Re: Orbi RBR50 and Slow WiFi Problems with iOS Devices

Bandito · ‎2018-01-12

I’ve been experience a very strange problem with slow WiFi speeds on my iOS devices for a few months now and was wondering if anyone might be able to point me to something to try to fix it.

It seems that the problem started when I updated our iPhones and iPads to iOS 11 and has been ongoing ever since. I have spoken with Apple about the issue, but nothing we’ve tried has helped. Things like turning Airplane mode on and off, resetting network settings, re-setting up the iPad/iPhone as a new device, etc.

Here’s what happens. When home, the iOS devices act normally and have a good connection to the Orbi system and get full Internet speed (150 Mbps for my service) all over the house. If we then take the iOS devices out of the house and connect to another WiFi network, such as at work, all is still well. The problem starts when we return home. They connect to the WiFi network just fine, but if I perform a speed test, they will show anywhere from about 1 Mbps to about 25 Mbps connections and will not get any better throughput. Also, while this is happening, if you try to use an application that accesses the Internet, it will experience long delays in accessing the information every few minutes. Once the delay is over, everything works as expected, but at the low, and sometimes very low, connection speeds. No amount of fiddling with the iOS devices will correct the situation; however, through the process of elimination I found that restarting the Orbi router gets everything back to working as expected.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what could potentially be causing this odd behavior, but would appreciate any insight that someone may have and would be willing to share. This is becoming more and more annoying as time goes on.

Bandito · ‎2018-01-12

Oh, I forgot to mention that while the iOS devices are suffering the slow access seeds and occasional delays in accessing the Internet, all of the Macs and PCs on the network connect just fine and get a full speed 150 Mbps Internet connection.

DarrenM · ‎2018-01-15

In the advanced wireless settings of orbi try unchecking the box that says Enable 20/40 MHz Coexistence I know this has improved performance for some IOS devices.

DarrenM

Bandito · ‎2018-01-19

DarrenmM, thanks for getting back to me!

For some reason or another, after a recent reboot, things seem to be working normally again. This is after three months or so of issues. At any rate, one thing that appears to have eliminated the Internet access stalls is I made a change to my DNS servers. I previously had a Mac Mini server as primary DNS server and my NAS server as secondary. Switching these seems to have resolved the stalls. I haven’t had time yet to troubleshoot the Mac Mini, but will see if I can find a problem with the DNS server app on it.

So, for now, I’m kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop and the access speed slowdown issue to occur again. Hopefully it won’t, but since I haven’t changed anything that should have impacted it, I’m thinking it will rear it’s ugly head again at some point.

Bandito · ‎2018-01-23

Well, as expected the issue has reared its ugly head again. Tonight when I got home from work, my iPhone immediately showed symptoms of low access speeds and stalls. My iPad was fine for a few minutes, but then it, too, did the same thing. No amount of monkeying with either device would get them to work properly, but my MacBooks and PCs were all working just fine.

I eventually rebooted the router and the iOS devices started working again normally.

Does anyone else have any ideas what might be going on?

I am running the latest firmware on the Orbi, 2.1.2.18 and the latest version of iOS, 11.2.5.

st_shaw · ‎2018-01-23

If DNS was your issue before, try disabling your personal DNS servers temporarily and using Google's DNS or your ISP DNS servers and see if that resolves the problem. If it does, then you would know the issue is something with your DNS servers.

Bandito · ‎2018-01-27

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually went through and tested several DNS configurations using Namebench and it turned out that my Mac mini server was 7 times faster than any of the other options, so I once again promoted it to primary and it has worked as expected ever since.

I’m just counting down the days until I next need to reboot the Orbi router to keep all the iOS devices happy.

sloya1 · ‎2018-03-01

In the past couple of weeks my MacBook Pro has had this same problem with slow to no internet speed. I have rebooted with no change in the connection. All firmware is latest and iOS. Im about ready to take this system out for good. All my Windows and Android system work fine, only affecting the MacBook Pro 2017 model.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-03-01

Have you tried disabling MIMO and Daisy Chain features on the Orbi router? Might give this a try. Also try disabling Beamforming as well. You can re-enabled them after checking.

@sloya1wrote:
In the past couple of weeks my MacBook Pro has had this same problem with slow to no internet speed. I have rebooted with no change in the connection. All firmware is latest and iOS. Im about ready to take this system out for good. All my Windows and Android system work fine, only affecting the MacBook Pro 2017 model.

Bandito · ‎2018-03-02

I’ve been having mixed results since Netgear released firmware V2.0.1.4. It seemed to have corrected the speed issues on my iPad Pro and iPhone X and I also had another device that would lose its Internet connection regularly after about three days. It seemed like it was smooth sailing until my husband brought me his iPhone 7 Plus the other day and it was again getting a slow connection. It would only average about 16-17 Mbps download when it should have been getting 150 Mbps. It also had trouble connecting to sites and was experiencing long delays in loading them. This is exactly what I was experiencing before. I rechecked my devices and a couple of the PCs and all were working well, so I rebooted his iPhone with no difference and then did a network reset on the phone with no difference either. So now, everything is working well except for the iPhone 7 Plus.

Interesting enough, I have found out that during all of these problems, upload speeds have remained constant and a it’s expected speed of 24 Mbps. Go figure.

Next, I’ll verify that the iPhone 7 Plus is still experiencing problems and then reboot the Orbi system to see if this resolves the iPhone 7 Plus’ issues. I fully expect that it will as it has always corrected the problem in the past. It’ll be interesting to see how long the reboot will last in resolving the problem with the iPhone 7 Plus.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-03-02

I'm having good operation with Beamforming enabled and MIMO and Daisy Chain features disabled.

@Banditowrote:
I’ve been having mixed results since Netgear released firmware V2.0.1.4. It seemed to have corrected the speed issues on my iPad Pro and iPhone X and I also had another device that would lose its Internet connection regularly after about three days. It seemed like it was smooth sailing until my husband brought me his iPhone 7 Plus the other day and it was again getting a slow connection. It would only average about 16-17 Mbps download when it should have been getting 150 Mbps. It also had trouble connecting to sites and was experiencing long delays in loading them. This is exactly what I was experiencing before. I rechecked my devices and a couple of the PCs and all were working well, so I rebooted his iPhone with no difference and then did a network reset on the phone with no difference either. So now, everything is working well except for the iPhone 7 Plus.

Interesting enough, I have found out that during all of these problems, upload speeds have remained constant and a it’s expected speed of 24 Mbps. Go figure.

Next, I’ll verify that the iPhone 7 Plus is still experiencing problems and then reboot the Orbi system to see if this resolves the iPhone 7 Plus’ issues. I fully expect that it will as it has always corrected the problem in the past. It’ll be interesting to see how long the reboot will last in resolving the problem with the iPhone 7 Plus.

naerok · ‎2018-03-02

@Bandito

this is a known issue documented in this post: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/What-you-can-expect-with-your-Orbi-system/m-p/1503034#M23257

good luck - so far the only solution seems to be putting a smart outlet / timer on your satellite(s) to reboot them once every 24 hours (I'm not joking) or rolling back the firmware (but I still see people saying they experience the same issues on the older firmware)

see this guy: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Orbi-satellite-dropping-connection/m-p/1512445#M24230

Don't listen to the netgear shills on these forums that blame the user and give you the same bs about trying to disable beamforming/mimo or moving the satellites closer to the router. Waste of time until netgear releases a fix.

Bandito · ‎2018-03-02

Thanks for the info, but I don’t think that disabling standard supported features is the answer to any problems let alone these issues. That being said, if I continue to struggle, I will try them as a temporary workaround.

One question for you, though. What do you mean by disabling daisy chain features? I don’t recall seeing any settings regarding this.

Bandito · ‎2018-03-02

@naerok

Thanks for the links to the other threads. Most of those problems sound different from what I’ve been experiencing. My system only seems to slow down throughput on iOS devices only. Other items continue to work as usual when this happens. It’s quite odd.

Time will tell if things will improve or not.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-03-02

Daisy chain is a feature were you can let the Satellites be connected to each other instead of directly to the router.

If you don't see this feature then it's probably not on your router or in FW yet.

Yes I agree with having all features enabled however some client devices don't work well with some of these features so NG has options to disable or enable them for troubleshooting purposes. Another feature to see if you have is Fast Roaming. Might check on this one as well.

At anyrate, try these options, for what you have and see if this helps. I have MIMO disabled here. Beamforming is enabled and working for my system. I don't have fast roaming or daisy chain. Some model routers may differ in features.

Give what you have a try and let us know.

@Banditowrote:
Thanks for the info, but I don’t think that disabling standard supported features is the answer to any problems let alone these issues. That being said, if I continue to struggle, I will try them as a temporary workaround.

One question for you, though. What do you mean by disabling daisy chain features? I don’t recall seeing any settings regarding this.

sloya1 · ‎2018-03-03

I want to thank everyone for the feedback but none of the suggestions worked for me.

But all is not lost. This morning I continued to focus on the MacBook Pro since all other devices were working just fine. I was sucessful in fixing the problem with long delays or no response to websites. After several tries the fix ened up being a curupt wifi module. I corrected it by the following steps.

Click om the apple menu and select system prefference then network

Click on advance and selecte the wifi module and click on the - button and apply

Close the network menu and reboot your computer

After reboot go back to networks and click on advance nd click on the + button

From the menu select wifi and click apply

Next reconnect to your network and you should be up and running.

I hope this helps you becuase it saved me taking out the ORBI system

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-03-03

Glad you figured it out. Thanks for letting us know what the issue was and how you fixed it.

Enjoy the Orbi now.

@sloya1wrote:
I want to thank everyone for the feedback but none of the suggestions worked for me.

But all is not lost. This morning I continued to focus on the MacBook Pro since all other devices were working just fine. I was sucessful in fixing the problem with long delays or no response to websites. After several tries the fix ened up being a curupt wifi module. I corrected it by the following steps.
Click om the apple menu and select system prefference then network
Click on advance and selecte the wifi module and click on the - button and apply
Close the network menu and reboot your computer
After reboot go back to networks and click on advance nd click on the + button
From the menu select wifi and click apply
Next reconnect to your network and you should be up and running.

I hope this helps you becuase it saved me taking out the ORBI system

Bandito · ‎2018-03-14

Well, more time has passed and I’ve been able to learn a bit more about what is happening with my setup.

It appears that the Orbi router itself is stable and reliable; however, the satellites are very unstable and don’t appear to run correctly for even a full 24 hours. I found this out as I had an iPhone having connection issues and an iPad that wasn’t. I decided to see who was connected to what and found that the working iPad was connected directly to the router, while the iPhone was on one of the satellites. The iPhone would connect to the Internet, but experienced slow throughput and some connection dropouts. It did not, however have any problems communicating on the internal network. The backhaul showed it was functioning normally on the 5 GHz band, but whatever is causing problems appears to on affect the Internet connection.

I rebooted the satellite and verified that I was connected through it and everything worked well for the rest of the evening. When I tried things again this afternoon, the satellite was again causing problems. So, if Netgear can work out the problem with the satellites, I think we could have a good fast system, but until then, it’s causing nothing but headaches.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-03-14

You might try this. Disable all Satellites and just use the Router for wifi for a while.

This is something you should contact NG support about and see if maybe you can get the Satellite(s) replaced.

Bandito · ‎2018-03-15

I don’t really suspect the backhaul itself as I can always get a good connection between the router and iOS device while it is experiencing issue with the Internet and I don’t usually see problems with connection speeds and stalling on the PCs, whether On MacOS or Windows. The problem appears to be unique to the iOS device connections, but I will now be checking the PCs to see where they are connected when this happens.

So, it seems unlikely to be the backhaul, but if I can find long-enough cables, I may try your test just for the additional information. Too bad Netgear doesn’t apparently perform this kind of product testing so that we don’t have to do it for them.

Bandito · ‎2018-03-15

@FURRYe38

Thanks for the suggestion, but if I disable the satellites then I don’t get signals in some areas where they are needed and I can’t relocate the router, so I’m kind of stuck. This was the main driving reason for upgrading to the Orbi system in the first place.

The fact that others are also experiencing satellite issues along with the apparent “recall” of the most recent firmware due to memory leaks in the satellites makes me feel like I’m not necessarily experiencing unique hardware problems with my satellites. So, in the meantime I’ll continue to monitor the situation and reboot just the satellites when necessary while waiting to see if Netgear can figure out what they’re doing wrong.

Bandito · ‎2018-03-17

Well, this last time around, the satellite made it a little over two days before it crapped out again. The iOS devices clearly exhibited the slower connection speed and some stalling as well. One of the Windows PCs was connected to the router, but it also exhibited strange behavior. It’s Speedtest showed a slow connection at first, but then it gradually increased to where it got to full speed just before the download finished. Then it showed about half the speed for upload that it should have. After resetting just the satellite, the Windows PC returned to normal as well, so it would appear that there is some interaction going on between the satellite and the router that impacts the router’s performance until the satellite is reset. Who knows?

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-03-17

I would contact NG support and get the Satellite(s) replace.

Bandito · ‎2018-04-27

I just wanted to update this thread with the my latest experiences.

I last updated the firmware in the system to V2.1.3.4 and have had about 2-½ weeks of blissful computing. All went well until today when the devices connected to the satellites reported no Internet connection, but the router itself was fine. I restarted everything and then found that there is again new firmware, V2.1.4.10, so I have updated everything to that and we’ll see how things go over the next few weeks. At least it seems like we’re now getting close to a sustainable service.

azbrd · ‎2018-05-15

My RBR50s are are the very latest FW, V2.1.4.10 and I continuously have issues with IOS devices ONLY. After rebooting the router everything works fine and 24hrs later my ipads, iphonex cant connect to anything on the internet. This IS a Orbi bug, when the router is rebooted everything works fine for ~24hours, devices connected via wire work fine, no limitations or restrictions so this is a WIFI ONLY issue. Netgear needs to get there heads out of the sand and fix this problem on their flagship product!