Can't see attached devices - RBRE950

[yanivf]

I added some static IPs and rebooted my router. After that clicking on attached devices open a page with empty table with no devices. The main menu shows proper count of satellites and devices. Interestingly, if I go to access control menu all the devices show up. I'm on the latest firmware (6.3.7.5). Doing additional reboots doesn't help.

Another issue I have is checking for new firmware shows comes back with unreachable server, but this isn't new, and I got used to it from previous models of orbi.

Any suggestions? I want to avoid factory resetting my device as I don't want to enter all my custom settings from scratch.

[plemans]

If you delete one of the static devices and then reboot the router, do they show up? 

[yanivf]

Thank you @plemans for the quick response. I was about to do what you suggested and checked again and now all my devices showing up. Not sure why it took 24hrs. Maybe the list is getting pulled from Netgear servers and they had an issue but don't see a reason why they would store it at their cloud.

[iyang]

Hi @yanivf ,

What's model do you use ?

I added some static IPs => do you mean that you set reservation ip for your devices ?

Thanks.

[yanivf]

Hi @iyang , yes the reservation able in the DHCP section. I had some devices before and everything worked but just added few more and after the reboot the issue happened. Netgear has some bug for sure in showing devices but if adding the static ips to table is the cause isn't clear. 

To your question about the model - I have orbi 950 (the router is rbre950)

On the positive, it's started to work again by itself.

[Mikey94025]

My RBKE963 system running V6.3.7.5 also started showing nothing in Attached Devices.  I have 89 devices - Do you have a large number too?

If I use the browser debugger I can see that pushing the Refresh button makes an AJAX query to "http://orbilogin.com/ajax/get_attached_devices?id=xxx".  This call is successful and does returns the list of devices in JSON.  The AJAX call takes a long time: 12 or 13 sec for my Orbi network.  This long time may be why nothing appears on the HTML page.

I wonder if there is a timeout somewhere that is prevent the result from being rendered.  The JS code is http://orbilogin.com/jquery.js and the AJAX call is made on line 141.  I can't tell what the timeout value is being set to.

[yanivf]

Very interesting @Mikey94025. I'll explore the script. I have around the 50 devices. Try to see if you see your list by going to access control.

[Mikey94025]

---

@Mikey94025 wrote:

If I use the browser debugger I can see that pushing the Refresh button makes an AJAX query to "http://orbilogin.com/ajax/get_attached_devices?id=xxx".  This call is successful and does returns the list of devices in JSON.  The AJAX call takes a long time: 12 or 13 sec for my Orbi network.  This long time may be why nothing appears on the HTML page.

---

I was able to figure out how to use the Chrome debugger + breakpoints and the AJAX call is generating an exception:

ajaxOptions
: 
"parsererror"
thrownError
: 
SyntaxError: Bad control character in string literal in JSON at position 15449 at JSON.parse (<anonymous>) at Function.parseJSON (http://orbilogin.com/jquery.js:39:473) at Function.httpData (http://orbilogin.com/jquery.js:143:38) at x.onreadystatechange (http://orbilogin.com/jquery.js:140:278)
xhr
: 
XMLHttpRequest {readyState: 4, timeout: 0, withCredentials: false, abort: ƒ, onreadystatechange: ƒ, …}
Window

Yes, if I look at the JSON payload and go to position 15449 then I see the text is:

{"mac":"...", "type":"Network (Generic)", "model":"", "name":"", "ip":"192.168.1.36", "connectionType":"2.4 GHz", "connectionImg":"img/24GConnection.png", 

Where the problem is that "name" value - It's an invalid HEX 03 character.

[Mikey94025]

My Attached Devices works now.  I set a DHCP reserved address with a valid name for the invalid device whose reported name was HEX 03 character.  I don't know what this device is.  It's first 4 hex characters of the MAC address are the same as the my Elgato Key Light, but I don't think I have another wifi Elgato device.

BUG ROOT CAUSE: One of my devices was reporting a strange name of "" (hex 03) - See attached screenshot.  This caused the Attached Devices page to never list my devices.  The underlying AJAX call returned invalid JSON and the JS parser threw an exception.

FIX: Go to DHCP and set a reserved address for this device's MAC but set a valid name string.

[yanivf]

Very cool @Mikey94025 !! Great workaround and awesome debugging.

I wonder why it will fail in this code path and not in access control.

Now all we need is for Netgear to put a real fix. Not sure how difficult is it, as they are using some open source according to the disclaimer.