Betreff: Orbi satellite dropping connection

[OrbiNotGreat]

Wow, I've been really struggling for a few days with my 2 sattelites losing connection. Actually even the setup was a struggle. I though for some reason I was being an idiot but after reading through this thread I feel better about myself. 

I'm not one for struggling so I'm moving on soon. I live in the UK so we don't get he Eero. Anyone with experience with the Linsksys Velop or the Ubiquity systems? I'm just looking for something that I can setup and forget, I don't want to play around and configure the thing much.

[RogerSC]

Just a news flash, IPv6 has been added to the eero in router mode with the latest firmware release. Previously you could only use IPv6 in AP (bridge) mode. Now it's available in router mode as well. And it works for me on Comcast. Still have the Orbi, though, not quite sure what I'll do with it yet. At some point, I'll most likely need to settle on either the Orbi or eero, since there's only room around here for one mesh system *smile*. Storage space is at a premium.

[myriad_rocker]

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@apollo_60wrote:

Orbi Satellites were working just fine until the recent firmware update. I have one router and two satellites with the AC2200 system. Once every day i have to power off and on and then the satellites work ok. This is very frustrating and no other solution seems to be in the que. When the satellites work it is beautiful with almost the 300mbps coming through which is what i have subscribed for with my provider. It is a shame that Netgear has not come up with anything inspite of a lot of users reporting it. 

@I finally bought two programmable digital timers and programmed them to go off for a couple of minutes in the night and then come back on. This resets the power to the satellites and they stay connected until the next reset ! I don't know what else to do? Hopefully some firmware update in future will fix this. I bought it Oct 2017 @ Best Buy so out of warranty and had to do something to make it work !

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That's a pretty decent work around.  Do you get pretty good performance out of the system by doing this?  Do you only do that to the satellites?  Are both of them the RBS40? 

Currently my RBS50 satellite is still unplugged.  My testing last night seems fairly decent.  I'm also leaving my Android phone off of the wifi for the weekend to see how things go.  I'll reintroduce the Android phone on Sunday.  After a few days I'll reintroduce the satellite...potentially with a timer like you have.

[myriad_rocker]

My RBS50 is still unplugged and I'm currently sitting in the shop.  The RBW30 is connected to the RBR50 somehow.  It's pretty far away, so this is surprising.  I'm getting 20mbps from the shop, which is amazing for how far it is to the RBR50.

Anyway...an update.  I added my Android phone back into the network yesterday morning even though I said I wasn't going to this weekend.  I haven't had one single drop.  I haven't tested speeds (until I got out to the shop) since I added the Android phone in, but I will tonight.  At this point, I have to put the blame on the RBS50 satellite.  It lends creedence to the fact that it may need to be power cycled.  Unfortunately the only way to do that is with a timer like apollo_60 is doing.  This should be a standard feature in all firmware, IMO.  But anyway...I'd settle for firmware that actually worked at this point.  They can build up features from there.

I'm going to throw caution to the wind this evening and plug the RBS50 back in.  I'm not sure how long it will last before I start seeing issues, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.  I also have a timer I'm going to connect to it this week.  I want to see how long it goes without causing issues first.

I'm wondering if Netgear has ever considered a recall?  Maybe this issue isn't widespread enough.  A lot of people are certainly complaining.  I'm wondering if others simply aren't noticing?

[mich1973]

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@mich1973wrote:

As an update, it's interesting to see that Netgear now shows firmware V2.0.1.4 as the current firmware and all of V2.1.* is flagged as previous. So, I just downgraded for my RBR50 and RBS50 and it did solve the problem of the disconnecting satellite for me.

Have a look .. You don't need to throw your Orbi away ..

Michael

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Update - One week after downgrading to firmware v2.0.1.4, I did not encounter a single issue. So, from my side, this is now SOLVED.

What remains is a very disappointing experience with how Netgear handles firmward upgrades. It's hard to believe that testing is done so poorly that such major bugs are not detected before releasing the firmware to the customer.

Michael

[myriad_rocker]

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@mich1973wrote:Update - One week after downgrading to firmware v2.0.1.4, I did not encounter a single issue. So, from my side, this is now SOLVED.

What remains is a very disappointing experience with how Netgear handles firmward upgrades. It's hard to believe that testing is done so poorly that such major bugs are not detected before releasing the firmware to the customer.

Michael

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Glad it worked for you.  It was more of the same from my end.  Downgrading did nothing to help things out once the system had been up and running for some time.

[wase4711]

the orbi pro has updated to firmware 2.1.3.2; any sign of that on the "regular" orbi?

[diggle]

My system still showing firmware V 2.1.2.18 as current with no updates available....in Australia.

As an aside...I am now connected to our much vaunted NBN...National Broadband Network....a hugely expensive national fibre optic supply...and I chuckle when I see you guys talking about being limited to only 100Mbps....my Maximum at the moment is about 45 Mbits/sec.....although I am paying for premium connection advertised at least 78Mbps.

i am still avoiding dropouts by manually connecting each device in the house...again...shouldn’t have to do this!!!

[Oliverpool]

My experience with 2 differents sets of RBK50 in 2 different locations with 2 different providers with the latest firmware of last month was TERRRIBLE! lost connections, etc etc.  When it works which is like 20% of the time, it is great. Probably the fastest mesh around. But the other 80% of the time........ Lousy Terrible Crazy.

I have since changed one of the RBK to Velop and it works fantastic. No issues at all for more then a month. a 3 point mesh replacing a 2 point mesh and other then slightly slower speed then a 20% working Orbi, it actually is great. Coverage is actually better as well.

My other RBK was replaced with 2 units of Portal.  Coverage is as good as the Orbi, and speeds are about equal.  But not loss of connections and no youtube stuttering etc for more then 3 weeks now. I am so glad I got rid of Orbi as all it did was cause me grief and money (mobile and ipad as going to mobile data as the connection was poor) for the past 8 months. 

Sell your Orbi away while you can.  Its not going to work. After more then 5-6 firmware upgrades, they can promise everything and it has shown  that the units will go downhill after that. Factory reset and what not, is not going to help.

[apollo_60]

Things started going downhill once i upgraded firware to V 2.1.2.18. When it works it is great ! As i said before i am using a programmable timer to disrupt power twice a day for a minute and it is holding up so far. Every once in a while the satellites disconnect at random and i need to power cycle. The more i read about this it is a very wide spread issue and I don't understand why Netgear is not relasing a patch for firmware. These units are not cheap either and I cannot imagine why Netgear is sitting on the fence and not addressing the problem ?

[RogerSC]

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@apollo_60wrote:

Things started going downhill once i upgraded firware to V 2.1.2.18. When it works it is great ! As i said before i am using a programmable timer to disrupt power twice a day for a minute and it is holding up so far. Every once in a while the satellites disconnect at random and i need to power cycle. The more i read about this it is a very wide spread issue and I don't understand why Netgear is not relasing a patch for firmware. These units are not cheap either and I cannot imagine why Netgear is sitting on the fence and not addressing the problem ?

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There is a patch...flash firmware version 2.0.1.4 and see if that helps. If you’ve already tried it, never mind *smile*.

[NoWiFi4U]

(signal drops FIXED for me... read on)

I was having serious issues with the Orbi satellites dropping multiple times a day. I tried every tip on the forums and nothing worked. Finally, one day I decided to move the "order layout" of the devices. I did not change the distance or anything else, just the order. I had originally had the main router in the middle of my house with a satellite on each side (25ft from the main router).

I moved the main router to my bedroom and put a satellite in the middle of the house and one at other ends of the house (same distances as before). I changed no internal settings. Now it works like a charm and has ZERO drops.... dam amazing.  If your having issues... give it a try.. who knows, maybe it will work for you.

[FazerFire]

This problem was reported in August 2017 and still in February 2018 I'm having the problem daily on my fully updated system.  I read this whole thread and still find no specific actions other than "update firmware" (DONE 2.1.2.18 right now) and move satelites closer to base (DONE - closest one is 30 feet away with one drywall wall between), and nothing seems to improve the situation.  My connection drops at All satelites and main router on Wifi, even 15 feet from the Router through one non-insulated wall on a Xbox and Iphone 8.  Hard wired connections to router works fine the whole time.  All Wi-fi drops for about 5 minutes and then comes back several times a day. 250 MBPS pre-drop and 250 Mbps post drop at all satelites and I think main router..  

Has anyone figured this out?  I bought mine at Costco, so even though I've had this for 6+ months, it is going back soon if it can't be solved.

[dechant11]

Community,

Like others on this thread, I have spent my time reading and replying to the comments and potential fixes to the problems, yet there is no final fix or even a path to resolution. 

WHERE IS NETGEAR SUPPORT, Where is the official Netgear team looking through these posts and responding.  Anything would be good, "we are working on it"  "we acknowledge the problems and have  a team addressing the issue".  Has the support team reached out direclty to anyone in these posts/thread?

Problem is this will not be resolved on this community forum, it MUST be addressed by Netgear.

[Jvreeman]

dechant11,

Netgear L2 support did reach out to me (via a moderator on the forum) but their response time was, unfortunately, pretty slow, and with my return window closing the following week I finally decided to pull the plug.  Even when I spoke with people in India, they were easy to understand and extremely knowledgeable.  I have no complaints about support outside of the delay in getting back with me.  I assume its because there are plenty of other ORBI customers that they were dealing with.

Happy to hear that some folk are having better luck with the rollback of the firmware.  It seems that this has resolved a lot of people's issues - so you may want to try that if you have not.

I made the decision to install an eero Pro system, after I returned the ORBI.  Yes I have seen a slight performance hit.  When the ORBI was working I was getting about 270mbps in all but one area of the house; on eero Pro I am seeing just under 260mbps.  Outside of this minor slow down, the eero system is working fine with no dropouts or hiccups.  

When I am in the market for a new system, in a few years (because that is how these things end up playing out) I will certainly look at the ORBI system again, as long as they have all of these bugs worked out.  

[myriad_rocker]

To those of you saying that downgrading firmware is fixing issues, that's just not true.  I downgraded to 2.0.1.4 and I'm still having problems.  Also, changing the order (per a poster above) is doubtful that it helps.  Why?  Because my hardware is already in the order that poster switched to.  If it works for them, that's fantastic!  No dice here, though.

There are two things that have helped. 

1. Removing the RBS50 sattellite from power and leaving it out of the network.  When I did this, I was getting good speed and no drops.
2. Putting the RBS50 on a power timer that power cycles it.  For apollo, that seems to be a few times a day.  For me, since I'm not home during the day, it stays off all day and then boots back up around 4pm before I get home.  Today is the first day of this cycle.  We'll see if it works out for me.  So far so good, but I am not jumping to ANY conclusions.  It shouldn't have to be done.  Plain and simple.

The trend here, of course, is the sattelite.  People are hypothesizing that the sattelites are having communication issues.  Netgear is talking about memory leaks.  With the removal of my RBS50 and putting it on forced power cycle, there seems to be something to this.  Perhaps the firmware is playing nice with the router, but not so much with the sattelites.  Which is kinda odd because I haven't detected an issue that seems specific to my RBW30 in my shop.  It seems to work fine.

[naerok]

Orbi router with 3 satellites and 40~50 devices connected to it throughout the day.  Experiencing the same disconnect / connected but no internet issues.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Orbi-satellite-dropping-connection/m-p/1355419#M12533

This post here summarizes my issues perfectly.  I don't have the time or patience to wait for updates after struggling with these issues for the last month so I replaced the Orbi's with a different product.  No issues since.

[ed1chandler]

The satellite disconnects just started happening to me, and I thought it was just me, but it turns out they’ve known about this problem for six months? Great.

Here’s something that’s odd: I noticed when the satellite comes back up it does so with a self assigned address in the 192.168.0.X space. That’s all well and good, except that the base station uses the 172.16.0.X space and assigns DHCP addresses accordingly… Or at least it’s supposed to.

Of course, since it will only assign addresses using the fourth octet anyway, I may as well switch back to a 192.168.0.X config.

Are any of the rest of you who are suffering from this problem also using a non-factory default address space?

[ptsam]

Netgear seems to have blocked me from signing after writing about my experience. Changed my password like 3 times and still can't log in. Been on the phone with them twice, received 2 replacements with the same issues. These clearly aren't isolated issues. We should get together and file a class action law suit for false advertising. They are selling products that don't work. I still have to reset roughly once a day. Ethernet backhaul was amazing for the 2 days it worked. Why advertise something that clearly doesnt work. I've tried different configuartions. Now i have a barely stable wife system. House isn't even 3000 square feet. Router on top floor and satellite middle and home floor. They refuse to upgrade me to a pro system even though people say that has solved their issues.

[tsig]

If your experience was universal, perhaps, but its not.  Mine has been trucking along on the latest (before the roll back) firmware with no issues.

[ed1chandler]

@ptsam  "Now i have a barely stable wife system."

Pretty sure you can't blame Netgear for that one.  🙂

[OrbiNotGreat]

I ordered a replacement unit last week hoping that it was a hardware issue...since the new unit entered my house the old unit has worked amazingly well. The new unit is just sitting patiently in it's box mocking me. It's very trange, I'm now too scared to send the replacement unit back...

[Mogg]

So the accepted solution here according to the link is to give up and switch to google?  Or install an old version of firmware and hope for the best? 

I'm having all the same issues.  During the day when we're using pcs one satelitte seems to reset every few hours meaning I go offline or very very slow.  In the evening once a vpn and chromecast come into play, we're having dropped connections every forty minutes or so.  I've had the RBR40 and 2 satelittes for just 6 days and am wishing I'd stuck to my ten times cheaper router and booster 😕   Anyone got a proven fix before I send it back whilst I'm within guarantee?  

[naerok]

I went with the Eero Pro and couldn't be happier.  No more disconnects or having to reboot satellites every day.

[myriad_rocker]

For what it's worth to everyone, ever since I put the RBS50 on a timer to force a power cycle, everything has been fine.  It's a stupid workaround, but at least it's a temp fix (so far).  We'll see what happens going into the weekend as I have fewer forced power cycles during the weekend time.