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Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

djhurlburt
Apprentice

device not connecting to closest satellite

It looks like many have a similar problem.  I have an RBR50 along with 2 satellites.  My router is on my main floor with 1 satellite upstairs and 1 satellite in the basement.  In my master bedroom, I have the upstairs satellite and about 5 feet from it is my Roku TV.  This TV is connecting to the router down on the main floor.  I've recycled the power on the TV; I've even done a "flush network" on the roku system but it still gets assigned x.37 and connects to the router that is over 70 feet away and through drywall/housing.  

 

I continue to get buffering issues on this Roku TV (mostly Netflix, but some times Amazon Prime).  My internet averages 200Mbps download and my TV on my main floor doesn't have this issue.  

 

Many devices do not seem to connect to the closest satellite and as a result I still have issues and am no better than the Nighthawk unit I had.  I HOPE that forcing the bedroom Roku to connect to the satellite right next to it would resolve this issue --- otherwise, it seems Netgear isn't the answer.

 

Any suggestions?

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 1 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

What Firmware is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?

Try turning down the power of the RBR from 100% to say 50%. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings. Then reboot the ROKU device. See if it connects to an RBS. 

What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between RBR and RBS to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. https://kb.netgear.com/000036466/How-far-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite-from-my-Orbi-router

 

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).

Message 2 of 64
djhurlburt
Apprentice

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Thank you for the quick response.

 

Let's see:

 

router (and satellite) firmware: V2.3.5.30

modem is Motorola SB6141

Size of house: with finished basement ~5000 sq ft

Distance between router and satellites: hard to determine straight line length, with material, but the general layout is the line would be:

Router-->Satellite-->Roku-TV  The Satellite is in between the Router and Roku-TV.  If I had to guess, the satellite(s) and router are within 30 ft of each other.  I'll try the reduction in power of the router, but that would seem to "hurt" the items on the main floor from having good signal/access.

 

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

 

Before I do think, I'd need to understand what it is I'm doing so as to not compromise other device connectivity.

 

>Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).

 

I don't think daisey chain is appropriate since my downstairs satellite is not in line with the upstairs satellite.  I do have "Armor" set; I don't know what "circle", "fast roaming", and the other things are.

 

 

 

Message 3 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Try setting the output radios of the RBR first. Try 75%. A slight reduction in single coverage, however shouldn't impact anything. 

Message 4 of 64
nmcharka
Guide

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

I am having the same problem with a doorbell camera that connects to the farthest device of 3 (the router Orbi) while in a daisy chain setup.

I cannot locate these advance settings/tabs in the app to try and dial down the strength %. Is there another place to do this?

 

The closest satellite is within 5 feet of the camera too; and always has poor connectivity. 

 

my firmware is V2.3.5.30

Model: RBK53|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi System
Message 5 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Message 6 of 64
nmcharka
Guide

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

I just dont see the advanced tab anywhere in the Orbi APP. Am i suposed to be looking somewhere else? 

 

thanks!

Message 7 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Yes, use a PC or laptop and web browser connected to 192.168.1.1 or orbilogin.com

Message 8 of 64
LCFMI
Initiate

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Noticed the exact same issue where devices on the network don't connect to the closest satellite. In addition to that, I see connections moving from the 5GHz band to the 2.4Ghz band back and forth, for no real reason. Yesterday, for no reason, our XBOX connected to the router on the 2.4GHz band and it was lagging like crazy where the night before it was connected to the router on the 5Ghz band and there was no issue.

Lots of weird and completely, at first glance, unjustified behavior of the system. It seems to be totally out of control...

 

Have a roughly 5,000 sqft house with 3 levels with router on the main level, one satellite upstairs and one in the basement

My router is an RBR850 (AX6000 Tri-band) with 2 satellites

Firmware Version: V3.2.15.25_1.3.15

Distance between router and satellites is wirhin 30 ft although on different levels of the house

Have a cable modem with a 400Mbps dl and 20Mbps ul

With that system and the latest firmware, the additional issue is that all these settings that were suggested to adjust in previous posts, are not available to adjust anymore - There is very little that is adjustable now

Also tried all the power cycling things I could think of on the devices, the router, etc ... nothing seems to have any effect on the system behavior

 

I also am coming from a NightHawk R8000 and although the mesh system seems appropriate with a large house, I feel like I went backwards, even with the latest Orbi system available. A bit frustrating.

 

Spent 2 hours last night with a Netgear tech specialist but nothing seemed to have changed the behavior of the ORBI system. The last suggestion was to proceed with a router reset to factory settings but I haven't done it - How would/could that help?

The Orbi system is less than a week old and I installed it from scratch out of the box - why should I have to do a factory reset already?

 

Is the latest firmware possibly the cause of the problem?

 

Any help/suggestion will be welcome

Message 9 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Please post about this in the Orbi AX forum for your model Orbi:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/bd-p/en-home-orbi-ax

 

Thank you. 


@LCFMI wrote:

Noticed the exact same issue where devices on the network don't connect to the closest satellite. In addition to that, I see connections moving from the 5GHz band to the 2.4Ghz band back and forth, for no real reason. Yesterday, for no reason, our XBOX connected to the router on the 2.4GHz band and it was lagging like crazy where the night before it was connected to the router on the 5Ghz band and there was no issue.

Lots of weird and completely, at first glance, unjustified behavior of the system. It seems to be totally out of control...

 

Have a roughly 5,000 sqft house with 3 levels with router on the main level, one satellite upstairs and one in the basement

My router is an RBR850 (AX6000 Tri-band) with 2 satellites

Firmware Version: V3.2.15.25_1.3.15

Distance between router and satellites is wirhin 30 ft although on different levels of the house

Have a cable modem with a 400Mbps dl and 20Mbps ul

With that system and the latest firmware, the additional issue is that all these settings that were suggested to adjust in previous posts, are not available to adjust anymore - There is very little that is adjustable now

Also tried all the power cycling things I could think of on the devices, the router, etc ... nothing seems to have any effect on the system behavior

 

I also am coming from a NightHawk R8000 and although the mesh system seems appropriate with a large house, I feel like I went backwards, even with the latest Orbi system available. A bit frustrating.

 

Spent 2 hours last night with a Netgear tech specialist but nothing seemed to have changed the behavior of the ORBI system. The last suggestion was to proceed with a router reset to factory settings but I haven't done it - How would/could that help?

The Orbi system is less than a week old and I installed it from scratch out of the box - why should I have to do a factory reset already?

 

Is the latest firmware possibly the cause of the problem?

 

Any help/suggestion will be welcome


 

Message 10 of 64
Koppenhoefer
Tutor

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

No news nor solutions to this problem, now 7months in?! Have people solved this? We wanna know too (a solution), as this buffering problem was THE reason we invested in Orbi mesh. If our device is not connecting to the clisest strongest signal (RBS850),.. but preferring the farthest weakist signal (RBR850).... what are we to do??

Is there a way to configure the system so that ONLY the chosen RBR accepts client connections?
Message 11 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Please post about this in the Orbi AX forum for your model Orbi:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/bd-p/en-home-orbi-ax

 

Thank you. 


@Koppenhoefer wrote:
No news nor solutions to this problem, now 7months in?! Have people solved this? We wanna know too (a solution), as this buffering problem was THE reason we invested in Orbi mesh. If our device is not connecting to the clisest strongest signal (RBS850),.. but preferring the farthest weakist signal (RBR850).... what are we to do??

Is there a way to configure the system so that ONLY the chosen RBR accepts client connections?

 

Message 12 of 64
coco84
Initiate

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Have there been any news?

Setup:

- RBR50 w/ satelite

- Router and Satelite online

- Satelite ~30 ft from router on the same floor

- Screenshot of Advanced Wireless Settings has been attached

 

I have 25 connected devices and 24/25 are connecting to the router. Really defeats the reason for getting the Orbi system in the first place. About 50% of the devices are closer to the satelite than the router, but still they are not connecting. Tried removing the network from those devices and re-adding them. Did not make a difference.

 

How can we force devices to connect to the satelite. Clearly this is an issue with the Netgear product, based on the previous post with other people having the exact same issue.

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 13 of 64
Mstrbig
Master

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite


@coco84 wrote:

Have there been any news?

Setup:

- RBR50 w/ satelite

- Router and Satelite online

- Satelite ~30 ft from router on the same floor

- Screenshot of Advanced Wireless Settings has been attached

 

I have 25 connected devices and 24/25 are connecting to the router. Really defeats the reason for getting the Orbi system in the first place. About 50% of the devices are closer to the satelite than the router, but still they are not connecting. Tried removing the network from those devices and re-adding them. Did not make a difference.

 

How can we force devices to connect to the satelite. Clearly this is an issue with the Netgear product, based on the previous post with other people having the exact same issue.


Actually this is an issue with ALL mesh systems. They are going to connect based on the strongest easiest path. Interference plays a big role. It also depends on how far the devices are from the router or satellite, as well as walls, line of sight, etc.

I recently installed a 4th satellite 35 ft away from the router on the same floor. 1 TV upstairs and another TV right next to the router is connecting to this 4th device. They are the only 2 devices that connect to this 4th satellite, but they do, even though the router is closer to both devices. 

Try changing WIFI channels, move the satellite to a different location.

Message 14 of 64
tmwsiy99
Tutor

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

I have the exact same problem. 40 devices in the house typically connecting to the closest unit and system is mostly fast. HOWEVER, there is an exception with one desktop computer that seems to prefer the satellite versus the main unit. The satellite is two floors away on the other side of the house. The main unit is 20 feet away. If I unplug the satellite, the computer will happily connect to main unit with speeds around 100Mbs. If I then replug the satellite, within an hour, the computer will connect to it and I will get 500Kbps at best. And THEN sometimes the connection drops altogether but will not then reconnect to the main. It is terribly frustrating.

Message 15 of 64
Mstrbig
Master

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

I have the same issue from time to time. I go to the device, forget the Wireless networks and re-connect. It always picks the strongest signal and stayus connected until the closest satellite goes offline for some reason.

Message 16 of 64
ABCHome
Star

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

This is the part where NetGear is really sloppy in terms of their service and product. 

 

One- they want to charge for service on basic crap that should be part of buying their expense products. 

 

Second - NetGear needs to be more proactiv in the forum and answer anything not answered within 72 hours. Sloppy, lazy, and cheap.

 

Now on to the issue. The internet connected devices do not connect to the closest ORBI device. They should create a way to move a device over the the ORBI main router or one of the satellites.

 

I look forward to a response eventually but afraid this will take some time. NetGear frequently disapppoints on this front.

Message 17 of 64
Calikrista
Initiate

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Hey, just popping in to say this thread was really helpful and I've solved my particular issue. My Ring doorbell (and really, most of my devices, including my smart plug) were connecting to the main router in the basement and not either of the satellites. For example, my smart plug was connecting to the router (I have the Orbi RBR50) one floor down and across the house inside a little room, instead of the satellite that was literally 10' away. As others have mentioned, I see mobile devices (e.g. cell phones, laptops, tablets) shift between the router and satellites as they are moved within the house. The doorbell was a problem, though, because I can't move it (obviously) and by connecting to the router in the basement instead of the closest satellite its performance was sorely lacking. I was able to get my Ring to connect to the satellite by moving that satellite closer to the doorbell and then forcing the doorbell to disconnect from and reconnect to the internet (for my Ring model, I simply removed the faceplate, pushed the button to send it into setup mode, then pushed it again to exit setup mode.) 

 

FWIW as I was messing with this I also ended up power cycling the smart plug, which - when it reconnected to the internet - decided it wanted to join a closer satellite, as well.

 

Now, I am almost certain that any time we lose power to the main router and the system reboots, the doorbell will automatically re-connect to the router (since the router will boot up before the satellites). However, hopefully I can just recalibrate by performing the same trick I did today. Not ideal, but it worked. Hopefully this helps someone else as well.

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 18 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

Glad you got it working. Please mark your thread as solved so others will know. 


Enjoy. Smiley Wink

Message 19 of 64
testuserguy
Guide

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

I think that the lowering of the transmission power could be helpful for me as well, given that I have one device that connected to the router over 30ft away, meanwhile, the satellite is next to it with only 3 feet in between. When lowering the transmission power, can you lower it for specifically the router, or for a specific satellite?
Message 20 of 64
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

The router only. 

Message 21 of 64
testuserguy
Guide

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

I'm not sure what is with my devices' obsession is with connecting only to the far away router, but even after setting it to 25% and restarting the cameras that are next to the satellite, they still went to the router. Any other ideas to force these cameras to connect to the satellite?
Message 22 of 64
schumaku
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite


@testuserguy wrote:
I'm not sure what is with my devices' obsession is with connecting only to the far away router, but even after setting it to 25% and restarting the cameras that are next to the satellite, they still went to the router. 

Assuming this is not following a power failure - it's not a secret the router does come up much faster so the wireless does become active before the satellites so dumb clients will connect to the one coming up first, and if not 802.11k/r/v aware they will stick to the router forever. 

 

Put up a list of the channels (both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz) the router and the satellite does use for the access point.

 


@testuserguy wrote:
Any other ideas to force these cameras to connect to the satellite?

Nothing to force.

 

 

Message 23 of 64
testuserguy
Guide

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite

This doesn't sound like an order of operations with booting up the router vs the satellite, that's not what I power cycled. I reduced the power to 25% with the router and rebooted the cameras (not the router/satellite). I thought that was the suggestion here, limiting the router's transmit output in order to coerce it to connect to the satellite it is practically sitting on top of.

Do I need to temporarily out my router in a faraday cage? This is getting kind of silly. What did you mean by perma connect to the router after connecting once? Would this require forgetting the network on the device and to try the above process again?
Message 24 of 64
schumaku
Guru

Re: device not connecting to closest satellite


@testuserguy wrote:
This doesn't sound like an order of operations with booting up the router vs the satellite, that's not what I power cycled. ...

My answer is based on your wide open "my devices' obsession is with connecting only to the far away router" information. Complete unclear if this applies to the power-up or power failure recovery, or under all conditions. Obsession reads to me like it happens under all conditions and for all clients independent of other things going on.

 

If a wireless device does stick to the primary router access point, ignoring much better suited access points become available (e.g. due to later boot time), ignoring the alternate list of access points provided to the clients, ... the possible conclusions can be:

 

  • The satellite access point is configured to a channel the camera can't deal with.
  • These cameras are not ready for any kind of mesh (supporting the essentials out of 802.11k/r/v) operations, their WiFi adapter requires an update.

Lowering the access point power does not address any of these. What camera make, model, firmware are we facing here?

 

Put up your decent Android or iOS mobile device to about the same location where the camera is located and see what will happen with the wireless connectivity over time. Does it behave like the camera, or will it join the router access point first, and then seamlessly roam to the satellite?

 

 

Message 25 of 64
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