Unable to Fully Reset RBR50 Router After Encountering Guest Access Issues

[Retired_Member]

Firmware: 2.5.0.38

This is a RBR50 router with two RBS50 satellites. One of the satellites is connected wirelessly and the other is connected via an ethernet switch. Everything was working fine until I decided to try out the Guest Network. I attached two Owlete video cameras and ran Fing. I could only see one camera and the other would not connect. The Owlete instructions said there might be an issue on Guest networks, so I enabled, "Allow guests to see each other and access my local network," rebooted and it connected just fine.

I went back to the, "Allow guests to see each other and access my local network," setting and disabled it. After a reboot, Fing is reporting all the devices on my LAN. I tried enabling, disabling, rebooting, and nothing works. My LAN is still visible.

Here's the part that's really bugging me. After killing an hour trying to fix the issue, I decided to go for the nuclear option and followed Netgear's instructions for resetting the router. The LED flashed amber several times, but the router didn't reset. I powered it down for 10 minutes and tried again without success. I even tried holding the reset while powering up and received a red flash. I went back into admin GUI and discovered the Wi-Fi settings were reset but other settings, such as DNS, were not. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but the daisy-chain topology was enabled. I was almost certain that I disabled it on the initial setup.

I purchased the system at Costco about 7 months ago and I'm on the verge of taking it back, but I would prefer to resolve it myself.

Does anyone have some constructive suggestions for fixing one or both issues?

Thank you.

[tomschmidt · Accepted solution]

You are running v2.5.0.x firmware, it was very buggy and was retracted by @netgear.  A manual update to v2.5.1.8 is recommended if you are running the v2.5.0.x releases,  Search this forum for v2.5.1.8 for more details.  You can download v2.5.1.8 for your RBR50 and RBS50 from https://www.netgear.com/support/product/RBK53#download

As for resetting, the DNS settings of the router are set by DHCP from your ISP, so that is expected.  All other settings would revert to their defaults.

[tomschmidt · Accepted solution]

You are running v2.5.0.x firmware, it was very buggy and was retracted by @netgear.  A manual update to v2.5.1.8 is recommended if you are running the v2.5.0.x releases,  Search this forum for v2.5.1.8 for more details.  You can download v2.5.1.8 for your RBR50 and RBS50 from https://www.netgear.com/support/product/RBK53#download

As for resetting, the DNS settings of the router are set by DHCP from your ISP, so that is expected.  All other settings would revert to their defaults.

[FURRYe38]

To fully reset the RBR, either use the ERASE feature with in the RBRs web page under Advanced Tab/Backup or press the back reset button for 15 seconds then release. 

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@Retired_Member wrote:

Firmware: 2.5.0.38

This is a RBR50 router with two RBS50 satellites. One of the satellites is connected wirelessly and the other is connected via an ethernet switch. Everything was working fine until I decided to try out the Guest Network. I attached two Owlete video cameras and ran Fing. I could only see one camera and the other would not connect. The Owlete instructions said there might be an issue on Guest networks, so I enabled, "Allow guests to see each other and access my local network," rebooted and it connected just fine.

I went back to the, "Allow guests to see each other and access my local network," setting and disabled it. After a reboot, Fing is reporting all the devices on my LAN. I tried enabling, disabling, rebooting, and nothing works. My LAN is still visible.

Here's the part that's really bugging me. After killing an hour trying to fix the issue, I decided to go for the nuclear option and followed Netgear's instructions for resetting the router. The LED flashed amber several times, but the router didn't reset. I powered it down for 10 minutes and tried again without success. I even tried holding the reset while powering up and received a red flash. I went back into admin GUI and discovered the Wi-Fi settings were reset but other settings, such as DNS, were not. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but the daisy-chain topology was enabled. I was almost certain that I disabled it on the initial setup.

I purchased the system at Costco about 7 months ago and I'm on the verge of taking it back, but I would prefer to resolve it myself.

Does anyone have some constructive suggestions for fixing one or both issues?

Thank you.

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[Retired_Member]

Thank you. I manually updated to the version you mentioned and I can still see the LAN on the Guest network.

I use OPENDNS and manually set it. After the reset on the previous firmware it retained my custom DNS settings and reset everything else.

[Retired_Member]

The 15 second reset didn't work on the previous version.

I'll try the GUI option for the full reset on this version and report back.

Thank you.

[FURRYe38]

I always use the ERASE feature in the UI. However I have used the 15 second button press and thats worked as well. 

Keep us posted.

[Retired_Member]

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

I always use the ERASE feature in the UI. However I have used the 15 second button press and thats worked as well. 

Keep us posted.

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Good news and bad news.

The updated firmware will fully reset the router with both of the methods: GUI and reset button for 15 seconds. I spent an hour setting up my network again and assigning IP addresses.

Unfortunately, the AP Isolation (I'm assuming that's the option that Netgear renamed) on the Guest Network still doesn't work.

[FURRYe38]

Seems that the Guest Network problem has been historically present for a while. You might contact NG support and ask about this.

File a support ticket:

https://www.netgear.com/support/#

@Blanca_O 

I recommend not using Guest Network...

[tomschmidt]

@Retired_Member, I just tested my guest network on my RBR50 and RBS50 network and it is working as it should.  My guest network cannot access local resources on my LAN, such as printers, NAS and other PCs.

For my testing, I connected my Windows laptop to the guest network, and the RBR50 assigned it the 192.168.1.27 IP on my LAN (same IP as it had before on my primary network).  I then opened a CMD window and ran "ping 192.168.1.1" for the router's IP, and it does not respond.  Same for the IP of my printer and NAS.  It also could not map network drives from my NAS on the LAN, even using the IP address of the NAS.  I also cannot open the router management page at http://192.168.1.1/

On my Smartphone bound to my primary network, running FING does show the my laptop assigned IP even though it is on the guest network.  If I ask FING to find open ports on the 192.168.1.27 IP assigned to the laptop, none are found.  So it appears that the guest network is working correctly.

I have never enabled LAN access for my guest network and then disabled it again like you said that you did.  I do not want to try to duplicate your issue by doing so in case there is an issue.  Are you sure you are not being misled by your FING results?  Can you systems on the guest network ping the router and other LAN resources?

[Retired_Member]

I appreciate the suggestions.
Using FING on the Guest network, I pinged all the device IP's and and scanned for open ports. Nothing came back.

I don't understand how FING can see all the device details without being accessible.

[FURRYe38]

Sounds like this isn't a problem or Orbi issue. FING probably has scanning capabilties to look into the network and usnig ARP requests and such or other ways of getting info, has ways of getting information it needs to report. I wouldn't call this a problem. Just how the app works. 

[tomschmidt]

I connected my Smartphone to my guest network and ran the FING app on it.  It still reports the devices on the LAN, and can recognize most device types by their MAC address.  No open ports are found on the devices, nor can they be pinged, as the guest network blocks them as it should.  I also used another smartphone network app to look for UPnP and Bonjour services and none were found.

So if you cannot ping or see any open ports to IP addresses on your LAN from the guest network, then it is working as it should.  FING is a powerful tool, so it can dig deep to report back the IP addresses on the LAN of a guest network.

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@Retired_Member wrote:
I appreciate the suggestions.
Using FING on the Guest network, I pinged all the device IP's and and scanned for open ports. Nothing came back.

I don't understand how FING can see all the device details without being accessible.

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[Retired_Member]

I appreciate the feedback and testing!
Thank you!

[tomschmidt]

@Retired_Member can you please tag the solution and mark this as resolved?

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@Retired_Member wrote:
I appreciate the feedback and testing!
Thank you!

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