Problem With Wired Brother Printer

[Nickmit]

I have a Brother network printer connected by wire to my Orbi RB40. It correctly obtains an IP address from the router. When I look at the attached devices on the router it does not show the printer as connected. Looking at Advanced, Security, Access Control, it appears in the list of allowed devices that are currently not connected. If my laptop is connected to one of my satellites, either with wi-fi or hard wired, I cannot ping the printer ip and the printer shows as offline. If my laptop is connected to the other satellite or the main router, either with wi-fi or hard wired, I can ping the printer ip and it shows as online. I have PRTG network monitor running on the laptop and it sends me an email when anything happens on the network. The laptop is normally hard wired to the satellite that does not appear to be working. Over the last few days PRTG has been telling me that the printer is down and then back up again. The downtime is usually for several hours. Yesterday ,all day, it was down. At 2am it was up for 12 minutes and then down again for over 7 hours and was down again this morning. This implies that the satellite can see the printer occasionally. For the time being I have switched off the satellite and the printer connection is fine.

[Nickmit · Accepted solution]

Hi Kevin and Plemans,

Ok, I've switched the Orbi to AP Mode and all seems OK so far. I can see the Printer in the list of attached devices. I'll keep an eye on it but hopefully that has fixed the problem I just find it odd that it seemed to manage to work as it was for 2 years and then suddenly failed.

Thank you both for your time & patience!

[plemans]

What firmware is on the router and the satellite?

What modem/gateway is the router connected to? 

Are the satellites using the wireless backhaul or wired backhaul?

[Nickmit]

Firmware is V2.7.3.22 on router and satellites. It is connected to a Fritzbox 7530. The configuration has been the same since December 2020. This problem only started happening on Saturday

Satellites are using wireless backhaul

[plemans]

Is the fritzbox in passthrough/modem only mode? 

I've seen issues with double nats causing things like that

[Nickmit]

I'm not sure what mode the Fritzbox is in but wi-fi is not enabled and it is in a totally different ip range. It is http://192.168.178.1 and the Orbi is 10.0.0.1

This setup has worked fine for nearly 2 years and something must have changed in the last week to cause this but I have no idea what.

The printer used to be wi-fi connected and I initially thought that the printer wi-fi was causing the problem and that is why I changed it it hard wired but the problem still exists

[plemans]

Disabling wifi doesn't disable its routing functions. And if there's 2 routing ranges both tend to be in router mode. Causing a double nat. It doesn't always cause issues but it can. 

[KevinLiT]

Hello Nickmit,

Welcome to the NETGEAR Community!

I understand that you are having issues with your network IPv4 addresses. When two routers are introduced into a network one router will automatically change its IP address to prevent collisions within the network. If you would like both routers to be used on the same network IP addressing scheme then one of the routers needs to be disabled. You can either change your Orbi router to AP mode or change your fritzbox to modem-only mode. 

To change your Orbi from router mode to AP mode please navigate to orbilogin.com and then navigate to the following setting:

Select ADVANCED > Advanced Setup > Router / AP Mode.

Best,

Kevin

Community Team

[Nickmit · Accepted solution]

Hi Kevin and Plemans,

Ok, I've switched the Orbi to AP Mode and all seems OK so far. I can see the Printer in the list of attached devices. I'll keep an eye on it but hopefully that has fixed the problem I just find it odd that it seemed to manage to work as it was for 2 years and then suddenly failed.

Thank you both for your time & patience!