OrbiOS 2.1.1

[aani75]

Yup, my daughters Huawei honor 6x tried to reached wifi and bang, the router got rebooted. Exact date timestamp.

NETGEAR, are you listening? fixing a problem can be tedious, we know, but acknowledging gives your customers thought for comfort that they are at least heard. The Android issue is a plaque and needs to be resolved ASAP.

NETGEAR, you can't just assume all your users are siblings of a bitten fruit. 

[scyu6058]

Hey guys, I read this and other post on ORBI firmwares, including the beta one.  I am from Hk and bought the RBK53 (1 router and 2 Sat kit).

Firmware version is .74 out of the box.  It has been stable since set up on 30-12-2017.  I upgraded smoothly to the latest beta firmware to get support for wired backhaul.  The upgrade was smooth and the performacne is also stable and satisfactory.

I note many of your guys's firmware version was version 1.x.x.x when out of the box.  

Mine was labelled as Made in China, NOT Vietnam as some other has mentioned.  I was wondering if the hiccups are hardware-related casue there might be slight difference in parts.

[robertcdh]

For what it's worth, mine says "made in China" and I'm plagued by the constant reboots.

[orbirick]

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@scyu6058 wrote:

Hey guys, I read this and other post on ORBI firmwares, including the beta one.  I am from Hk and bought the RBK53 (1 router and 2 Sat kit).

Firmware version is .74 out of the box.  It has been stable since set up on 30-12-2017.  I upgraded smoothly to the latest beta firmware to get support for wired backhaul.  The upgrade was smooth and the performacne is also stable and satisfactory.

I note many of your guys's firmware version was version 1.x.x.x when out of the box.  

Mine was labelled as Made in China, NOT Vietnam as some other has mentioned.  I was wondering if the hiccups are hardware-related casue there might be slight difference in parts.

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My RBK53 is labeled made in China and came with 1.12.0.18 iirc. I seem to have lost my notes with that info. It updated to 2.0.0.74 online and then I manually updated to 2.1.1.16. It ran rock solid for 2 weeks, then just died out of the blue. No power loss, no surge, just my internet died. It was fine one moment, then dead the next. I couldn't log onto the orbilogin.com page nor the debug page.

Connecting my PC directly to the modem restored my internet access. Later, I reconnected the Orbi to the modem, power cycled the Orbi, but no change. A while later I was digging out my old networking gear so I could bring my network back up when I heard the PC chime indicating a message was received and I found the Orbi system was back online. I'd guess it was down somewhere between 30 to 60 minutes or so. Of course with the power cycle, I couldn't tell if there had been a reboot or anything. So I have no idea what caused the system to go down.

This was very unfortunate because I had high hopes for Orbi. When it worked, it was fabulous. But if it's unreliable, it has no value to me. Thus the Orbi system is being returned to the store and my replacement system is already ordered.

It is with regret that I find it necessary to return the Orbi system.

[kmichalec]

Is Netgear deleting posts that criticize them off this board?  There were two posts here yesterday, one where a person asked how do you join the Beta program and another (which was post 171), where someone responded with a sarcastic reply of 1) Buy an Orbi system, 2) Plug it in, 3) You're now part of the program.  I specifically remember it, because I was going to reply something similar as a joke, and this other person beat me to it.

Both those posts are gone from the board.  Please tell me Netgear isn't spending time trying to silence people that are frustrated on this board, instead of working on the fix...

[Mikey94025]

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@kmichalec wrote:

Please tell me Netgear isn't spending time trying to silence people that are frustrated on this board, instead of working on the fix...

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OK.  There is no evidence that only a single Netgear employee does the software engineering work on firmware AND also administers the community board (AND builds new hardware products, etc.).  That should be obvious.

[tomsliwowski]

Just an update: I had some time to look into this further and realized the issue isn't with the ports or the rules but with the DynamicDNS service. It seemed that for some reason it wasn't updating no-ip.com with my current IP address.

After I disabled DynamicDNS and re-enabled it, an update was forced and all services appear to be working.

[kmichalec]

[OK. There is no evidence that only a single Netgear employee does the software engineering work on firmware AND also administers the community board (AND builds new hardware products, etc.). That should be obvious.]

Come on....Obviously it’s not one person doing everything. That’s just a ridiculous interpretation of the posted concern and not even the point. As a company, very little details on the progress of fixing these issues posted here to date, but yet willing to spend time removing posts. That’s the point. People are starting to remove thier Orbi’s due to the issues and replace them with competitors systems, while review sites are starting to notice and recommending people avoid them. It should be all hands on deck to fix the issues and manage the fallout. Not try to hide the issue by removing posts that hurt thier feelings.

[lowepg]

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@kmichalec wrote:
People are starting to remove thier Orbi’s due to the issues and replace them with competitors systems, while review sites are starting to notice and recommending people avoid them. It should be all hands on deck to fix the issues and manage the fallout. Not try to hide the issue by removing posts that hurt thier feelings.

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Well, I linked ONE site that was talking about all the firmware issues, but thats one little site. I'd guess far more people buy from places like Amazon and the feedback and reviews there are still overwhlming positive. I think like 4.3 stars. Costco also has them rated at 4 stars.

So, i suspect these things are still lfying off the shelves, despite a small but vocal minority of people whove found their way here :-(

[tneorg]

I had many of the above issues with the Orbi, and decided to cross my fingers and get the Orbi Pro. Oddly, it has worked for a few weeks right out of the box, with updated software. No issues. So Netgear knows how to make these things, but somewhere along the way the Orbi original has not benefitted by any firmware the Orbi Pro has. I have a router and two satellites, and so far all up and running with nothing odd to report.

[rce3]

My mileage varied...

Came back home from work the next day to family complaints that wifi wasn't working.  Examined system and found the following symptoms:

1. Both satellites were now showing up as satelllites rather than as attached devices.

2.  Internet connectivity was extremely slow and unreliable.  As an example, would take several minutes to load the google home page and would fail to load even that perhaps half the time.  Same applied to any website.  This was true for computers connected to Orbi by WiFi and for computers connected to Orbi by ethernet.

3. Could not print wirelessly to wifi printer.  Succeeded in printing only after connecting both computer and printer to orbi router via ethernet.

That third point convinced me it was my internal network having problems rather than any problem with my broadband connection.  Rebooted a few things without success.   Then reverted to 2.1.1.16 and performance immediately returned to normal.

It's been my experience that it takes a long time for all devices to properly display in the attached device screen.   As an example, I reverted the firmware last night and as of this morning 16 of my ~30 network devices are showing up in the display with the satellites showing up as attached devices.  Everything seems to work regardless of display, so I've never worried about it much.  As mentioned in prior post after the 2.1.1 upgrade my satellites initially showed up in the attached device section of the web display and my network performance was fine.   I speculate that my network performance problems began some hours later when the satellites registered as satellites rather than attached devices.

[budy]

Well, my satellite did show up as one right from the start, but after hooking it up to the LAN and thus creating a networked backhaul, the devices list was just nonsense, as it reports all devices as being located on the router, which may make kind of sense, depending on how the MACs are matched to the router or sat.

The router can of course see all the MACs from the wireliess clients on it's own LAN interface, and each MAC would be needed to be examined, if it also is present or local to the bridge on any satellite. Other than that, my combo has been solid for two days, no glitches, no reboots… however, no Android devices for that matter, so I can't comment on that issue. I will have to grab a Android device from the office tomorrow and see, if it crashes the router, if it connects to the wifi. Any particular version of Android needed to force a crash?

[robertcdh]

I have an Android v7.x and and Android v8.x that both seem to cause the router to reboot after I wake them.  Because both devices are affected, I don't think the version of Android is the real cause.  Instead, I think it might have something to do with a Wifi update to Android possibly to fix the KRACK vulnerability.

[dpdurst]

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@robertcdh wrote:

I have an Android v7.x and and Android v8.x that both seem to cause the router to reboot after I wake them.  Because both devices are affected, I don't think the version of Android is the real cause.  Instead, I think it might have something to do with a Wifi update to Android possibly to fix the KRACK vulnerability.

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I have 6 android devices, 2 Samsung 7 phones with 7.01 and 4 tablets running 7.01 and none of them no matter what reset my router or satellite and they have never acted up at any time.

[robertcdh]

We have multiple devices too and not all of them seem to trigger a reboot.  This wasn't happening before.  We first noticed it after getting the 2.1.1.16 Orbi firmware.  We did also receive a security update to our Motorola phones at about the same time.

Using telnet, I was able to browse some of the log files in the Orbi router and did find messages indicating kernel panics but I can't interpret what caused them.

I wish Netgear would reach out to those of us with the reboot issue to help collect diagnostic data.  In a way, their non-contact gives me hope that they know the cause and are working on a fix.

[johnzm]

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@robertcdh wrote:

We have multiple devices too and not all of them seem to trigger a reboot.  This wasn't happening before.  We first noticed it after getting the 2.1.1.16 Orbi firmware.  We did also receive a security update to our Motorola phones at about the same time.

Using telnet, I was able to browse some of the log files in the Orbi router and did find messages indicating kernel panics but I can't interpret what caused them.

I wish Netgear would reach out to those of us with the reboot issue to help collect diagnostic data.  In a way, their non-contact gives me hope that they know the cause and are working on a fix.

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telnet interface has lots to offer. i spent quite awhile in there and found plenty of things i probably shouldnt have. but seeing as how i was one of the guys that got my post deleted (among some 10 or so posts it seemed) i am not sure its worth my time. 

i wonder if they know that my account defaulted to me getting emails (with the content of the post) for every post haha... kinda makes deleting the post look real bad on them. 

this is the first time i've tried any netgear product, and basically it caused me weeks of downtime until i turned it into an AP. real sour experience so far.  not so sure its worth $400..

[AF1E]

I have been running th beta for few days and am still having issues though it is more stable.  I have noticed that after some time one of my satellites will show as connected on the router page and show devices connected, yet I cannot sign in directly to the satellite by entering its IP (I can my other satelllite),  also my HDHomerun Connect which is hardwired to the satellite is not longer recognized on my network and it is not functioning properly.  Note it is a UPNP device.  Rebooting satellite alone does not fix this.  I have to reboot the whole system to fix the issue.

[setham]

I bought the router and satellites last week and after a day of reboots I found this post and upgraded the satellites (RBS50+RBS40) and router (RBR50) to V2.1.2.10 Friday night.

Through the weekend and this week I had continued having reboots, in my case, I can pinpoint* most if not all the reboots to "roaming" between devices, specifically with Android devices at least with 6.x and 7.x

I am the only Android user at my home, everybody else uses iOS, with time stamps I can tell that the router/satellites disconnect when I move from one area to another. Others had pointed out that the issue might be with 7.x (and 8.x), so I turned off my new phone and started using an old Note 4 with 6.0.1 with same results.

On top I had to keep my old router because port forwarding does not fully work  for my configuration, and I did not have the time to troubleshoot the issue; so I  decided to keep my router Linksys WRT1200AC running OpenWRT and configure the Orbi as AP.

People at home it is not happy. 

I will activate a different SSID on the WRT1200AC with my Android device as the only client, and post a follow-up in a couple of days.

*I configure a Raspberry Pi 3 to monitor the WiFi (scanning my SSIDs, pinging the router and satellites, the internet and some wireless devices that are always connected at home -chromecast, thermostat, wemo switches- ) and every time I move from one area to the other at least one of the set (router/satellites) stop responding the pings, and the broadcasted SSID disappears for a few minutes interrupting in some cases the Internet access.

[aani75]

I think you hit the bullseye. I rechecked my logs and exactly when Android device roaming around, either router reboots or internet disconnected. if I don't roam with an android device and kept a device one place, I get pretty consistent connection and no reboots. A suspicion (as stated earlier) could be KRACK fix.

[Asturia]

So a temporary solution is go back to a firmware just prior to the Krack fix?

[martyfp]

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@setham wrote:

*I configure a Raspberry Pi 3 to monitor the WiFi .....

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Kudos for this - you sound like my sort of engineer :-)   "Necessity is the mother of invention" is the phrase that comes to mind 

We have experienced intermittent crashes due to my son's OnePlus and he's currently barred from using the wifi.   The pattern you describe makes perfect sense now that you describe it.   

[Sevo123]

Major issues discovered in all firmwares of Netgear orbi! I was on the phone with Netgear support for 4 hours. After doing all testing we found out there’s a major issue where the satellites will not connect to other satellites when daisy chain is on. As long as the satellite sees the router it would automatically connect the router instead of the closer satellite. Netgear support (highest level) is going to reply back to me in the next 24 hours for a fix or they will get some more info from my Orbi system. I will keep you all posted once I get any response

[aani75]

This android issue may be the root cause of all other problems related to rebooting and disconnection, at least seems like this way. NETGEAR, are you acknowledging that? and would you please confirm if work in progress? I am still inside a return window. 

[bsorrent]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am running 2.1.1.12 and I am not experiencing constant re-boot issues.  We have Apple iphones but we do have an Echo dot and Sony Andriod TV and Amazon Fire.  My current issue is I cannot successfully connect my second satellite without the first sattellite being kicked off the system.  I was able to get them both connected with a complete re-boot of the system but then after a bit of time, the satellites were dropping connection and then I started having the same issue as I had a while back with the inabitlity to make a wifi call on my phone without dropping.  I did find a post on the web regarding Andriod phones causing issue with several routers from several manufacturers so it seems to be an Android issue, not soley a Netgear/Orbi issue.  I am 7 months into having this system and probably 40+ hours with support.  Most of my support calls are at least 4 hours at a time.  

[dsegel]

Do those of you with the Android roaming reboot problem have Fast Roaming turned on or off?