^^^ I've just been bitten by the "Can't get 5GHz network SSID to change permanently" problem - and having looked into the NG firmware, it's pretty obvious that they are going out of their way to stop this happening, and even if different SSIDs are detected on a running router then it'll revert back to the 2.4GHz one. It's not just that it doesn't survive a reboot (I could cope with that) but it doesn't survive for more than about 5 minutes.
So - I've just said "sod it" and gone with the Voxel firmware.... based on the latest NG firmware, and even looks'n'feels the same. I've updated my satellites and then my router - and it's all good. Working very well.
and YES - I can change the 5GHz SSID to something different, and it sticks.
^^^ I've just been bitten by the "Can't get 5GHz network SSID to change permanently" problem - and having looked into the NG firmware, it's pretty obvious that they are going out of their way to stop this happening, and even if different SSIDs are detected on a running router then it'll revert back to the 2.4GHz one. It's not just that it doesn't survive a reboot (I could cope with that) but it doesn't survive for more than about 5 minutes.
So - I've just said "sod it" and gone with the Voxel firmware.... based on the latest NG firmware, and even looks'n'feels the same. I've updated my satellites and then my router - and it's all good. Working very well.
and YES - I can change the 5GHz SSID to something different, and it sticks.
...whilst I don't wish to worry you - after running on it all day (for about the last 7 hours or so) I did just have a catastrophic network failure...
I have multiple devices connecting me to the Internet - Virgin Media hub (in modem mode), to an Asus AC68U (in router mode but with wifi off, providing various extra functions that the Orbi doesn't have or is rubbish at - parental control, OpenVPN server, etc.) and then the Orbi RBR50 (and two satellites) in AP mode. There's a gigabit switch or two in the mix as well...
Anyway - whilst I could see both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz networks, the Orbi IOS app couldn't connect, I couldn't ping anything, zip - rebooted the Orbi and it all started working again.
I did notice some strange things happening before I lost access completely - as I was trying to watch various YouTube videos, which were loading with a black screen and text across the top saying "We're having some difficulty playing this video right now - come back later" (or something like that) - but if I left it for about 30s then the video would start. I'm guessing the Orbi was throwing a huge amount of jabbering packets out or something equally noisy.
Might have been a one off... but a little nervous now!
What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz. Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?
Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings
Try disabling the following and see: Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Set Short preamble instead of Long preamble modes. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).
...whilst I don't wish to worry you - after running on it all day (for about the last 7 hours or so) I did just have a catastrophic network failure...
I have multiple devices connecting me to the Internet - Virgin Media hub (in modem mode), to an Asus AC68U (in router mode but with wifi off, providing various extra functions that the Orbi doesn't have or is rubbish at - parental control, OpenVPN server, etc.) and then the Orbi RBR50 (and two satellites) in AP mode. There's a gigabit switch or two in the mix as well...
Anyway - whilst I could see both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz networks, the Orbi IOS app couldn't connect, I couldn't ping anything, zip - rebooted the Orbi and it all started working again.
I did notice some strange things happening before I lost access completely - as I was trying to watch various YouTube videos, which were loading with a black screen and text across the top saying "We're having some difficulty playing this video right now - come back later" (or something like that) - but if I left it for about 30s then the video would start. I'm guessing the Orbi was throwing a huge amount of jabbering packets out or something equally noisy.
Might have been a one off... but a little nervous now!
What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz. Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?
Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings
Try disabling the following and see: Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Set Short preamble instead of Long preamble modes. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).
...whilst I don't wish to worry you - after running on it all day (for about the last 7 hours or so) I did just have a catastrophic network failure...
I have multiple devices connecting me to the Internet - Virgin Media hub (in modem mode), to an Asus AC68U (in router mode but with wifi off, providing various extra functions that the Orbi doesn't have or is rubbish at - parental control, OpenVPN server, etc.) and then the Orbi RBR50 (and two satellites) in AP mode. There's a gigabit switch or two in the mix as well...
Anyway - whilst I could see both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz networks, the Orbi IOS app couldn't connect, I couldn't ping anything, zip - rebooted the Orbi and it all started working again.
I did notice some strange things happening before I lost access completely - as I was trying to watch various YouTube videos, which were loading with a black screen and text across the top saying "We're having some difficulty playing this video right now - come back later" (or something like that) - but if I left it for about 30s then the video would start. I'm guessing the Orbi was throwing a huge amount of jabbering packets out or something equally noisy.
Might have been a one off... but a little nervous now!
There has been some chatter on switches with an Orbi. I am not sure if that applies here. Apparently the Orbi needs a pretty "dumb" switch. If the switch is managed and green, it can give the Orbi grief. Perhaps others here can comment more. Perhaps you are already familar with the topic.
Managed switches will work if users disable all IGMP protocols and any green ethernet features. For some non managed switches, green ethernet can't be disabled if present so users would need to find a non managed switch with out is preferred.
There has been some chatter on switches with an Orbi. I am not sure if that applies here. Apparently the Orbi needs a pretty "dumb" switch. If the switch is managed and green, it can give the Orbi grief. Perhaps others here can comment more. Perhaps you are already familar with the topic.
There are a number of devices that simply do NOT work or support use of the 5.0 GHz Band. For instance the My Q program that controls my garage door opener now is fighting the connection because it does not want the 5.0 but cannot seem to find the 2.4 GHz connection.
My is the exact opposite of you. I need the 2.4 for that purpose and now I'm a bit screwed trying to figure out how to get it set-up. Not sure I'll keep the RBK 852 due to that or not. The performance of all other devices seems to be going well. But the garage door not connecting tonight was an unwelcome surprise.
Have you checked which 2.4 GHz channels your garage opener accepts? You might need to change the channel on Orbi to one that is ok for the garage opener.
Great thought. Thanks for the suggestion. Honestly, it's about all I can do to get the RBK 852 connected and then 24 devices including 5 Ring devices, the garage door by Chamberlain (MyQ), etc. I'll give that try to see if it can latch on but it did not earlier when set to auto-mode. Seems like it'd be easier to offer the separate SSID but I understand the Mesh effect. Just not a lot of documentation out on the RBK 852.
@ekhalil wrote: Have you checked which 2.4 GHz channels your garage opener accepts? You might need to change the channel on Orbi to one that is ok for the garage opener.
For instance the My Q program that controls my garage door opener now is fighting the connection because it does not want the 5.0 but cannot seem to find the 2.4 GHz connection.
No fighting at all. The App does make use of standard network TCP/IP communication for talking from the mobile App to the IoT door opener. All the mesh systems wireless radios, all LAN ports, connect to the very same single network. Even add-on wireless access points, including 6 GHz, 60 GHz, or Bluetooth wireless access points - everything is on one network. 2.4GHz is not a network, it's just a radio frequency used.
If the App is coded like "if 2.4GHz then do_control else write not_connected_to_2.4GHz" exactly this nonsense code has to be removed. Talk to the maker of this door opener system - they simply don't understand networking. The only fight you as their customer has to go through... Include a link to this post along with the complaint, with my best regards!
Also often stated: The Mesh system does force the wireless client from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz. Well, it can't and it does not! Correct is that the Mesh system send out lists of BSSIDs (Radio MAC) of other wireless radio interfaces serving the same wireless network name (the [E]SSID), and it does also inform the client send out control packets with potentially better BSSIDs (other radio, other access point). Basic wireless clients like most embedded systems do not support 802.11k or 802.11v so these control packets are simply ignored.
My is the exact opposite of you. I need the 2.4 for that purpose and now I'm a bit screwed trying to figure out how to get it set-up.
Your mobile phone app does think it does require a connection to the 2.4 GHz band. Neither Apple iOS, MacOS, ipadOS, nor Android or Windows systems do not have such a control. Possible work-arounds are going far away from the Mesh device where 5 GHz does not reach, or lower the power of the 5 GHz, or disabling the 5 GHz announcement what does require to "forget" the network and then connect - for a while the connection will stick to 2.4 GHz (until the standard mesh code does inform the client about the possibly better BSSIDs (the other radio MAC addresses serving the same network these are).
Saying this here again: This is neither a Mesh system implementation nor a mobile device shortcoming. Much moe, this is 100% poor design of the App. A snap to fix for the crApp maker(s).
There are a number of devices that simply do NOT work or support use of the 5.0 GHz Band. For instance the My Q program that controls my garage door opener now is fighting the connection because it does not want the 5.0 but cannot seem to find the 2.4 GHz connection.
I ask because when you do it this way, the MyQ app doesn't use your phone's detected wifi networks at all. Instead, it receives the list of recognized networks from your opener. These will only be the 2.4Ghz networks since they're the only ones recognized by your opener's radio. Then, the app tells the opener which of these to connect to along with your password entry. Hope this helps.
Since this is the main reason I switched from Orbi I thought I'd add a bit of info that I couldn't easily find before.
I used Orbi for several years and it worked well with the separate SSIDs, I used multiple SSIDs for many of the reasons in this thread. Once that became untenable I had to find another solution. I moved to the U company and what I hadn't realized before is that all of their current APs, not just the ones labeled as mesh support wireless uplink and downlink (multi-hop). The wifi uplink/downlink isn't nearly as fast as Orbi but I'm getting 200-300Mbps and with my Internet being 50Mbps load balanced across 2 WISPs it's totally fine for me. I don't need Gb speed outside or from the far ends of the house. I now have roughly 80 wifi devices and 0 issues with most of the IOT on my 2.4 SSID (including 3 MyQ openers) and everything else on my 5g SSID.
Mods feel free to delete if I've violated the forum rules.
Went through all the steps multiple times. Got through to where the phone found the Chamberlain suggested wifi connection during the set-up but it failed multiple times. I suspect as one more elegantly put it the 2.4 GHz radio frequency is not being seen. I have changed the channel in the NetGear App to channel 1 not allowing it to automatically set the channel.
At this point I do not see another option as it's the ORBI RBK 852 or the Chamberlain Garage Door opener. They appear to be unable to co-exist at this point.
As one pointed out, and I acknowledge there may be something impractical about my desire, but it sure feels like a product design flow that one cannot turn off 5.0 Ghz for a short period of time or somehow divide the radio frequency.
Mixed emotions as the product itself works well but if one is unable to link 2.4GHz devices (of which I only have 2) it's becoming questionable.
Thanks to those w/ suggestions so far and let me know if anyone has additional thoughts or suggestions.
The 2.4GHz WiFi signal travel further than the 5GHz WiFi signal. Have you tried to move far enough away from your router and satelites that the smartphone connects to the 2.4GHz WiFi signal? This may be 60-100 feet or more away. Once your smartphone is using the 2.4GHz signal, then try configuring the IoT device (garage door) with their app.
I will explore that fruther. I noticed when I came back from a walk earlier it connected to the Garage Door Opener thru Wifi (MyQ-03F) so I tried that thinking it might be the 2.4. It did not work.
Tomorrow I'll step further away to see if I can isolate the ORBI signal and try your idea.
There's a litlte confusion on my part as it seems to want the user to connect to the opener (MyQ-03F) and then potentially connecting to the home wifi. I'll keep trying.
There's a litlte confusion on my part as it seems to want the user to connect to the opener (MyQ-03F) and then potentially connecting to the home wifi. I'll keep trying.
Yes, the way it works is you first connect your phone to the opener's 2.4Ghz wifi and then it tells you what other 2.4Ghz SSIDs it sees. Then you tell it which one to use and the password. Your phone is not selecting wifi access points (except for the initlal connect to the opener), therefore the 5Ghz connection will not be a confusion (to the opener, which cannot see 5Ghz.
Another suggestion, if you have your older wifi router, set that router up and use same SSID name and PW as configured on the Orbi system. Use the older router to get the device(s) connected fully, once devices are connected, remove the older router and the devices should auto migrate and connect to the Orbi Wifi.
OK! I'm back to report success on the garage door opener!
I clicked on the Chamberlain Wifi connection, then ran down up the street about 30 yards (away hoping the signal would fade over to 2.4GHz) and then the App finally let me proceed to select the new Home Wifi (which would presumably be 2.4 GHz). I then then jogged back to the garage (trying to not to look stupid) to finish out the series of button pushes / resets on the Garage Opener and the small mounted device on the door.
Quite an interesting process but it finally worked. Thanks to all who helped. So, yes you can separate the signal with some work and distance and jogging.
Next, gonna rest up to help the girlfriend set up her little camera that 2.4 GHz. My 5 Rings are doing well with the new service thanks goodness.
@ABCHome, glad you got it to work by getting your steps in and moving 30 yards away to get your smartphone to switch to the 2.4GHz frequency to configure the garage door opener.
Successfully running separate 2.4 and 5G SSIDs on an RBR40, RBS20 and RBS40 (converted RBR40) using firmware V2.5.1.16.
I joined the club just a couple of weeks ago. First task was to convert an RBR40 into an RBS40 - which worked like a charm (see reddit/orbi). Manually downgraded an RBR40 running V2.5.1.16 to V2.1.4.16 before converting it to an RBS40. Manually upgraded a brand new RBR40 from 1.XX to V2.1.4.16 to be my ORBI router. I chose to begin work with firmware V2.1.4.16 as that corresponded to earlier posts that reported success. Telnet config commands were used to specify unique SSID for "wla_ssid" and unique AES password/key for "wla_wpa2_psk" to create the separate 5G network. All seemed to work well, and the router web interface even showed status for BOTH the 2.4G and 5G wireless networks.
I then decided to update firmware of satellite then router to V2.3.1.58. Web interface now only displayed what was the 2.4G SSID. After some telnet investigation using wild cards to display as many of the wifi variables as I could find, I discovered that the newer firm ware is using different variable names for the 5G network, which now named "wla_2nd_ssid" and its AES password/key is named wla_2nd_wpa2_psk". Armed with this info, I was able to again configure separate wifi networks. I also applied "config set wifison-monitor_stop=1" which is reported to disable automatic firmware updates.
After a manual update to the latest firmware V2.5.1.16, NG again replaces the wla_2nd SSID. The telnet config commands were again used to correctly configure my setup. Yesterday I introduced a new RBS20 to my setup after first manually updating its firmware to the most recent V2.5.1.16 and then successfully integrating the new device. Logging into the web interface of satellites will reveal a status page that reports BOTH networks.
It is a bit of a hassle at first, but I am commited to the concept of limiting devices on my 5G network to prioritize streaming video and minimize interference/interruption.
