Orbi in AP mode with wired backhaul showing weird behavior

[dopey1620]

I recently set up an Orbi RBK53 system in AP mode (I don't need the orbi's router capabilities, as I'm using pfsense).  The main orbi router is connected into a gigabit switch and one of the satellites is setup for wired backhaul into that switch.  The second satellite is setup for wireless backhaul.

If I use the orbi app on my android device, it shows the wired satellite as offline.  If I log directly into the orbi's admin UI via a browser, the attached devices show it attached and with a proper backhaul.  Usually it appears as a Netgear device with the proper orbi image.  Sometimes though it appears as a satellite but instead of the Netgear orbi image next to the device name I get that old mac mini-lookalike icon.

The router and satellite are all on the latest firmware 2.2.1.210.

Any idea why there's this discrepency between the app?

I have also noticed that the app behavior is somewhat inconsistent.  If my device is connected to the main router or connected to the wireless backhaul satellite orbilogin.com resolves fine and works and the app works.  But if my device connects to the wired backhaul satellite orbilogin.com resolution fails and the app can't find the device.  I assume that the wired backhaul satellite simply doesn't have the capability of intercepting the orbilogin.com dns request but dunno if that's an accurate assumption.

[ekhalil]

Please check the discussion in this post:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Newtork-map-in-ORBI-app-does-not-show-devices-when-selected/m-...

So if you have an Android device then please first check that your SSID name has no spaces. Another thing (not confirmed) your Router and Satellite names should also not have spaces.

[dopey1620]

My SSID does not have spaces in it.  I just left the orbi device names as the default (Orbi Router, Orbi Satellite-1, Orib Satellite-2).  So having spaces in the device names is a problem?  If so that seems like an issue if those are the default names 🙂

But that doesn't explain why it only doesn't work if I'm wirelessly connected to an ethernet backhaul satellite.  In all other cases it works.

I also don't have the problem from the other thread.  All of my connected devices show just fine.

[ekhalil]

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

My SSID does not have spaces in it.  I just left the orbi device names as the default (Orbi Router, Orbi Satellite-1, Orib Satellite-2).  So having spaces in the device names is a problem?  If so that seems like an issue if those are the default names 🙂

But that doesn't explain why it only doesn't work if I'm wirelessly connected to an ethernet backhaul satellite.  In all other cases it works.

I also don't have the problem from the other thread.  All of my connected devices show just fine.

---

As mentioned in that post this seems to be a bug in the android software, but it seems it's not the problem causing your issue.

One other thing to check is to make sure that Daisy Chain is disabled as you are using one satellite with wired backhaul. This is another bug in the software that might cause some inconsistency. Please check this.

[FURRYe38]

I would file a support ticket here and let NG know about what your seeing:

https://www.netgear.com/mynetgear/registration/login.aspx

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

My SSID does not have spaces in it.  I just left the orbi device names as the default (Orbi Router, Orbi Satellite-1, Orib Satellite-2).  So having spaces in the device names is a problem?  If so that seems like an issue if those are the default names 🙂

But that doesn't explain why it only doesn't work if I'm wirelessly connected to an ethernet backhaul satellite.  In all other cases it works.

I also don't have the problem from the other thread.  All of my connected devices show just fine.

---

[dopey1620]

I filed a support ticket with netgear and while I got prompt responses I didn't get alot of useful assistance.  The last suggestion was, the orbi hardware is flawed and I need to exchange it (that sounded really suspect to me since everything is functional).  So I did more tinkering.

I'm in AP mode and I'm using an ethernet backhaul configuration where the orbi router and satellite are connected into a common gigabit switch.  In this scenario, the orbi router doesn't appear to properly detect the satellite is connected (i wonder what mechanism it uses to detect it.  If it's literally just doing packet analysis that wouldn't properly through a standard unmanaged switch).

If I connect the satellite directly into one of the orbi router's everything appears fine and functional.

Fortunately, my wiring allows me to do that - if a bit klunkily.  I've asked support to report this to engineering and see if they can do something about it with a firmware update.  Not holding my breath but I guess this makes sense.

I did notice something else.  Occasionally when I power on/off the satellite in the connected to a switch configuration, the entire switch goes completely nuts (basically all the lights go crazy as if someone is broadcasting like mad).  Local traffic is completely hosed.  Massive packet drops just on my LAN.  Turn off the satellite, everything is fine.  It seems like there's some other problems with the whole ethernet backhaul if you're not connected somehow directly into the router.

I need to get a managed switch so I can actually analyze the traffic and see what's going on 🙂

[ekhalil]

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

.......

I did notice something else.  Occasionally when I power on/off the satellite in the connected to a switch configuration, the entire switch goes completely nuts (basically all the lights go crazy as if someone is broadcasting like mad).  Local traffic is completely hosed.  Massive packet drops just on my LAN.  Turn off the satellite, everything is fine.  It seems like there's some other problems with the whole ethernet backhaul if you're not connected somehow directly into the router.

.....

---

1. What is the model of the switch you are using?
2. What other wired devices do you have connected to the Orbi nodes?
3. Please make sure Daisy Chain is disabled. As it seems there is a bug in the current software that causes issues when you have Daisy Chain enabled when you have wired backhaul and wired devices.

[dopey1620]

I don't recall the exact model but it's a basic trendnet 24-port unmanaged switch.  Nothing fancy.

I have no other wired devices attached to any of the orbi devices.

I've tried daisy chain both on and off and it's made no difference before.

But everything is stable now that I've connected the patch panel port for the satellite directly to one of the LAN ports on the hub.

[FURRYe38]

 this swtich a managed, smart or Green Ethernet supporting switch? If so then this could be a cause of yoru problems. Managed, Smart and Green Ethernet switches seems to cause problems with Orbi. If it's managed, you can disable ALL IGMP protcols on this switch. If it's Smart or Green Ethernet, remove the switch and test the satellites directly to the Orbi router. Besure Daisy Chain is disabled as well. If this works, then replace the switch with a non smart, non Green Ethernet switch. NG GS105/106/116 series switches don't have any of these features. 

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

I filed a support ticket with netgear and while I got prompt responses I didn't get alot of useful assistance.  The last suggestion was, the orbi hardware is flawed and I need to exchange it (that sounded really suspect to me since everything is functional).  So I did more tinkering.

I'm in AP mode and I'm using an ethernet backhaul configuration where the orbi router and satellite are connected into a common gigabit switch.  In this scenario, the orbi router doesn't appear to properly detect the satellite is connected (i wonder what mechanism it uses to detect it.  If it's literally just doing packet analysis that wouldn't properly through a standard unmanaged switch).

If I connect the satellite directly into one of the orbi router's everything appears fine and functional.

Fortunately, my wiring allows me to do that - if a bit klunkily.  I've asked support to report this to engineering and see if they can do something about it with a firmware update.  Not holding my breath but I guess this makes sense.

I did notice something else.  Occasionally when I power on/off the satellite in the connected to a switch configuration, the entire switch goes completely nuts (basically all the lights go crazy as if someone is broadcasting like mad).  Local traffic is completely hosed.  Massive packet drops just on my LAN.  Turn off the satellite, everything is fine.  It seems like there's some other problems with the whole ethernet backhaul if you're not connected somehow directly into the router.

I need to get a managed switch so I can actually analyze the traffic and see what's going on 🙂

---

[ekhalil]

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

I don't recall the exact model but it's a basic trendnet 24-port unmanaged switch.  Nothing fancy.

I have no other wired devices attached to any of the orbi devices.

I've tried daisy chain both on and off and it's made no difference before.

But everything is stable now that I've connected the patch panel port for the satellite directly to one of the LAN ports on the hub.

---

It has then to be something with the switch you are using. Have you tried another switch?

[dopey1620]

I wasn't aware of problems with green and managed switches but now that I do some more digging with specific search terms yeah it seems like lots of people have been having the same problem.

I just switched to a zyxel gs1900-24 managed switch and am tinkering with the igmp snoopings settings but it hasn't made any difference.

Still good to know.  Having the satellite wired directly into the router ethernet port is doable for now.  I've followed up on my support case to see if they can tell us what protocol(s?) are used for the router/switch discovery and syncing.

[dopey1620]

Oh and one other good news. Now that the satellite is actually connected to the router directly and everything apperas to be working fine, daisychaining is doing what I want.  Satellite-2 is connected to the wired satellite-1 instead of directly to the router.  Signal strength to satellite-1 is much better and everything works great.

[ekhalil]

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

Oh and one other good news. Now that the satellite is actually connected to the router directly and everything apperas to be working fine, daisychaining is doing what I want.  Satellite-2 is connected to the wired satellite-1 instead of directly to the router.  Signal strength to satellite-1 is much better and everything works great.

---

Great that things look good now.

One thing to be aware of is that wired backhaul together with Daisy Chain is not a good combination in the current software because of a software bug! Avoid having wired devices to the satellites for now until this is solved.

There is a beta software that is now being tested and it seems that this issue is addressed there 🙂

[dopey1620]

---

@ekhalil wrote:

---

---

Great that things look good now.

One thing to be aware of is that wired backhaul together with Daisy Chain is not a good combination in the current software because of a software bug! Avoid having wired devices to the satellites for now until this is solved.

There is a beta software that is now being tested and it seems that this issue is addressed there 🙂

---

I've seen alot of comments to that but I've had a hard time finding specific details of the problem.  Do you have a link to a post or something that describes what the problems are?  So far so good for me :fingerscrossed: but it'd be good to know what problems I might run into.

[ekhalil]

Please check this out:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/NETGEAR-Orbi-AC3000-satellite-LAN-ports-stopped-working/m-p/16...

[dopey1620]

---

@ekhalil wrote:
Please check this out:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/NETGEAR-Orbi-AC3000-satellite-LAN-ports-stopped-working/m-p/16...

---

Aah interesting.  I've not seen that behavior.  One thing that I do note is that the wireless backhaul satellite does move between satellite-1 and the hub periodically.  That's not a very heavily used satellite though so I don't know if when this happens what kind of downtime it causes.  I'll have to watch out for both the behavior in that post as well as the movement stuff.  Thanks for the info.

[FURRYe38]

Yes, others have reported that disabling IGMP protocols on managed switches resolved problems with connected Orbi and Satellites. If this works then your managed switch will be fine to use. Just keep this in mind. 

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

I wasn't aware of problems with green and managed switches but now that I do some more digging with specific search terms yeah it seems like lots of people have been having the same problem.

I just switched to a zyxel gs1900-24 managed switch and am tinkering with the igmp snoopings settings but it hasn't made any difference.

Still good to know.  Having the satellite wired directly into the router ethernet port is doable for now.  I've followed up on my support case to see if they can tell us what protocol(s?) are used for the router/switch discovery and syncing.

---

[dopey1620]

To close the loop on this, interestingly enough 2.3.0.32 resolves the issue with the app showing the right status for the satellite when it and the hub are wired into a common switch (i'm still using the zyxel gs1900-24 managed switch and igmp snooping is currently set to disabled - default config for the zyxel).

If I'm connected to the wired satellite, it still doesn't resolve www.orbilogin.com properly.  I still haven't had a time to hook up a hub to analyze the traffic to determine how that is detected though. But it's nice that basic functionality seems to be mostly working properly with 2.3.0.32 though.

[FURRYe38]

Does 192.168.1.1 resolve if your connected thru the satellite? 

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

To close the loop on this, interestingly enough 2.3.0.32 resolves the issue with the app showing the right status for the satellite when it and the hub are wired into a common switch (i'm still using the zyxel gs1900-24 managed switch and igmp snooping is currently set to disabled - default config for the zyxel).

If I'm connected to the wired satellite, it still doesn't resolve www.orbilogin.com properly.  I still haven't had a time to hook up a hub to analyze the traffic to determine how that is detected though. But it's nice that basic functionality seems to be mostly working properly with 2.3.0.32 though.

---

[dopey1620]

---

@FURRYe38 wrote:

Does 192.168.1.1 resolve if your connected thru the satellite? 

---

---

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking.  I assume that by 192.168.1.1 you're referring to the hub IP? (I'm not using 192.168.1.1).  Also, are you asking if www.orbilogin resolves to the ip address of the router?  Or are you asking if the reverse dns resolution of the router IP works?  If you're asking for the latter, that does not work and from what I can tell never has.  I've never seen a netgear router respond to the reverse DNS resolution of the ip address of the router.  Only for routerlogin.net/www.orbilogin.com.

[FURRYe38]

If you input 192.168.1.1 in a web browser while connected at the satelite, does it bring up the Orbi routers web page? 

---

@dopey1620 wrote:

---

@FURRYe38 wrote:

Does 192.168.1.1 resolve if your connected thru the satellite? 

---

---

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking.  I assume that by 192.168.1.1 you're referring to the hub IP? (I'm not using 192.168.1.1).  Also, are you asking if www.orbilogin resolves to the ip address of the router?  Or are you asking if the reverse dns resolution of the router IP works?  If you're asking for the latter, that does not work and from what I can tell never has.  I've never seen a netgear router respond to the reverse DNS resolution of the ip address of the router.  Only for routerlogin.net/www.orbilogin.com.

---

[dopey1620]

No, it doesn't 🙂  becasue I'm not using 192.168.1.1.  But I'm being pedantic.  Yes, hitting the orbi by it's IP address works.  I've also added a DNS entry for it.  However I didn't add a dns entry for www.orbilogin.com.  

I understand why the www.orbilogin.com resolution fails when not connected through the orbi.  Nothign else on the network would intercept the request and respond with the proper DNS entry.  I was just surprised this logic wasn't part of the satellite's connection and appeears to be reserved for traffic passing through the RBR50 hub.

What would be nice is if the orbi app didn't rely on that resolution and instead let you input a specific IP address but I digress from the original issue. 

[FURRYe38]

Odd that the Orbilogin isn't working correctly thru the satellite. I believe it should. Well, the IP address works though. 

[dopey1620]

---

@FURRYe38 wrote:

Odd that the Orbilogin isn't working correctly thru the satellite. I believe it should. Well, the IP address works though. 

---

So keep in mind, this is when the satellite is not connected directly to the hub - ethernet backhual to a shared switch.

If I connect the enthernet calbe directly to the orbi hub it works fine.  Also, remember I'm in AP mode, so by default, traffic isn't always routed through the hub (i have a separate router)

So I'm guessing whatever the mechanism the orbi uses to intercept the orbilogin dns request just isn't implemented on the satellite firmware.  It's not too surprising, but at the same time seems like it wouldn't be difficult to do.

[FURRYe38]

Anything is possible when it comes to Orbi. Possible this switch your using is causing problems? If ti works when the satelite is direct to the back of the Orbi base in ap mode, then something in between when your using a switch could be a problem? 

Whats the Mfr and model of this switch again?