ORBI RBR50 Internet Connection keeps Dropping

[myfathersson]

Hi,

Model: ORBI RBR50 w/ 1 sat

Firmware: V2.0.0.74

OS: Win7, Android

First, I appologize for starting yet another thread on this subject. Second, I'm not a network expert...know enough to be dangerous.

As others have noted, the internet connection keeps dropping.  It happens regularly on my Win7 laptop and my LG G4 android phone.  The lan connection remains in tact, just the internet connection is lost.  To get internet back I have to force reconnection to the lan by disconnecting and reconnecting on my Win7 unit or shutting off and turning back on the wifi on my phone; reconnection is to the internet is fixed immediately after these actions, connected is re-established.  I noticed last night for the first time that it also dropped my internet connection to my Bell sat receiver (I have a USB wifi dongle connected to the receiver); though I should also point out in all fairness that I have only had the one disconnect on the Bell sat so it could have been an actual problem with the Bell Crave TV site.  I have not seen the issue yet on my Roku devices or other devices on the lan.  So far my wife has not noticed her Win10 labtop having this issue.

I forced my laptop and phone to "forget" the lan connection so that I would have to re-enter the lan password and have the units set up a fresh connction.  This did not help.

I have not done a factory reset on the ORBI.

I searched the forum but the solution seems to be to upgrade the firmware to v1.12.0.18, which is older than my current version, so that's not a solution.

Internet connection is through a modem supplied by my ISP (Virgin Canada).  It's wifi radios are turned off.  The ORBI router is hardwired to the modem.  Both the ORBI and the modem have DHCP services are turned on (admittedly, I'm not sure if this should be.  Are they causing each other conflict issues of some sort?  When I look at the connected device list on the modem it shows only 2 devices: ORBI and my OOMA phone, both of which are hardwired to the modem, so the modem DHCP is supplying the IP address for only those units.)  All other devices on my lan show up only in the ORBI connected device list.  The ORBI network settings seem to be good: the gateway and DNS addresses are valid, and in deed must be since internet access does occur.  Signal strengths are good.  My house is only 2000 ftsq.  All devices are connected to the ORBI sat except Belkin Wemo light switch, which is connected to the ORBI router. 

So, where do I go from here?  How do I diagnose this further and solve it?

This is very annoying.  If I can't get a solution I'm going to return the unit to Bestbuy and go Linksys or Google or something else for whole-house coverage.  I chose ORBI because of the good reviews and in deed it does work well...when it works.  I should have dug deeper to find this apparent outstanding issue.  The Netgear support sucks.  I bought the unit in June and my "complimentary support" expired in Sept.  Now they want me to pay them to fix their problem, and I'm pretty sure it's their problem because the equipment I previously used never had this issue.

Hope someone can help.

Peter

[aaz]

Sounds like you have two routers inline to each other. You should either change the ISP router to a Bridged modem mode (ask your ISP) that will make the Orbi the router, or change the Orbi to AP mode.

Since my ISP router was causing issues before that required a reboot daily pretty much I personally set the ISP to bridged, and the Orbi as the router. My connection has been rock solid for the last month with no unscheduled disconnects.

[myfathersson]

aaz,

Thanks so much for the reply.  You are correct, a detail I failed to mention in my original submission is that the both the ORBI and the modem are acting as routers.  After submiting my message I stumbled across a site where the disconnect issue was cleared up by setting the ORBI in AP mode, which I've had just done before you message arrived.  I'll see if the simple solution works.  If not, then I'll look into following your suggestion.

Again, thanks very much.  You've been very helpful

Peter

[myfathersson]

Update:  Still dropping after setting Orbi in AP mode.  I'll try setting the modem/router to bridge mode and the Orbi back to router.  Will also try rebooting everthing before changing modes.  Never know, may help.

Will update later with results.

[dx]

Hi myfathersson,

Curious if your Orbi issue is resolved? I'm facing the same problem and have an identical setup, firmware version as you do.

Thanks,

DX

[myfathersson]

DX,

Since changing the ORBI to AP mode, turning off wifi on the modem and rebooting everything from the wall in, I have seen improvement.  I'm still getting dropouts, but far fewer. 

The next step is to reverse the roles of the modem and the ORBI, putting the ORBI back into router mode and putting the modem into bridge mode.  The problem is, the little research I've done to date has shown that the modem provided by my ISP--a Sage F@st 5250--doesn't have a bridge mode setting, but that with some messing around you can get it to behave in a similar fashion.  I'm not an expert so messing around is not a light thing for me.  I haven't gotten around to doing anything about this...busy, busy, busy.  Sorry I don't have better news. 

My networking skills and knowledge are not such that I can solve problems quickly.  If anyone has suggestions for how to diagnose the problem using logs and other tools I'd appreciate hearing from you.  I still don't know if the issue lies with the modem, the ORBI or my network config.