Overnight, my Orbi system advised me that a FW upgrade was available, from my current V2.1.2.18 to V2.1.4.10. I had previously manually updated the Orbi firmware to V2.1.3.4, but soon discovered that Apple Homekit continuously advised me that my Lifx globes were unresponsive.
I could see no other benefis of V2.1.3.4 so I overwrote it by reinstalling V2.1.2.18, which allows for wired backhaul and gives me no grief about HomeKit and Lifx bulbs. I have been running V2.1.2.18 for over a week now and everything appears stable.
Against my better judgement I decided to let the Orbi router carry out the V2.1.4.10 update so I clicked "Update All". Big mistake. The update appeared to work, with all connectivity established, but when I checked Apple Homekit, there it was again - Homekit advising me that several Lifx lights were unresponsive.
Then I reinstalled V2.1.4.10 and reinstalled my benchmark V2.1.2.18. Unfortunately it too over an hour to get back to where I was before I clicked on "Update All". I had to click on the Router, then the Satellite's sync buttons several times to get the two talking. Then when the satellite was supposedly "up and running" the 2.4GHz network was unavailable. Eventually, however, I got the 2.4GHz network working.
I think there's a trick here. Despite the satellite advising that the 2.4GHz was available, devices known to be 2.4GHz that were physically in the same room as the satellite, were connected to the router. So I switched several of these off and on again, then bingo, the satellite's status showed that the 2.4GHz network was now available. The trick is to "seed" the satellite with devices that should have connected to it but didn't because they were attached to the router.
All in all, I spent several hours that I will never see again, bringing my installation back to where it was at 8:00am today.
I think it would be useful for the Orbi community to attach known issues about FW upgrades to a reference list.
I will start one about V2.1.4.10 and Apple HomeKit
