Serious Satellite Connectivity Bug

[benn600]

No luck!

I received the RMA replacement and installed it in my kitchen.  I reset both my living room and kitchen satellites and paired them both.  Every single time reproducible steps:

1. Stand near kitchen and view kitchen camera or connect to kitchen speaker.

2. Walk upstairs and stand near the router, both devices are *gone* and I cannot connect to either device, or the satellite itself.

This is definitely a serious problem.  While I'm connected to the router on my iPhone (wirelessly) I cannot connect to the other satellite.

I have seen this problem go the other direction where I cannot ping the living room satellite.  It almost seems like one direction is damaged while the other is okay.  Then it flips back.  One direction works while the other doesn't.  As if the back-haul can only have one active connection to a satellite at a time.

[st_shaw]

You received your RMA replacement what? Router or satellite?  It's not clear at all, but it sounded like a satellite problem to me.

[benn600]

I received a new satellite, which I don't necessarily agree is the problem.  I'm still trying different things.

[st_shaw]

Your probelm is strange.  You mentioned 100 devices with DHCP reservations and you also mentioned a limit of 64 DHCP reservations.  Those don't add up. Maybe there's an IP conflict somewhere.

Did you try letting Orbi handle the IPs with no manual reservations?

Did you try using Orbi in AP mode with another router?

[benn600]

I meant 100 for dramatic effect.  I have around 80 or so and yes, I hit the limit as my script was running to add them all.  I just now reset my Orbi to 100% factory settings and am not putting anything in other than my WiFi password, and I even made a new one so nothing will connect except devices that I want to connect.

Going to test some more things.

[Stkasm]

@benn600 could you please clarify if you ever tried switching Orbi to AP mode and using your old router (with wifi turned off) for DHCP and  WAN access? 

As I mentioned  before, the symptoms you're describing  cannot be reproduced in AP mode with ~20 devices and external router. Also, 5 isolated sonos speakers spread accross the house, using multicast works just fine in this Orbi network Please try AP mode if you can. It may help you and Netgear in isolating the problem.

Also, what's happening at the network layer? I'm not sure if you have IT background not. If you do, please try WireShark / tcpdump to verify what's happening at the network layer:

1) RAW traffic flow from the dump. 

2) ARP tables on devices

3) protocol used by your audio system etc.

[benn600]

I already got rid of my AirPort because this was solid/stable previously and I don't like keeping junk around.  I'll look into getting another router to test.

[benn600]

I think I'll ask for a replacement Router.  The satellites all seem to have issues.  I own two and have a 3rd now under RMA.  I have tried a few different scenarios.

The only test I still need to run is testing with my iPod Touch or iPad to see if the same thing happens.  I constantly can't connect to devices that are connected to a satellite unless I'm connected to the same satellite.  Just today I installed 4 Hue Bridges (65 light bulbs plus accessories) and everything was working great.  Then I added 8 iHome Smart Plugs and suddenly they are vanishing and unavailable.  They are more scattered around and connecting to different Orbi nodes.

Very perplexing but the last piece of the puzzle is the router, it is the common piece.  Maybe it has some kind of routing issue, but you would think it's software and not hardware.  I'm surprised others don't see this because I consistently see it.  If it was only one device I wouldn't blame Orbi but it happens with several different device types.  My iPhone 7 is the only other common piece that I need to rule out (iPod Touch/iPad).

[benn600]

Even simpler steps to reproduce:

Router 10.0.0.1

Living Room Satellite 10.0.0.2 [RMA replaced satellite]

Kitchen Satellite 10.0.0.4 [Original satellite RBK50]

1. With iPhone stand near living room satellite and open 10.0.0.2, loads fine and asks for login.

2. Walk upstairs near the router and wait a moment (to hop wirelessly onto the router).  Type 10.0.0.2 -- it hangs, never load.  Same thing with 10.0.0.4