't know the background on your issue - you've probably explained your setup in the past - your ISP, your firmware version, etc. My setup is pretty plain: latest firmware, CAT5 cable to the SATs that was installed in 1996 (so probably not CAT5e - certainly nothing awesome, no gold) with one probably 100' of wire. Sats connected directly to Orbi, not the switch. I got some nice CAT6 patch cables to use with the xFi-->Orbi-->Switch. They look nice and slim!...beyond that.... Unless you are running really long distances, the cable doesn't matter much - as long as the terminations are good and there's no nicks or other cable damage. I have tried some dreadfully old patch cables just for fun. They work fine.
I had an 850 setup that was solid for over a year and I upgraded to the 960. It was a nightmare constantly rebooting. That turned out to be some conflict with the xFi gateway and the latest firmware solved it a few months ago (I had been testing that firmware before it was released). However, I don't think many saw that problem unless they were also on xFi. For me, it was good that the 850 worked perfectly, but it took a good bit of floundering around to verify that - Xfinity gave me a new modem, came out and put in a new drop cable. It was an ordeal. However, Netgear support was outstanding once I got them onto the problem.
In the same way, if you are having problems that are somewhat unique to you, it can take some work to run them down and solve them.
"there are dozens of posts on this community site of people having the same issue" - again probably some history I missed, but what is that issue?
I'd be happy to offer some suggestions - no cut and paste - I have been doing computer networks for decades, designed and installed all over the world. I'm no Netgear expert, but I have seen a lot of wire and I have had Orbi systems for several years.
Pretty amazing to think that there are dozens of posts on this community site of people having the same issue. The only reliable solution to getting these devices reconnected is to turn everything off. Start the modem, wait for it to boot -> Start the router, wait for it to boot -> Wait 10-15 minutes -> Start each satellite one at a time and waiting for it to boot and an additional 10-15 minutes before going to the next one. For a house with an Orbi router and three satellites this takes over an hour for a minor power cycle. Do any of your suggested configuration changes resolve that? I appreciate your response but I’ve tried everything you’ve suggested before and none of those changes actually correct this or even have the potential to correct this, these are just copy/pasted suggestions I’ve seen dozens of times on this site. Netgear is doing a bad job supporting these systems and is not fixing glaring problems. For a premium setup that costs $2k, this is outrageous. I use Cat 8 gold plated network cables and wired each satellite to the router and still have intermittent connection issues which is beyond frustrating considering I work remotely and need a reliable connection.
How is the RBS connected to the RBR? Directly in back or is there a LAN switch? Brand and model if there is one please.
Something to keep in mind is that CAT5 isn't officially rated for 1Gb, 100Mbps only. 5E supports 1Gb. For anything over 1Gb, 2.5 and higher, CAT6A STP (Shielded Twisted Pair) is recommended and works best. Higher speeds can be susceptible to noise and interferences, something that UTP cabling can't help with. This is not a NG issue rather a RJ45 ethernet issue.
I've had my 9 series since the beginning, having seen this issues in any FW version I've tested. New v7 FW works great for me. Mine are ethernet connected with XS505M and GS110MX in between. CAT6A STP on the lines.
And you never followed up with feedback that was requested in your last post:
Pretty amazing to think that there are dozens of posts on this community site of people having the same issue. The only reliable solution to getting these devices reconnected is to turn everything off. Start the modem, wait for it to boot -> Start the router, wait for it to boot -> Wait 10-15 minutes -> Start each satellite one at a time and waiting for it to boot and an additional 10-15 minutes before going to the next one. For a house with an Orbi router and three satellites this takes over an hour for a minor power cycle. Do any of your suggested configuration changes resolve that? I appreciate your response but I’ve tried everything you’ve suggested before and none of those changes actually correct this or even have the potential to correct this, these are just copy/pasted suggestions I’ve seen dozens of times on this site. Netgear is doing a bad job supporting these systems and is not fixing glaring problems. For a premium setup that costs $2k, this is outrageous. I use Cat 8 gold plated network cables and wired each satellite to the router and still have intermittent connection issues which is beyond frustrating considering I work remotely and need a reliable connection.
Thank you for your genuineness and offering help. My setup is pretty plain as well, I have the latest firmware (7.2.6.21) on all RBs, xfinity isp, a netgear nighthawk modem wired (1.5 ft cat 😎 to the Orbi RBRE 960 router with two RBSE 960 satellites, each wired directly to the RBRE with cat 8 cable. These used to use the wireless back channel to connect, but due to the intermittent drops that wreaked havoc on all the devices, I ran cables to each of the RBSEs directly from the router. I actually have three RBSEs but since it’s in a location I can’t run a cable to easily, it’s acting as a $600 decoration for the time being.
The wireless back channel not being all that reliable is annoying and limits flexibility, but not really a breaking issue to me since I can (and have) run cables to the RBSEs and the connection is faster that way anyway. The breaking issue for me (and many others based on this and other forums) is with device reconnections after power cycles. When there is any power cycle, unless you painstakingly strategically power everything back on, many devices simply will never reconnect to the network. It’s frustrating enough for me to put the satellites, modem, and router all on uninterrupted power supplies to reduce potential power cycles. Obviously, this isn’t a great solution because eventually the system will require a power cycle from setting or firmware updates or prolonged power outages. Last night there was a power outage long enough to drain the satellite ups’s (router/modem stayed on the whole time) and forcing a satellite power cycle when the power came back on. When I woke up about half the smart switches and three laptops never reconnected. I forced a reset of the smart switches and restarted each of the computers and none of them could connect. I unplugged the modem, router, and each of the satellites, the plugged in the modem waited for it to come online fully, connected the router waited for it to boot up, then did the same for each of the satellites individually. This didn’t resolve any connection issues, so what I ultimately had to do (and I have to do this every time no matter how I try to get out of it) is unplug the modem, router, and satellites, turn off all the devices in the house (kill the power in the house), let the modem and router boot, turn everything back on slowly one breaker at a time allowing ~15 seconds between each one, then plug in each satellite and allow it to boot up. This is the only reliable way I’ve found to get everything reconnected and working well, but it’s super frustrating and not very convenient to turn all the power off in the house to get the network back up. I do software engineering, but I’m definitely not a network guru by any means (as a kid my dad used to make me run cable on jobs where he couldn’t fit in the crawl space, but that’s about it lol), but to me it seems like there is a problem assigning addresses when too many devices try to connect at once. I’m considering trying to manually assign the 60 or so devices to addresses but I’m not sure how much that will help.
I mention the cable quality sort of sarcastically because in a residential setting, like you mentioned it’s not really all that relevant but that’s one of the ‘copy/pasted’ follow ups I always see here.
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?
Is the cable UTP or STP? STP is recommended here.
For this size of home, having 3 RBS is too much. Would be causing too much wifi signal saturation and signal over lap. Please turn OFF all but 1 RBS for now. I would even try 50% power on the RBR.
After the FR and setup from scratch using a PC and web browser, don't enable Armor. Leave it for now.
Enable SIP ALG as well under the WAN setup tab.
Possible that if any of this can't help resolve this, the system could be faulty from the beginning and needs to be RMAd. Lets see if some troubleshooting first will narrow things down.
Something odd there. As I mentioned, we have a similar setup other than the Nighthawk modem. I can power all of it down and have everything back online within 5 or so minutes. When we get a power outage, it all comes back quickly. I only have UPS on the XFi, RBR, and Switch - the Sats are just plugged into the wall.
I'd do all of the above - if you back up your settings, a full reset usually goes easily. After that - yes, start with just the RBR. How quickly will it finish booting up after a restart of the modem and RBR? The modem should come up in 2-3 minutes and the RBR should then come up within a few minutes and devices should start connecting. You can filter the log file to see those DHCP connections being completed and could be worth a look to see what's going on. If all that works well - I'd let it run like that for a day if you can to see how it behaves - then try adding one Sat and go from there. The system should perform well enough with just the RBR even if some connections of more distant devices are weak and slow.
It is hard to imagine what is causing the issue you see. I don't know if there could be other interference in the bands you are using or what. It is not typical and I'm on my 3rd Orbi system over the years and have never seen that happen. I have run the system with wired and wireless backhaul, and both work well. If you have access to a channel scanning app, that may be worth a look to make sure you have the clearest channels set. On the PC, I use WiFi Commander and WiFi Analyzer - both free. That said, I see my neighbor's nets show up in the scans and even if we are on the same or near channels, it has never been an actual issue as far I can tell.
Try the reset and the RBR standalone and see how that goes.
