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Forum Discussion
device not connecting to closest satellite
It looks like many have a similar problem. I have an RBR50 along with 2 satellites. My router is on my main floor with 1 satellite upstairs and 1 satellite in the basement. In my master bedroom, I have the upstairs satellite and about 5 feet from it is my Roku TV. This TV is connecting to the router down on the main floor. I've recycled the power on the TV; I've even done a "flush network" on the roku system but it still gets assigned x.37 and connects to the router that is over 70 feet away and through drywall/housing.
I continue to get buffering issues on this Roku TV (mostly Netflix, but some times Amazon Prime). My internet averages 200Mbps download and my TV on my main floor doesn't have this issue.
Many devices do not seem to connect to the closest satellite and as a result I still have issues and am no better than the Nighthawk unit I had. I HOPE that forcing the bedroom Roku to connect to the satellite right next to it would resolve this issue --- otherwise, it seems Netgear isn't the answer.
Any suggestions?
63 Replies
What Firmware is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?Try turning down the power of the RBR from 100% to say 50%. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings. Then reboot the ROKU device. See if it connects to an RBS.
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between RBR and RBS to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. https://kb.netgear.com/000036466/How-far-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite-from-my-Orbi-routerTry 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. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).Thank you for the quick response.
Let's see:
router (and satellite) firmware: V2.3.5.30
modem is Motorola SB6141
Size of house: with finished basement ~5000 sq ft
Distance between router and satellites: hard to determine straight line length, with material, but the general layout is the line would be:
Router-->Satellite-->Roku-TV The Satellite is in between the Router and Roku-TV. If I had to guess, the satellite(s) and router are within 30 ft of each other. I'll try the reduction in power of the router, but that would seem to "hurt" the items on the main floor from having good signal/access.
> Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings
Before I do think, I'd need to understand what it is I'm doing so as to not compromise other device connectivity.
>Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).I don't think daisey chain is appropriate since my downstairs satellite is not in line with the upstairs satellite. I do have "Armor" set; I don't know what "circle", "fast roaming", and the other things are.
Try setting the output radios of the RBR first. Try 75%. A slight reduction in single coverage, however shouldn't impact anything.
I am having the same problem with a doorbell camera that connects to the farthest device of 3 (the router Orbi) while in a daisy chain setup.
I cannot locate these advance settings/tabs in the app to try and dial down the strength %. Is there another place to do this?
The closest satellite is within 5 feet of the camera too; and always has poor connectivity.
my firmware is V2.3.5.30
- No news nor solutions to this problem, now 7months in?! Have people solved this? We wanna know too (a solution), as this buffering problem was THE reason we invested in Orbi mesh. If our device is not connecting to the clisest strongest signal (RBS850),.. but preferring the farthest weakist signal (RBR850).... what are we to do??
Is there a way to configure the system so that ONLY the chosen RBR accepts client connections?Please post about this in the Orbi AX forum for your model Orbi:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/bd-p/en-home-orbi-ax
Thank you.
Koppenhoefer wrote:
No news nor solutions to this problem, now 7months in?! Have people solved this? We wanna know too (a solution), as this buffering problem was THE reason we invested in Orbi mesh. If our device is not connecting to the clisest strongest signal (RBS850),.. but preferring the farthest weakist signal (RBR850).... what are we to do??
Is there a way to configure the system so that ONLY the chosen RBR accepts client connections?I have the exact same problem. 40 devices in the house typically connecting to the closest unit and system is mostly fast. HOWEVER, there is an exception with one desktop computer that seems to prefer the satellite versus the main unit. The satellite is two floors away on the other side of the house. The main unit is 20 feet away. If I unplug the satellite, the computer will happily connect to main unit with speeds around 100Mbs. If I then replug the satellite, within an hour, the computer will connect to it and I will get 500Kbps at best. And THEN sometimes the connection drops altogether but will not then reconnect to the main. It is terribly frustrating.
I have the same issue from time to time. I go to the device, forget the Wireless networks and re-connect. It always picks the strongest signal and stayus connected until the closest satellite goes offline for some reason.
Have there been any news?
Setup:
- RBR50 w/ satelite
- Router and Satelite online
- Satelite ~30 ft from router on the same floor
- Screenshot of Advanced Wireless Settings has been attached
I have 25 connected devices and 24/25 are connecting to the router. Really defeats the reason for getting the Orbi system in the first place. About 50% of the devices are closer to the satelite than the router, but still they are not connecting. Tried removing the network from those devices and re-adding them. Did not make a difference.
How can we force devices to connect to the satelite. Clearly this is an issue with the Netgear product, based on the previous post with other people having the exact same issue.
coco84 wrote:Have there been any news?
Setup:
- RBR50 w/ satelite
- Router and Satelite online
- Satelite ~30 ft from router on the same floor
- Screenshot of Advanced Wireless Settings has been attached
I have 25 connected devices and 24/25 are connecting to the router. Really defeats the reason for getting the Orbi system in the first place. About 50% of the devices are closer to the satelite than the router, but still they are not connecting. Tried removing the network from those devices and re-adding them. Did not make a difference.
How can we force devices to connect to the satelite. Clearly this is an issue with the Netgear product, based on the previous post with other people having the exact same issue.
Actually this is an issue with ALL mesh systems. They are going to connect based on the strongest easiest path. Interference plays a big role. It also depends on how far the devices are from the router or satellite, as well as walls, line of sight, etc.
I recently installed a 4th satellite 35 ft away from the router on the same floor. 1 TV upstairs and another TV right next to the router is connecting to this 4th device. They are the only 2 devices that connect to this 4th satellite, but they do, even though the router is closer to both devices.
Try changing WIFI channels, move the satellite to a different location.
Hey, just popping in to say this thread was really helpful and I've solved my particular issue. My Ring doorbell (and really, most of my devices, including my smart plug) were connecting to the main router in the basement and not either of the satellites. For example, my smart plug was connecting to the router (I have the Orbi RBR50) one floor down and across the house inside a little room, instead of the satellite that was literally 10' away. As others have mentioned, I see mobile devices (e.g. cell phones, laptops, tablets) shift between the router and satellites as they are moved within the house. The doorbell was a problem, though, because I can't move it (obviously) and by connecting to the router in the basement instead of the closest satellite its performance was sorely lacking. I was able to get my Ring to connect to the satellite by moving that satellite closer to the doorbell and then forcing the doorbell to disconnect from and reconnect to the internet (for my Ring model, I simply removed the faceplate, pushed the button to send it into setup mode, then pushed it again to exit setup mode.)
FWIW as I was messing with this I also ended up power cycling the smart plug, which - when it reconnected to the internet - decided it wanted to join a closer satellite, as well.
Now, I am almost certain that any time we lose power to the main router and the system reboots, the doorbell will automatically re-connect to the router (since the router will boot up before the satellites). However, hopefully I can just recalibrate by performing the same trick I did today. Not ideal, but it worked. Hopefully this helps someone else as well.
Glad you got it working. Please mark your thread as solved so others will know.
Enjoy. :smileywink:- I think that the lowering of the transmission power could be helpful for me as well, given that I have one device that connected to the router over 30ft away, meanwhile, the satellite is next to it with only 3 feet in between. When lowering the transmission power, can you lower it for specifically the router, or for a specific satellite?
- This makes sense, but I have 80 devices in my home and the reason I got the RBR850 system is because it claims to handle more than 100. Netgear needs to update their firmware to make this happen automatically.
After a couple of days of frustration I realized the problem in my case was the Mac access control. I login in the url 102.68.1.1 as admin, Under advanced -> access control I turned it off that solved my issue. Immediatelly devices connected to the closes satellite and router. I hope that helps.
Good luck!
- Work very well after turn off access control. Thank you very much.
Hi all, we have this not connecting to the closest satellities issue and the remote access problem for over 2 years still not resolved. These Orbi system proven doessn't work. We should all return the satellies and keep the router so we don't waste the money.
My RBR and RBS work fine with my devices.
Placement, distance and configuration is key. It's also up to devices to pick and choose which signal they connect too, not Orbi.
Wick2021 wrote:Hi all, we have this not connecting to the closest satellities issue and the remote access problem for over 2 years still not resolved. These Orbi system proven doessn't work. We should all return the satellies and keep the router so we don't waste the money.
It doesn't a matter if you don't have problem. If it doesnt work as expected, why we need to keep it. If yours doesn't have issue, suggest you to keep it. If ours doesn't work and noboby can help to resolve the issues, why we need to keep it but not trying the other brand. This not connecting issue has been an issue over 2 years. And as of today, there issue is still here, no support has been given ...... Also, the remote access is another issue that Netgear can't resolve... I have one router and 3 satellites. Waste all my money.
Wick2021 wrote:not connecting to the closest satellities issue
Here again, the clients decide about the access point to be connected.
Are we talking about dumb clients on 24*7 connecting to the router when the Orbi system is started, before the Orbi satellites are coming on air? Not much Orbi can do under these conditions.
Explain the problem you are experiencing. Crystal ball is on service.
Wick2021 wrote:and the remote access problem
Off topic here. What problem please? The fine manual does explain it like this:
===
Use remote access
To use remote access:
1. Launch a web browser on a computer that is not on your home network.2. Type your router’s WAN IP address into your browser’s address or location field followed by a colon (:) and the default port number (8443) or custom port number.
For example, if your external address is 134.177.0.123 and you use port number 8443, enter https://134.177.0.123:8443 in your browser.===
If the Orbi router does not have a public routeable IPv4 addess exposed to the Internet, if thee is some Carrier Grade NAT, if the ISP is using different NATing, if there is a provider router in front of the Orbi router, if there is a ISP side firewalling in place, this dead simple remote access can't work.
- Did you try to turn off access control.
I have same problem but after turn off access control. It worked very well
- Faced the same issue and then I realized two things
1. My satellite firmware was not updated to the latest one
2. The back haul link status as coming as poor.
Version upgrade did not solve my issue but resolving the backhaul status by repositioning the satellite did the trick.
Hope it helps- It’d be nice if the Orbi router would block client connections when power cycling until it detected all satellites reporting online so then clients could better detect a closer AP. This might not be ideal but could help this situation with clients not connecting to the closest AP.
Interesting that their dropdown when writing a post doesn't have an option for the RBR850. But I agree with you 100%. There are times when I power cycle the units, brief power outage, etc. and when everything is back up and running, some satellites have no devices connected to them. How is that possible? My wish: devices connect based on 5GHz first - check router and satellites for that connection first and if there is one that has a sufficient signal, connect to it. If the signal for 5GHz isn't suficient, drop back to 2.4GHz, but connect to the one that has the strongest signal. When I look at my devices and determine what each one is connected to, for many of my devices, it makes no sense to me at all, where it's connecting. Yeah, I wish Netgear would fix this.
- My rbr10 is not even listed. It's this issue in question the main issue a mesh system suppose to resolve? This should work right out the box. Im a 20+ year IT professional and these answers don't sound simple.
