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Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco

danielfoster
Guide

Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco

Continue to have our WiFi stop working in the house at least once per day. Anything devices plugged into the Orbi router via Ethernet work fine. But Wifi completely stops for all wireless devices. Was having Comcast connectivity issues, but all of those have all been resolved. And since the devices plugged into the Orbi router work fine, it's not a signal issue from Comcast. No lights are emitted from the satellites so everything should be fine. But I have read many threads here about people experiencing the same thing.

 

My wife knows many of the buyers at Costco Headquarters (as we live near their HQ), so I'm thinking about getting an introduction to the head Electronic Devices buyer to showcase some of the frustration with him/her shared by many Orbi users. I know right now Costco is running a $70 discount promo so maybe they're looking to stop selling the Orbi.

 

Thought I'd try one last ditch effort to see if anybody has any suggestions on which Settings to tweak. I'm ready to try one more time before returning to Costco. Don't know if anybody has seen this before but even though I only have 2 satellites, I now see a 3rd "missing" one showing up when I go into my settings through the deskop app:

 
  
 Model NameDevice NameCurrent VersionStatus
RouterRBR50ROUTER-RBR50V2.1.2.18No new firmware version available.
SatelliteRBS50Satellite1-RBS50V2.1.2.18No new firmware version available.
SatelliteRBS50Satellite2-RBS50V2.1.2.18No new firmware version available.
SatelliteRBS50Satellite1-RBS50--.--.--.--No new firmware version available.

 

Any advice/suggestions from anybody would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Model: RBK53| Orbi Router + 2 Satellites Orbi WiFi System
Message 1 of 7
ktula
Apprentice

Re: Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco

I just picked a one set from Costco yesterday because they were on sale for $70 less ($399). The Orbi system is meant to replace my very old Airport Extreme router, which has been working quite well over the years. Because of the way the cables are routed in my 3-storey house, the Orbi router has to be located on the top floor, instead of the recommended 2nd floor. I have been in the IT industry for all my career and i had never had any issue setting up any network (WiFi or Ethernet) until last night. Configuring the Orbi system was tediously painful.

 

I first replaced the Airport Extreme router with the Orbi router. I then connected the Orbi satellites (one on the 1st floor and one on the second floor) in hope of using wired Ethernet backhaul. Next i launched the Orbi app in iOS to start the intiial configuration. It took multiple attempts and multi resets of the Orbi router because the initial configuration finally went through. But immediately after, i would not be able to connect to the router. Even though i could still see the WiFi network, i just could not connect to it. Eventually, i got in touch with Netgear support who suggested configuring the router with the satellites less than 10 feet from the router. That did the trick. 

 

I then move the satellites back to where i wanted them and reconnected them for a wired backhaul configuration. Initial Speedtest seemed to indicate a much better performance than my old Airport Extreme router - one would expect so since that Airport Extreme router was probably 10 years old. I did a few more Speedtest while moving from floor to floor. I wanted to see if the switch from one satellite to another, or from the router to the satellite, would be seamless. Here's when i encountered this issue. During the Speedtest run, if i move from one floor to the other, the test would fail almost 2 out of 3 times. When that happened, even though my iPhone was still connected to the WiFi network, it would not be able to get out to the internet for a few minutes. 

 

Another oddity i noted last night was - while my iPhone was still connecting to the WiFi network, my MacBook lost the connection after i made some changes to the Orbi configuration and it took a really really long time before it could re-establish a connection. Disableing and re-enabling WiFi on the MacBook did not resolve the issue.

 

I am going to thoroughly test this Orbi system for another week. If the instability i am seeing persists, this is going back to Costco.

Model: RBK53| Orbi Router + 2 Satellites Orbi WiFi System
Message 2 of 7
ktula
Apprentice

Re: Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco

Just in case anyone else wants to know, the router and the two satellites are on the latest firmware.

Model: RBK53| Orbi Router + 2 Satellites Orbi WiFi System
Message 3 of 7
st_shaw
Master

Re: Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco


wrote:

I wanted to see if the switch from one satellite to another, or from the router to the satellite, would be seamless. Here's when i encountered this issue. During the Speedtest run, if i move from one floor to the other, the test would fail almost 2 out of 3 times. When that happened, even though my iPhone was still connected to the WiFi network, it would not be able to get out to the internet for a few minutes. 

 

Another oddity i noted last night was - while my iPhone was still connecting to the WiFi network, my MacBook lost the connection after i made some changes to the Orbi configuration and it took a really really long time before it could re-establish a connection. Disableing and re-enabling WiFi on the MacBook did not resolve the issue.

 


I don't believe speed tests are designed to handle a change in AP during the middle of the test.  They are designed to measure sustained throughput, and changing APs is certainly not a condition that supports sustained throughput.

 

I don't know how long a time you are talking about, but it's not surprising your MacBook lost connection after making changes to the router configuration.  Most changes result in a reboot, which takes a couple minutes.  The satellites take even longer than the router to come back up.

 

 

Message 4 of 7
ktula
Apprentice

Re: Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco


wrote:

 


I don't believe speed tests are designed to handle a change in AP during the middle of the test.  They are designed to measure sustained throughput, and changing APs is certainly not a condition that supports sustained throughput.

 

I don't know how long a time you are talking about, but it's not surprising your MacBook lost connection after making changes to the router configuration.  Most changes result in a reboot, which takes a couple minutes.  The satellites take even longer than the router to come back up.

 

 


I should have been a little clearer. The Speedtest failures occurred in between the Download and the Upload tests. In the Speedtest app, it typically runs the Download first before proceeding to the Upload test. In my floor-to-floor tests, i would initiate the Speedtest run and while the Download test was in progress, i would move between floors. The Download test would always complete but the Speedtest app was unable to start the Upload test. Not sure if this makes any difference.

After making the configuration change, my MacBook was unable to re-connect to the WiFi network for close to 10 minutes even though the WiFi network was available (my two iPhones had no issue during that period). So i don't think this is a case of simply waiting for the reboot of the Orbi router and/or satellites because obivously some or all of them were providing the WiFi coverage.

Message 5 of 7
jmschnur923
Luminary

Re: Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco

Is there a free WiFi  hotspot associated with your Comcast ? If so, try turning that off and see what happens.

Model: RBK53| Orbi Router + 2 Satellites Orbi WiFi System
Message 6 of 7
st_shaw
Master

Re: Wifi Signal Lost from Orbi Daily - About to Return to Costco


wrote:

wrote:

 


I don't believe speed tests are designed to handle a change in AP during the middle of the test.  They are designed to measure sustained throughput, and changing APs is certainly not a condition that supports sustained throughput.

 

I don't know how long a time you are talking about, but it's not surprising your MacBook lost connection after making changes to the router configuration.  Most changes result in a reboot, which takes a couple minutes.  The satellites take even longer than the router to come back up.

 

 


I should have been a little clearer. The Speedtest failures occurred in between the Download and the Upload tests. In the Speedtest app, it typically runs the Download first before proceeding to the Upload test. In my floor-to-floor tests, i would initiate the Speedtest run and while the Download test was in progress, i would move between floors. The Download test would always complete but the Speedtest app was unable to start the Upload test. Not sure if this makes any difference.

After making the configuration change, my MacBook was unable to re-connect to the WiFi network for close to 10 minutes even though the WiFi network was available (my two iPhones had no issue during that period). So i don't think this is a case of simply waiting for the reboot of the Orbi router and/or satellites because obivously some or all of them were providing the WiFi coverage.


 

I can move between APs on my Unifi WiFI system with no issues, but that's with an iPhone 7+ and the Ookla App.  I don't know what you are using.  In any case, I don't think most speedtest apps are intended to handle AP switching, so you shouldn't conclude anything is wrong from it.  Better to test roaming by playing a movie or conducting a facetime or WiFi call.

 

Ten minutes is longer than it should take for your MacBook to reconnect, but the nature of your changes could have something to do with it. OSX handles WiFi differently than iOS also. 

 

I wouldn't conclude your router is unstable from either of these results.

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