audio drops every 30 minutes for 5 seconds

[drops]

for past year or so everything was great.

for the past 2 weeks i have a had a new consistent audio drop exactly every 30 minutes.
it happens on multiple computers and multiple applications (primarily zooms, Teams, and other video conferencing).

my internet provider swears everything is fine on their end.

i replaced the modem and it is still happening.

so im thinking its the orbi.

when i reset the orbi the time changes but it still happens on the same 30 minute cycle.

for example it might be happening at 2:14 and 2:44 (every hour on the :14 and :44) and when i reset the orbi it ends up on a different cycle, for example 2:05 and 2:35 (every hour on the :05 and :35)

any suggestions?

Model: RBR20|Orbi AC2200 Tri-band WiFi Router

[FURRYe38]

What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?

Have any RBS connected as well or is it just the RBR alone? 

What channels are you using? Auto? Try Auto and 48 on 5Ghz. Or try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and 40 to 48 channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or may not be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Traffic Meter, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s). Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

One User Experience/Configuration:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Most-Stable-Orbi-Configuration/m-p/1941087/highlight/true#M970...

[CrimpOn]

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@drops wrote:

when i reset the orbi the time changes but it still happens on the same 30 minute cycle.

for example it might be happening at 2:14 and 2:44 (every hour on the :14 and :44) and when i reset the orbi it ends up on a different cycle, for example 2:05 and 2:35 (every hour on the :05 and :35)

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Situations like this are very difficult to diagnose.  The obvious question is, "what changed about two weeks ago?"  In most cases the user does not remember changing anything, and actually may not have changed anything themselves. Some examples of change include:

• New devices being added to the network.
• Firmware on the Orbi router being updated to a new version.
  This is especially difficult because few users have any reason to check the firmware version and thus have no idea if it has changed recently. And, (as far as I know) Netgear does not display the date that firmware was modified.
• Bitdefender Armor or Parental Controls features may have been updated.  Once again, I know of no information provided to the user about these products. (Maybe somewhere buried in the Orbi app?)
• The ISP changing network parameters.

This last item is a remote possibility, but can be checked.  On the Orbi web interface, Advanced Tab, click the blue box "Connection Status" inside the Internet box.  What does it say about the Lease Obtained and when it expires?  For example, my Orbi shows that it received a lease of 1 day, 0 hours, 0 minutes.  (In reality, the lease is defined in seconds and is 86,400 seconds).  According to IEEE standards, the user device is supposed to wait until the lease reaches 50% remaining and then ask to renew it.  When I did networking for a living, we would set the lease at 86,400 seconds to reduce the load on our network DHCP servers. But... when we needed to reallocate the IP address pools, it was common practice to reduce the lease to a very short time so that every computer would get "reconfigured" in a short time.  We would usually do this in the moddle of the night.  Get the entire network reconfigured. Then put the lease time back to one day.

Sorry for the 'walk down memory lane'.  This may have nothing to do with your situation, but it will take only a few minutes to confirm.

[drops]

thanks for the suggestion. im trying but i cant find the lease time.

i cannot access the webapp orbilogin.com. my password recovery efforts hit a wall.

but i do have the orbi app on my phone.

i cant find the lease time on my app.  can you suggest where to look?

[CrimpOn]

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@drops wrote:

i cannot access the webapp orbilogin.com. my password recovery efforts hit a wall.

i cant find the lease time on my app.  can you suggest where to look?

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This is so sad.  When Netgear developed the Orbi 'app', they did not include so many things.  Information about the IP lease is available only on the web interface.

If the user cannot enter the admin password and the password recovery process fails, there is only one way to access the Orbi web interface: do a Factory Reset.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMw4ePACgc4

I have spent hours configuring my Orbi (assigning IP's to specific devices, customizing how they appear on Attached Devices, setting up DDNS and OpenVPN, changing to specific DNS servers... the list goes on).  In my case, a factory reset can take over two hours to set all that up again.  If basically all you have done is set the Orbi WiFi name and password, a factory reset can be done in 15 minutes.

[drops]

thanks for the coaching, i did the factory reset and can now login to the webapp.

my lease is set to 1 hr 47 min,

i dont see a way to edit that to make it longer.

[CrimpOn]

Even though 1:47 is an usually short DHCP lease time, that cannot explain a disturbance every 30 minutes.  If it was every 53 minutes (half of 107) I would want to persue that direction. Geez. I am no help at all.