HOW TO DISABLE 5G TEMPORARILY ON ORBI ROUTER

[RossBev]

HELLO,

I own an Orbi system and recently obtained a Personal Weather station that does direct uploads to various weather sites online. The weather station will only connect to Wi-Fi via a 2.4GHZ system based on the following statement in the manual:

The weather station only supports the 2.4 GHz band. Please make sure both mobile device and weather station console are both connected to the same 2.4 GHz band. If you own a dual band router, you may be required to temporarily disable the 5 GHz band, connect your mobile device to the 2.4 GHz band, and after programming the console, reconnect to the 5 GHz band

My question is I have logged into the Orbi and seen the wireless setup which shows both bands as well as the same on the guest network. I have selected all the disabled blocks on the advanced settings on the 5 GHZ to no avail. Is there a way to temporarily disable the 5 ghz long enough to me to make the connection of my weather station and then re-enable it since I use it with so many devices. Thanks in advance...

[guzzijason]

There seem to be a number of people having the same sort of issue lately. I believe the older firmware let you power off the radios, but the recent firmware does not. You can manually disable a specific interface on the command line, but there is an autmated watchdog process that will bring it back up again, usually within seconds.

I did work out a hacky way of temporarily downing the 5 GHz interface that might work for you:

1. Shut off your satellites (otherwise, you need to repeat the following steps on all of them, in addition to router)
2. Enable telnet on the router (from the /debug.htm page of the web interface)
3. telnet to router
4. After loggin in, run the following comand script on the command line (yes, 1 big line):

seconds=60; x=0; while [ $x -lt $seconds ]; do ip link set down dev $(config get wl5g_NORMAL_AP); x=$(( x + 1 )); echo "down $x"; sleep 1; done

This command will determine the interface for the primary 5 GHz, and shut it down for 60 seconds. If you want to change the amount of time that the interface stays down, simply change the "seconds=60" part of the script to whatever you want.

This doesn't make any permanent config changes, so if worse comes to worse, simply reboot the router and you should be right back to where you were.

Good luck!

[Mudds]

!00% on the money! 

After enabling Telnet - I used Putty to connect and just pasted the string below. I did increase it to 300 seconds (5 mins) just to make sure I was able to do everything on the setup La Crosse App (like scan the barcodes for the station and sensor).

Everything else is perfect. I willl be sending this to the La Crosse support since I have been working with them to resolve this issue. 

@guzzijason Thank you for finding this solution!

[Rcameron17]

Im having the same issues with probably the exact same weather station.  Can you provide either links or slightly more detailed info as it relates to the telnet into orbi router.  I think i enabled telnet on my orbi router, but cant seem to figure out how to command line in from mac and run that script. 

Any detailed help would be greatly appreciated as i get zero help from the weather station support. 

[st_shaw]

@Rcameron17 wrote:

Im having the same issues with probably the exact same weather station.  Can you provide either links or slightly more detailed info as it relates to the telnet into orbi router.  I think i enabled telnet on my orbi router, but cant seem to figure out how to command line in from mac and run that script. 

Any detailed help would be greatly appreciated as i get zero help from the weather station support. 

---

If you are on a mac, you open the Terminal application. Terminal provides a window with a command line prompt.

Enter the following telnet command on the Terminal command line: telnet 192.168.1.1

(You need to replace 192.168.1.1 with the IP address of your Orbi router.)

You will then see a login prompt from the Orbi.

Enter your Orbi router username (admin) and your password at the prompts.  (admin/password is the default)

Now you will be logged into the Orbi and will have a command line on Orbi.  The command line prompt should look like "root@RBR50:/#"

At the prompt, you enter the commands posted by guzzijason above all on one line: seconds=60; x=0; ... ; done

Press enter to execute the command.

When all finished, you enter the following command to log out from Orbi: exit

[Rcameron17]

Cant thank you enough for attempting to help.

When i get into terminal and type, "telnet 168.192.1.1" (this is my same ip) get the following error:

" -bash: telnet: command not found"

[st_shaw]

---

@Rcameron17 wrote:

Cant thank you enough for attempting to help.

When i get into terminal and type, "telnet 168.192.1.1" (this is my same ip) get the following error:

" -bash: telnet: command not found"

---

OK.  Apparently, Apple decided to delete telnet on the latest versions of OSX.  Fortunately, I know a workaround.  Use the netcat command and instruct it to use the telnet port 23.

Instead of telnet 192.168.1.1 use the following command:

nc 192.168.1.1 23

[Rcameron17]

perfect, now that worked. and im logged in.

So i turned off the satellites.  Now i insert the follwing in the command line?

seconds=60; x=0; while [ $x -lt $seconds ]; do ip link set down dev $(config get wl5g_NORMAL_AP); x=$(( x + 1 )); echo "down $x"; sleep 1; done

Will i notice anything happening? ONce i run that script, i then go to the la crosse app and try to connect the device to the wifi, correct? 

[Rcameron17]

that it, SUCCESS!  thank you for all your help...worked like a charm once i was able to telnet into it.  It looks like everything is up and running now...I assume my 5G network is back up also.

[guzzijason]

Glad it's working for you!
And yes, the 5 GHz network should automatically re-activate on it's own.

[ChihSiang]

Hi, can i use this method to disable the 5hz band permanently?

[MookiG]

I got by this by setting my phone hotspot with same credentials as my wifi.  Of coarse had ro turn off both orbi's first.  Once i configured the station,  i turned off the hot spot and powered on the orbi's

[Mssnerd]

Thank you all so much. I was able to get my camera working with all this information. I had to use the nc command. It is appreciated. 

Sharon

[Armanny]

I tried it twice but it gave me a syntax error, not sure why.  unexpected "done"

[guzzijason]

You're missing the closing paren after "wl5g_NORMAL_AP", before the semicolon.

[Mike734]

I'm trying this. When the script runs, should it run by repeting the line "down xx"?

[guzzijason]

I think that's right (I can't test it at the moment).

The script shuts down the interface, but if memory serves, there is a sort of watchdog that automatically brings the interface back up after a while, which is why the "ip set link down ..." portion is looped repeatedly, for 60 seconds in the example I gave.

[fineboi]

When I try this on my MAC nothing happens except another line awaiting a command. 

[Bulvine]

This worked for me.  Since I couldnt get the SSID's to change I tried this one to get my smart outlets connected to the 2.4.  Worked very well!   Thanks

[st_shaw]

---

@fineboi wrote:

When I try this on my MAC nothing happens except another line awaiting a command. 

---

Make sure you enable telnet on the Orbi router first.

http://192.168.1.1/debug.htm

Change the above to the address of your router.

[cpasq]

OK... this thread was very useful and I don't know if I could have succeeded without it... I have finally been able to get my La Crosse weather station connected to my orbi using a macbook.  Thanks all!

I did find some minor simplifications to avoid using the numerical IP address of the router... namely, replace the numbers with orbilogin.com.  So, here are my notes as gleaned from the thread above and followed in my situation.:

1	Power off the satellites.
2	Go to:	http://orbilogin.com/debug.htm
3	Check "Enable Telnet"
4	Open the Terminal application on the MAC
5	nc orbilogin.com 23
6	Enter your Orbi router username (admin) and your password at the prompts.  (admin/password is the default)
7	Paste the following in to disable 5G for a set amount of seconds.  This is 300 for now (5 minutes).
	seconds=300; x=0; while [ $x -lt $seconds ]; do ip link set down dev $(config get wl5g_NORMAL_AP); x=$(( x + 1 )); echo "down $x"; sleep 1; done
8	Use "Weather Connect" to pair your station.  You have 5 minutes if you used the nc (telnet) command above.
9	Go to:	http://orbilogin.com/debug.htm
10	UnCheck "Enable Telnet"
11	Power on the satellites.

[Pfredd]

I am getting an error from the script when I run it on my CRB40 with firmware level V2.1.4.6_1.0.8: /bin/ash: config: not found

Any suggestions on how to resolve this issue?

[Retired_Member]

Something else you might try that the worked for me.  I understand that the Orbi firmware at one point did have the option to turn OFF the 5G signal.  Last time I checked, it is now where you can only turn it down/reduce.

What I did was turn the 5G down as low as it will go (if you can) then unplug one or both of your SATs.  This will cause your WIFI to be sourced only from the router.  Take the weather station/display into another room with your Iphone and try to set it up.

Good luck!

[OzzzieMike]

I'm not seeing where, specifically, the power can be turned down on the 5GHz radio.  I've checked both the iOS app and the orbilogin.net web interfaces, and am not seeing it.

Can you provide more detail on how to turn the 5GHz radio down?

[OzzzieMike]

Thanks for simplifing how to accomplish this.  I'm needing to do the same thing to connect my smart applicance (Whirlpool microwave), as it only works on the 2.4GHz band, and my phone must be on this same band during setup.

I'm not clear, though, on Steps 4 and 5 in your table.  Are you on a Mac?  (I am, and am wondering if that's what MA means in step 4?)  And in step 5, is that what we enter in Terminal?