Orbi firmware v2.1.1.16 discussion

[ratickle]

In my experience today, once your manually load firmware, the auto-update feature seems to be turned off.  After loading v2.1.1.16, I was experiencing frequent self-reboots of the router and a blank attached devices page on the satellite.  This morning I did factory resets and manually forced both the satellite and the router back to v2.0.0.74.  That was over 10 hours ago and no firmware auto-updates have occured.  Also, no self-reboots have occured and my satellite is once again showing attached devices.  

My system came with v2.0.0.74 installed, but it auto-updated to v.2.1.1.12 during the initial setup.  That was five days ago.  v2.1.1.12 experienced frequent self-reboots and had the blank attached devices problem on the satellite.  I had great hopes that v2.1.1.16 would solve these problems, but it did not.  v2.0.0.74 is the only version that has run 10 hours without a self-reboot.  My plan it to let it run without additional configuration changes to see how long it will go without a self-reboot.  If it stays up for 6 or 7 days, I'll be satisified, since I normally schedule a weekly reboot of my routers anyway.  Fingers crossed.

[armoredsaint]

For once it actually worked like it was supposed to, the FW update was quick and didn't stall out like previous versions. Now my sats show up on my iPhone app, and all this time useless Netgear support told me it was my fault and wanted me to reboot everything. 

[ratickle]

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@armoredsaint wrote:

For once it actually worked like it was supposed to, the FW update was quick and didn't stall out like previous versions. Now my sats show up on my iPhone app, and all this time useless Netgear support told me it was my fault and wanted me to reboot everything. 

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I assume your comment means that you have installed v2.1.1.16 firmware and everything is working well.   Do you still feel that way after a few hours have passed?  

Many of us are trying to figure out why some people are having problems with the upgrade and why some are not.  Could you tell us what version of firmware you upgraded from?  

For example, did you go directly from v2.0.0.74 to v2.1.1.16?  Did you do a factory reset before the upgrade?  Was it a manual update or did Orbi do it automatically?
Thanks in advance.

[howiedub]

back to the usual crappiness...phone gets stuck on 2.4ghz and now loses internet when it drops to 2.4ghz and I have to turn the wifi off and on. And it only connects to 2.4ghz unless i forget the network and log in again. And some of my devices are connecting back to the router instead of the closer satellite. On top of that, my smart TV will only connect to 2.4ghz when it was connecting to 5G before. Going back to the old firmware with security issues. At least the connection was stable. And everything just rebooted as I was typing this.

[godspeed]

Decided to throw everything i could at the Orbi tonight...to try and fix the random reboots of both router and satellite.

My Orbi is in AP mode, with an Asus AC68 acting as router.  Router is assigned an ip address manually (outside DHCP reserve list), and Satellite is saved on a particular DHCP reserve IP.

1. both R (router) and S (satellite) are on 2.1.1.16, via auto-update

2. Manually apply 2.1.1.16 firmware on S, wait till up.

3. Telnet into S and do an NVRAM erase, commit, and reboot.

4. Wait for it to come up, and use a pin to reset S.

5. Manually apply 2.1.1.16 firmware on R, wait till up.

6. Telnet into R and do an NVRAM erase, commit, and reboot.

7. Wait for it to come up, and use a pin to reset R.

8. Unplug modem (Arris SB6183), and change my cabling so that it goes Modem -> Orbi R

9. Plug modem back in, and use the Orbi android App to begin and finish configuration.

10. Use Windows PC to go to router admin page, and the ONLY thing i change here is the timezone, and then set it to AP mode (fixed IP).

11.  Unplug modem again, and change my cabling so that it goes Modem -> Asus AC68 -> Orbi R

12. Plug modem back in

At this point, i go back into the Orbi admin menu and change the 2.4 Ghz channel from AUTO to 6 (least congested in my area).  Daisy chain is enabled by default, and i am going to leave it be for now, even though i only have 1 satellite.  I wanted to make as little change as possible from the default settings.

It took a few minutes, but on the attached devices page (on router), my devices start showing up, some connecting to router, some satellite.  On the satellite status page, the list of connected devies is also populated, at least for now.

Fingers crossed.

[godspeed]

Just noticed something i had not seen before...

Using Wifi Analyzer (Far Proc version on android) I now have 2 "hidden" 5 Ghz bands on channel 157.  Looking at the MAC addresses of those 2 bands, one of them basically matches the Orbi Router MAC (last 2 characters different), while the other 5 ghz hidden band matches the Satellites MAC (again, just the last 2 characters different).

In the past few weeks that i have been monitoring the orbi system, i have NEVER seen 2, what i assume, backhaul channels.

Additionally, the 2.4 Ghz band now has 2 hidden networks on the same channel (6) as my SSID network.

Can anyone using wifi analyzer (inSSIDer, etc) comment on how many hidden networks they have on the various bands (2.4 and 5)?

NOTE:  i do NOT have guest network enabled on the Orbi.

[godspeed]

now that i think about it, the "new" hidden network i am now seeing is the other backhaul for use in the daisy chain topology?  After my factory reset, i kept daisy chain enabled, even though i only have a single satellite.

crap, thought i may have been on to something 😞

[howiedub]

When did everyone buy their Orbis? Was it when the range was 2,000sf per node, or 2,500sf per node? I have the RBK53, the system with a router and 2 satellites, and when I bought it, max coverage was 6,000sf. Now I noticed that it's been bumped up to 7,500sf max coverage. Did they change the radios or just boost the radio transmission power through a firmware update? If it's the latter, could that be what's causing all the reboots/issues? It's like overclocking your phone; if you overclock it too much, your phone starts having issues and can reboot if there's too much stress on the system.

[aaz]

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@howiedub wrote:

When did everyone buy their Orbis? Was it when the range was 2,000sf per node, or 2,500sf per node? I have the RBK53, the ...

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Where do you see that info? I have the same router from Costco and it's working great now on 2.1.1.16

[howiedub]

I bought mine from Costco as well earlier this year. The 7,500sf number is on their website. You can see the 6,000sf number on the screenshot from Slick Deals. When did you buy yours? And how many devices do you have connected? I have anywhere from 26 to over 30 devices connected.

[RogerSC]

Orbi is working fine on v2.1.1.16 here...initially it the clients were listed as connected to the router and satellite correctly. Now they aren't again, about a day later. So I just logged onto the satellite and it shows nothing connected again, despite the "Attached Devices" list on the router showing a couple of clients connected to the satellite. And I know that there are more devices connected to the satellite that are listed as connected to the router in the router's "Attached Devices" list. That doesn't really bother me as long as clients are listed and the Orbi continues to provide great wireless functionality. It would be nice if clients were listed accurately as to which unit they're connected, but no big deal, I can tell by the client's location and the signal strength that they're displaying.

I am around my house a lot since I don't go to work anymore, so I'm well aware that reboots/disconnects aren't happening. No complaints from other users here. Also, I don't do power-cycling or resets to defaults unless Netgear asks me to or they're needed because of a problem. Didn't do anything, no power-cycle or reset to default after manually flashing v2.1.1.16, and I'm happy with how it's working. Very few problems in the year that I've had this wireless system. I've done some moaning about features being removed that I'm used to having, like being able to turn off 2.4GHz. wireless radio and controlling when the Orbi flashes new firmware, but the basic functionality has been really good, and continues to be with the latest firmware releases.

[aaz]

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@howiedub wrote:
I bought mine from Costco as well earlier this year. The 7,500sf number is on their website. You can see the 6,000sf number on the screenshot from Slick Deals. When did you buy yours? And how many devices do you have connected? I have anywhere from 26 to over 30 devices connected.

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I got it a little more than 3 months ago when I visited Oregon. Came with 1.x firmware and I did a manual update as it refused to update automatically. Been doing manual updates ever since come to think of it since it's never found any firmware automatically for me - though I am in Vancouver Canada.

Right now it's listing 25 devices and two satellites connected. It bounces up to more than 40 devices when some other things are connected and some family visits.

I've always run it as the router, not an AP.

Stability has been rock solid except for the initial incident that prompted me to turn off UPNP. 1 day and 3 hours uptime now on 2.1.1.16 and all is good.

[ratickle]

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@aaz wrote:

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@howiedub wrote:
I bought mine from Costco as well earlier this year. The 7,500sf number is on their website. You can see the 6,000sf number on the screenshot from Slick Deals. When did you buy yours? And how many devices do you have connected? I have anywhere from 26 to over 30 devices connected.

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I got it a little more than 3 months ago when I visited Oregon. Came with 1.x firmware and I did a manual update as it refused to update automatically. Been doing manual updates ever since come to think of it since it's never found any firmware automatically for me - though I am in Vancouver Canada.

Right now it's listing 25 devices and two satellites connected. It bounces up to more than 40 devices when some other things are connected and some family visits.

I've always run it as the router, not an AP.

Stability has been rock solid except for the initial incident that prompted me to turn off UPNP. 1 day and 3 hours uptime now on 2.1.1.16 and all is good.

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What version of the firmware were you running right before you updated to v2.1.1.16?  I'm asking because I have a theory that v2.1.1.12 caused all the problems and going from v2.1.1.12 to v2.1.1.16 without doing a factory reset does NOT eliminate the problems introduced by v2.1.1.12?

[godspeed]

After all i did last night (NVRAM reset, factory reset, and not changing much of initial re-configuration), i woke up this morning to see that both my router and satellite had rebooted (at the same time; their system uptimes were just a few seconds different).  Its strange that both rebooted, i thought maybe a power surge, but the router is on a UPS (satellite is not).

Based on another user's stable configuration post, i modified my config to disable daisy-chaining (i only have 1 satellite), as well as disable WMM for both 5 and 2.4 ghz.  Since i have an Asus router doing routing responsiblities (and QOS), i am guessing i don't need the overhead of Netgears QOS.

Will keep monitoring  

[steelhorse83]

Apparently, my Orbi Router & Satellites auto-updated from 2.0.0.74 to 2.1.1.16 since I last looked at it on Monday.  All my devices that are capable of 5Ghz are showing connected to 5Ghz, and all the devices are correctly showing their connection to either the router or a satellite.  I haven't had any issues streaming Netflix or PSVue.  I checked the debug.htm page on the router and both satellites, and they all show around 5 hours of uptime.  I will check back on that later in the week, to see if they are rebooting, or if the upgrade actually happend 5 hours ago.

[ratickle]

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@steelhorse83 wrote:

Apparently, my Orbi Router & Satellites auto-updated from 2.0.0.74 to 2.1.1.16 since I last looked at it on Monday.  All my devices that are capable of 5Ghz are showing connected to 5Ghz, and all the devices are correctly showing their connection to either the router or a satellite.  I haven't had any issues streaming Netflix or PSVue.  I checked the debug.htm page on the router and both satellites, and they all show around 5 hours of uptime.  I will check back on that later in the week, to see if they are rebooting, or if the upgrade actually happend 5 hours ago.

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I have a theory that firmware v2.1.1.12 is the version that has caused many people to have stability and functional problems.  My theory also says that v2.1.1.16 indeed fix the problem caused by v2.1.1.12, but ONLY if a FACTORY RESET occured BEFORE the installation of v2.1.1.16.  Since you went from v2.0.0.74 directly to v2.1.1.16 your system should be fine.  If, and it's a big if, my theory about v2.1.1.12 is correct.   Yes, report back in a day or two and let us know the system uptime and whether or not your satellite shows attached devices correctly.

[howiedub]

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@ratickle wrote:

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@steelhorse83 wrote:

Apparently, my Orbi Router & Satellites auto-updated from 2.0.0.74 to 2.1.1.16 since I last looked at it on Monday.  All my devices that are capable of 5Ghz are showing connected to 5Ghz, and all the devices are correctly showing their connection to either the router or a satellite.  I haven't had any issues streaming Netflix or PSVue.  I checked the debug.htm page on the router and both satellites, and they all show around 5 hours of uptime.  I will check back on that later in the week, to see if they are rebooting, or if the upgrade actually happend 5 hours ago.

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I have a theory that firmware v2.1.1.12 is the version that has caused many people to have stability and functional problems.  My theory also says that v2.1.1.16 indeed fix the problem caused by v2.1.1.12, but ONLY if a FACTORY RESET occured BEFORE the installation of v2.1.1.16.  Since you went from v2.0.0.74 directly to v2.1.1.16 your system should be fine.  If, and it's a big if, my theory about v2.1.1.12 is correct.   Yes, report back in a day or two and let us know the system uptime and whether or not your satellite shows attached devices correctly.

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I don't think 2.1.1.12 has anything to do with it. I went from 2.0.0.74 straight to 2.1.1.16 and still had issues. Went back to 1.8.0.6 and it auto updated back to 2.1.1.16. Issues still persisted. Factory reset on 2.1.1.16 did not work. Back on 1.8.0.6 and everything is stable again. Have some bugs, but they are somethings I can live with as long as my connections don't drop and devices connect correctly. Disabled auto update through telnet, so hopefully that keeps it from updating again.

I'm starting to think it's hardware related. Seems like people who got their Orbis recently don't have the issues and those that have had it since the 1.* firmware days are the ones having issues. Just my 2 cents.

[netgearguy]

I have two Orbi systems (RBK30) bought in the last couple of weeks and both have had the same symptoms. So it isn't related (from my experience) to when units were purchased. 

[RogerSC]

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@godspeed wrote:

After all i did last night (NVRAM reset, factory reset, and not changing much of initial re-configuration), i woke up this morning to see that both my router and satellite had rebooted (at the same time; their system uptimes were just a few seconds different).  Its strange that both rebooted, i thought maybe a power surge, but the router is on a UPS (satellite is not).

Based on another user's stable configuration post, i modified my config to disable daisy-chaining (i only have 1 satellite), as well as disable WMM for both 5 and 2.4 ghz.  Since i have an Asus router doing routing responsiblities (and QOS), i am guessing i don't need the overhead of Netgears QOS.

Will keep monitoring  

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If you disable WMM your Orbi's speed will be limited to legacy wireless-g speed (54Mbps). This may not be an issue for you, I hope not, but you should always have WMM enabled on both bands if you want to have wireless-n speeds on 2.4GHz. and wireless-AC speeds on 5GHz.

[godspeed]

Update:

This is my last attempt with Orbi.  For the last few weeks, i have been using an Asus AC68 as the router, and the Orbi system in AP mode.  Still getting reboots and dropped connections, no matter what settings i set, or how many times i factory reset.

This time, i am going to use the Orbi as a router.  I factory reset both Router and Satellite, and setup all my port forwarding rules, changed DNS to openDNS, etc.

Will see if maybe the Asus router was causing issues with the Orbi in AP mode...

will update as the day goes on...

[southflguy]

Constant WiFi loss here. Router reboots. Affecting the entire network. In one day I have had probably 5 or 6 episodes of WiFi going down. At this point I’m thinking of abandoning it and going Eero Pro. I might give it a shot and see.

[NickC4555]

My Orbi and 2 satellites had all been previously updated manually, but still did an auto update to the new release without prompting, so the suggestion that this switches it off is not correct. I was left with a completely unusable system this morning. The information here seems to be the best advice to disable it: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Firmware-V1-12-0-18-Discussion/td-p/1320421/page/5

I rolled back to beta V2.0.1.2, which has been rock solid for a couple of months.

[MikeDTuck]

Not sure why - but the router has been up for 21 hours so far, fingers crossed that one of the 5 reboots from yesterday cleared whatever was wrong?

[jdurrant51]

I apparently was "autoupdated" the other night. Since then, I can't get devices to reliably attach to the router or satellite. We have a computer "hardwired" into the router and even that doesn't operate reliably. Any suggestions on how to get back to operation????

Thanks,

Jim

[RogerSC]

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@NickC4555 wrote:

My Orbi and 2 satellites had all been previously updated manually, but still did an auto update to the new release without prompting, so the suggestion that this switches it off is not correct. I was left with a completely unusable system this morning. The information here seems to be the best advice to disable it: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Firmware-V1-12-0-18-Discussion/td-p/1320421/page/5

I rolled back to beta V2.0.1.2, which has been rock solid for a couple of months.

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I wouldn't waste your time trying to block auto-update, unless you have a lot of time to burn. I've tried everything mentioned in this forum to block auto-update, including using dd-wrt on my R7800 (Orbi is in AP mode) and restricting access to "netgear.downloads.com" and "netgear.download.com" as well as all the telnet stuff on both the router and satellite. The dd-wrt dodge that I had high hopes for doesn't seem to have worked. When 2.1.1.16 went out, my Orbi said that there was new firmware available from Netgear, a bad sign for blocking auto-update. While I didn't wait to see if the Orbi could download it or not, I sort of assumed that the path that the Orbi uses to check for new firmware is the same path that it would use to download it. Once I find out what that path is, I can block it until Netgear changes it, but not there yet.

Sometimes it takes days for auto-update to catch up to you, but you can just assume that it will sooner or later *smile*.