RBS50 continuously reboots itself

[godspeed]

I bought the RBK50 recently, and have had it running in AP mode for about 2 weeks so far. Reason i run in AP mode, is that the router functionality of the Orbi is missing many features that i am used to using an Asus AC68 router with custom firmware (Merlin). When i first installed the RBK50 (router on first floor corner office, satellite on 2nd floor middle of house. approximate distance between nodes is about 35-45 feet, going through 2 walls and a floor), i immediately updated the firmware to version 2.0.0.74 and began the process of resetting the SSID on all devices in our home (about 25-30). All devices connected to the network, i had the blue ring on the satellite and the satellite page says good connection, but then i started digging into which node my devices were connecting to depending on their location. I noticed, that after a reboot of the system, the router comes up first, and then the satellite. this caused a lot of my devices to connect to the router to either a weak 5 Ghz signal, or a "decent" 2.4 ghz signal. And these devices (echo dots and rokus) are the farthest away from the router. To correct this, i had to power cycle the echo dots and rokus and they would then connect to the satellite with a strong 5 Ghz signal. I tried enabling and disabling the "fast roaming" checkbox, but no change in behavior after rebooting the RBK50.

After doing all these power cycles on devices, i look at the attached devices page and see that the devices that are closest to the satellite are connected to it, and those closer to the router are connected to it, awesome. However, a couple hours later, i notice that everthing is back to connecting to the router. when i browse to the satellites debug.htm page, i notice that the system uptime has been reset (to a few minutes runtime). The router debug.htm page shows its been up since i last rebooted the system.

So for the last 2 weeks, the satellite will constantly reboot itself (I assume that is what the system uptime resetting itself reflects) every few hours, causing all devices to connect to weak connections to the router. This happens during the day when people are using the wifi, as well as the early morning hours (everyone asleep).

I tried the latest firmware (2.1.1.12), and it was the same result.

sidenote: the phones and tablets (android) we have in the house seem to do a good job of connecting to the correct node, depending on location, even after a reboot, but i believe that is do to how the wifi radios in those devices are built to function (roaming to strongest signal).

Anyone else seeing the same behavior?

[godspeed]

Quick update:

This morning when i logged onto the satellites debug.htm page, i noticed that it had rebooted itself (system uptime was only a few hours, compared to the routers uptime of 17 hours).  There was an event in the router's log (Advanced -> administration -> logs) that corresponds to the satellite reboot:

[WLAN access rejected: incorrect security] from MAC address 96:3b:XX:XX:XX:XX, Wednesday, December 13, 2017 05:24:14

this MAC address happens to be one of the MACs used by the Orbi system.  I discovered this by turning on the Debug Log capture and searching for that MAC address, and found it referened a few times as ATH01.

I will continue monitoring the logs to see if the next satellite reboot also has a correponding "WLAN access rejected" message.  My guess is that the satellite rebooted because the internal encrypted connection between the router and satellite malfunctioned, causing the satellite to reboot?

[loomis1975]

Have you opened a Support ticket?

It sounds like you have a lot of data to offer Support about this issue.  You might be well on your way to a replacement satellite from Netgear if nothing else.

Only thing I can think of is to try to Master Reset the satellite and then Resynch the satellite to the router, although if it is a match pair from factory, it might resynch back up by itself, but manually synching via pressing the buttons can't hurt.