Hi All,
I have an RBR40 Orbi Router with 2 RBS40 Orbi satellites (for some reason I can not select RBR40 in the list of models on the boards here).
Since I put the units in place over a year ago, I have had random problems. Back when I started with these, I had done my research and I knew mesh networks were still up and coming and full of problems with devices, so I held my tounge and hoped that a firmware or few might fix my problems. Now it's been a while, and I am still experiencing some of the same issues as I had when I began with these units.
At random times some of my devices will loose connection to the internet, but they will still be connected to the wifi. It seems to happen most to my families phones (we have 5, two Android and three iPhone), and often all of the phones will loose internet through wifi all together. It also happens to our Windows laptops. We have 2 Windows 10 machines and 2 Windows 7 machines. I leave my Windows 7 machine online most of the time and I notice that it doesn't appear to loose internet connectivity as much as the other machines that are always turned off and back on when needed. Finally I notice that my home automation equipment will loose internet, but I can still see them connected via the attached devices web page on the Orbi. I use 5 nest cameras, and 3 nest smoke detectors and a few Alexa devices and wifi enabled lights connected through a Wink hub. So I use a lot of wifi enabled devices, generally speaking I have between 25 and 30 devices connected to my wifi through out the day and I have more on demand equipment that needs wifi once in a while that can go up to 40 devices connected to my wifi at one time.
So with all this background, out of the way, I have looked into this a few times under different theories.
- My first theory was that I simply have too many devices connected to the wifi. I removed devices to keep the connected devices below 20 and still after about a week of connectivity I will randomly have devices that are connected to the wifi but can't get to the internet.
- My second theory was that it was my modem or cable provider. This was a stretch for me because when I get the devices that can't connect to the internet, I also have other devices that have no problem at all. So I did some simple up time and route monitoring and I did not see any problems with either the modem nor the upstream connection.
- My final theory has been a firmware issue. I have applied many firmware over the course of the ownership of these devices. Some of them have certainly seemed to fix the issue while others seem to make the issue worse. The problem is that I can't specifically point out which firmware was best vs which wasnt.
So I am writing to the community to see if others have had this issue or to see if anyone can give me a few pointers on what to do to isolate the issue. I am fairly technical so if we think network traces or other monitors might help, please blurt them out and I'll go give them a look.
