OK, this is worse than I thought. That wonderful story about my network healing itself seems to be the culprit. I did a few more tests and reduced it to the following. It doesn't have much to do with the firmware update, but more to do with rebooting the router or satellite (Yes! Even a satellite reboot causes this!).
Now the question is:
- is there a setting in the switches to accomodate this transient behavior, or
- if this is something to report to the switch people to fix in the firmware, or
- if there is a way to tell Orbi satellites that they are always in the wired backhaul and to never try to connect wirelessly to the router or another satellite, or
- if Orbi firmware should always make sure that if there is a wire connected, to wait for a while before establishing wireless backhaul, and try wired backhaul first.
Here is what I found out through experimentation:
Setup: Orbi router RBK50v2 & satellite RBS50v2, both running latest firmware 2.3.5.30. Router feeds an older but very trustworthy and stable 24-port unmanaged non-fancy Netgear switch in my "equipment room". One port of this 24-port feeds a wire to the wall jack of a room to which the satellite is connected. The satellite is both within range of the router (so, it can do wireless backhaul if it wants to) and is wired to the wall because it works with wired backhaul. Other outputs from the 24-port feed other rooms, and some of those rooms have the GS108Tv3 switches, all running the latest firmware 7.0.0.16, while other rooms have older unmanaged Prosafe Plus switches.
Scenario: Have everything running happily. Life is good. Now, to simulate a reboot that might come due to a power flicker or power outage or somebody bumping something or a firmware upgrade or an admin action, unplug the SATELLITE (i.e. not even the ROUTER), count to 10, then plug it back in. For a short while the satellite boots up, the white light pulsates gently, then stops. At that point, if you can catch it in time, the router admin webpage shows that the satellite is connected to it WIRELESSLY, even though it is wired to the wall. So, clearly, Orbi defaults to a wireless backhaul upon reboot. At that point, for those few seconds, the router even reports that GS108Tv3 around the house are connected, but I couldn't physically verify that since I am not The Flash to run around that fast; that might have been Orbi router showing me stale information. But within seconds of this, you lose all connection to any device, including the router (i.e. 192.168.1.1 cannot be accessed anymore). I think this is because the SATELLITE that is getting wireless backhaul "ethernet signal" from the router decides to pump out an ethernet signal through the wire leading to the wall that was originally meant to feed it the ethernet coming from the router through the 24-port. Now, the satellite feeds the 24-port, and the 24-port feeds everyone. I.e. all the switches around the house are getting this signal, including the GS108Tv3. Which means, for a bit, both the router and the satellite are feeding the 24-port, and the 24-port is sending out God knows what from the other ports. Maybe it even goes back to the router, so the router now might have a WAN input and a LAN input (that was a LAN output to the 24-port). That is probably why the router takes some sort of evasive action and disappears from the net. Eventually things settle down, the router is up and running again at 192.168.1.1, the satellite is on wired backhaul, everything is back to normal, including any of the old unmanaged switches in the rooms. Except: All the GS108Tv3 are now dark on their incoming port that was briefly flickering while the satellite was first plugged back in, and then went dark, and obviously stayed dark.
Bottomline: This will happen to me every time any of my Orbi reboots/reinitializes, either because of actual power loss or some wired connection loss to the router which will result in a wireless connection and briefly become a producer of the signal than a consumer. Yikes!
At this point, if this situation does NOT affect any of the non-smart non-GS108Tv3 various switches in action around the house, I am going to blame the GS108Tv3 firmware and report it. But, it is also disconcerting that a wired satellite might become a producer of wireless-converted-to-wired ethernet for a short bit during every reboot instead of waiting to see if that wired connection it senses will start feeding it instead.
Thoughts?
Tuna
