I originally set up the system with wireless backhaul. Just now reconfigured as wired. Router status still shows satellites connected as 5G. Do I need to reset the satellites or perform some other function to "forget" the wireless backhaul and use the ethernet connection?
Model: RBK53| Orbi Router + 2 Satellites Orbi WiFi System
I actually have the same issue. Did you manage to fix it in the end? I am running firmware 2.1.2.18 (the latest) and I have connected a Cat 6e cable between the router and satellite. Daisy Chaining option is on and everything looks good.
The problem is, the connection mode of the satellite is still 5G. The status was showing Config Sync for a few hours and now shows Good.
I tried resetting the satellite and have power cycled both devices a few times but can't get the Satellite connection mode changed to Wired.
Is there anything specific I have to do which I am not doing?
Model: RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
Tried the same thing. The latest firmware is super flaky when it comes to wired backhaul. Mine was saying wireless when it was wired and then it brought the whole network down.
The issue with the GUI is, that is sometimes even shows nonsense. I had been running my satellite via wired backhaul, before I upgraded to 2.1.2.18 and afterwards, the satellite vanished from the status page, but remained working nonetheless.
I finally reset the satellite to factory defaults and performed a wireless sync. Afterwards, it was just simply plugging in the ethernet cable.
So I did some testing and realised that while my cable was working when installed, it has now apparently stopped working (very strange!). I took it out and plugged it into a laptop to test.
So I am waiting on a new cable to come to me by tomorrow and will update on findings with the new cable.
Model: RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
So I got the new cable and everything is installed. But for some reason, every time I plug the cable in, it generates a huge packet storm over the network and everything disconnects or gets very unstable. I have tried a few times already and recently just restarted both router and satellite and trying out again.
It's just giving me no confidence as it goes down any time it likes. I have the router setup as a router, not as an AP too.
I really hope they update the firmware to make it more stable. It's really bad right now.
EDIT: While I was typing this out, the whole network went down again. I had to unplug the cable and leave it unplugged to make it work again and post this reply.
if you get the chance to login into your router via telnet, you could check the STP parameters of your network, because STP should prevent such events… Also, do you happen to have anothet router in your system?
Just a regular telnet session to my router's IP doesn't work. Is there anything special I need to do to telnet into it? Also, how do I check the STP?
I have another router on my network but its DHCP server as well as Wifi is disabled and it is being used as an access point, to connect one room with multiple devices (via its gigabit ports).
I can try taking this off the network but it's not a solution for me, as I need this device for my file server etc to talk to the rest of the network.
You will have to enable telnet for your Orbi on the debug page: http://<your orbi>/debug.htm
If you really do have another router on your network, or a switch for that matter that does support Spanning Tree (STP), then you should make sure, that the "central" one, has the STP bridge with the lowest number/ID, which will make it the root bridge of you rentire network.
However, it might be easier to disconnect the other router for testing. Just for the sake of completeness, this is what my router (in AP mode) tells me about its STP config:
root@RBR40:/# brctl showstp br0
br0
bridge id 8000.b0395675b7e5
designated root 8000.b0395675b7e5
root port 0 path cost 0
max age 20.00 bridge max age 20.00
hello time 2.00 bridge hello time 2.00
forward delay 2.00 bridge forward delay 2.00
ageing time 30.00
hello timer 0.16 tcn timer 0.00
topology change timer 0.00 gc timer 0.16
flags
ath0 (3)
port id 8003 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0395675b7e5 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0395675b7e5 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8003 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.00
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath01 (4)
port id 8004 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0395675b7e5 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0395675b7e5 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8004 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.00
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath1 (5)
port id 8005 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0395675b7e5 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0395675b7e5 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8005 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.00
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath2 (6)
port id 8006 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0395675b7e5 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0395675b7e5 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8006 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.00
flags
hairpin mode 1
eth0 (2)
port id 8002 state disabled
designated root 8000.b0395675b7e5 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0395675b7e5 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8002 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.00
flags
eth1 (1)
port id 8001 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0395675b7e5 path cost 4
designated bridge 8000.b0395675b7e5 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8001 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.00
flags
You can see, that each wireless interface has a path cost of 100 assigned to its designated root bridge, which happens to be the one br0. There musn't be any other bridge designated to these interfaces, that would indicate that there's another root bridge on your network somewhere, which would at least be an performance issue, since all traffc would be routed via that remote bridge.
Also note, that eth1, which is my ethernet backhaul only has a path cost of 4 assigned to it, make it the way of choise for all MACs that are "seen" on that interface.
I telnetted into my router and I am going to paste what it says here.
Also, something definitely weird is happening here. I reattached the cable to a different port on the router and it showed the satellite come up as a wired connection. So I quickly tried copying over a file on my network and it copied over around 100 MB/s (or around 800mbps). I usually never get these speeds on the wireless backhaul (usually get around 30MB/s) so I knew the wired one is working.
Then after 30 seconds, the satellite showed as Disconnected on the Attached Devices page. The Wired connection was still working and fast but it stopped providing Wifi (and specifically Internet) to any devices connected to the Satellite. After another 30 seconds, the Satellite displayed as a Wired connection and everything came back to normal (still fast Wired ethernet and Wifi to all devices). Another 30 seconds and it showed as Disconnected and the same thing happened.
This kept happening till it started staying more on the Disconnected side of things than connected. And my wife shouted as she was trying to work so I have stopped testing for a while 😉
Let me paste the telnet data from my router. This is from when it is connected on a 5G backhaul as it is not stable enough for me to reliably connect to when I attach the wire.
root@RBR50:/# brctl showstp br0
br0
bridge id 8000.b0b98a4c88a2
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2
root port 0 path cost 0
max age 20.00 bridge max age 20.00
hello time 2.00 bridge hello time 2.00
forward delay 0.00 bridge forward delay 0.00
ageing time 30.00
hello timer 1.15 tcn timer 0.00
topology change timer 0.00 gc timer 0.16
flags
ath0 (2)
port id 8002 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8002 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.14
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath01 (3)
port id 8003 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8003 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.14
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath02 (4)
port id 8004 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8004 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.14
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath1 (5)
port id 8005 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8005 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.14
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath11 (6)
port id 8006 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8006 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.13
flags
hairpin mode 1
ath2 (7)
port id 8007 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 path cost 100
designated bridge 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8007 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.13
flags
hairpin mode 1
eth1 (1)
port id 8001 state forwarding
designated root 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 path cost 4
designated bridge 8000.b0b98a4c88a2 message age timer 0.00
designated port 8001 forward delay timer 0.00
designated cost 0 hold timer 0.13
flags
hairpin mode 1
Any help or anything you can make out from here would be greatly appreciated!!
Are you running your router in actual router or ap mode? I can't say for sure, if the router is in routing mode, but the path costs are all 0, which cannot be correct - at least the path costs for the wireless interfaces should be way higher than the wired ones.
You maybe want to check the bridge on your satellite as well and reset it to factory defaults, if there are also such weird values.
Thanks. I am definitely running the Router in Router mode. Just checked again. It is also the only DHCP server on the network.
I did try resetting the satellite initially, but I haven't tried again. I might soon and see what happens. Let me telnet into the satellite and see what it says.
Haha, I have disabled something called "redirects" on the other access point on my network.
However, I am waiting to try out just disconnecting everything and seeing if just the wired connection between the router and satellite works. If it does, then it could be that the AP is being incompatible.
Will report back! Thank you so much for all the help till now!
Haha, that's not very comforting! But yes, I will. If it doesn't work, I may look into using a lot of different access points and just wiring everything up. But it's a pain and I'd rather just simplify and try and use this.
Ok so a quick update. I turned off all wired devices connecting to the router and satellite and only kept the wifi ones on.
Then I turned off both router and satellite, attached the cable and turned both on. It acted funny for a bit but then gave me a stable connection. I waited about 5 minutes for it to go down, but it didn't. I then connected my other router (working as a switch with dhcp disabled) and quickly disabled anything I could think of which wasn't necessary like Redirects, TR-069, UPnP IGD, etc.
For now, it seems to be working fine. I have tested transfers over the ethernet and they work to be around 100MB/s which is great.
Internet seems stable too. Seems like I may have finally fixed it!
Yes it does seem to be working fine. I think the problem may have been some sort of incompatibility with the other switch on the network. However, after disabling almost everything on it, it seems to be stable enough.
Enough people have situations like mine and yours to say that the firmware is far from complete and bug free, but with a little bit of luck you should be able to get it working too.
Let us know how it goes for you!
Model: RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
