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What you can expect with your Orbi system
I'm writing this mainly because a post like this would have saved me a lot of time and effort. If you're thinking about buying an Orbi system, or recently purchased one, here's a few things you can expect:
- The devices look great so you can set them up anywhere.
- The wifi speed is impressive - 200-300Mbs actual throughout most of the coverage area.
- The band steering (the feature that tries to keep 5Ghz capable clients on the 5Ghz network), doesn't really work. 5Ghz capable devices keep ending up on the 2.4Ghz radio even though a useable 5Ghz signal is available.
- You'll keep lossing connectivity, partial or complete, for a few seconds or a few minutes. This will happen a few times a day if you use it all day.
After working for over a year trying to chase down and fix problems, here's the situaton with those last two problems.
First, the band steering implemented by netgear just doesn't work very well. There are no magic switches or settings to change, it's just not reliable. There isn't way to make it reliable, but you can work around the issue. There is an undocumented way to separate out the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz SSIDs that a helpful user detailed. If you use this, you just avoid the bandsteering problems.
Second are the disconnects. They will seem random, they are hard to reproduce, and restarting any satellite or the router will resolve them when they show up. I spent months trying to track this one down specificially and never got farther than confirming it's a layer 2 issue with the Orbi backhaul. The fact that it's a layer 2 backhaul issue is easy to confirm. When you're having any connectivity problems with a device, just change the device radio's MAC address, wait a few seconds for a new DHCP address and "viola", the connectivity problems will be fixed.
If you dive deeper into the sauce, poking around the Orbi's customized OpenWRT system using their telnet access, you'll find that the WDS system is incredibly unreliable. All it takes is a few laps around your house switching APs to cause a MAC address to get "stuck". Roaming isn't a requirement for the backhaul to start messing up, but it's easier to cause it to happen that way.
There is no fix for this second issue. It's something you have to just live with. If you don't use your system for work, and rarely roam between APs with your devices, you probably won't notice it too much. If you do - sorry, this is going to drive you crazy.
If you call netgear, you'll be told to restart the system, reload the firmware, play with channels, and a host of other things. None of them will help. You're just wasting time.
Note, these problems have existed for at least the past 8 revisions of their firmware and have shown no improvement. There is no reason to think that netgear will fix this, ever. They have the easy "reboot and it works again" fix available. So, this is one of those things you'll have to live with.
51 Replies
Yes, this is still an issue, I am not even going to explain exactly what's happening with mine...it's literally exactly what's happening in the first post of this thread. I've tried everything, I'm on the latest firmware, satellites are about 30 ft from the base, get excellent signal, I get internet drops on the satellite a couple times a day requiring a reboot.
I'm using an Arris 6190 32 x 8 modem on comcast business.
There is a definite issue in these products, they are ignoring, or at least, not giving this issue the attention that it deserves.
Furry, please don't reply to me, you asked on the other thread to list off basically everything about my set up that I put in my reply, this is what I do for a living, do not tell me to turn off beam forming. Netgear needs to acknowlege, and fix, this issue.
The interesting thing about this issue that everyone, including myself is reporting, is that it takes a couple weeks, or months to start happening, typically beyond the return window.
I have the Orbi AC2200 RBR20 set up with one base and two plug in mini Orbi's.
Again, Furry, thank you for trying to help people, but please, save your reply for someone else, I can figure out how to turn mimo and beam forming on and off myself. Sorry for being rude, but the only thing more frustrating than this problem, is to be told we must have something set up incorrectly, I assure you, nothing wrong with my setup.
If your not getting the Orbi system to work, then please contact NG support. You may have a bad unit and may need to be RMA.
Never said to turn OFF beamforming. I've always recommended using Beamforming. It's worked for me and others.
FYI about your ISP modem:
Good Luck.
CEaton12 wrote:
Yes, this is still an issue, I am not even going to explain exactly what's happening with mine...it's literally exactly what's happening in the first post of this thread. I've tried everything, I'm on the latest firmware, satellites are about 30 ft from the base, get excellent signal, I get internet drops on the satellite a couple times a day requiring a reboot.
I'm using an Arris 6190 32 x 8 modem on comcast business.
There is a definite issue in these products, they are ignoring, or at least, not giving this issue the attention that it deserves.
Furry, please don't reply to me, you asked on the other thread to list off basically everything about my set up that I put in my reply, this is what I do for a living, do not tell me to turn off beam forming. Netgear needs to acknowlege, and fix, this issue.
The interesting thing about this issue that everyone, including myself is reporting, is that it takes a couple weeks, or months to start happening, typically beyond the return window.
I have the Orbi AC2200 RBR20 set up with one base and two plug in mini Orbi's.
Again, Furry, thank you for trying to help people, but please, save your reply for someone else, I can figure out how to turn mimo and beam forming on and off myself. Sorry for being rude, but the only thing more frustrating than this problem, is to be told we must have something set up incorrectly, I assure you, nothing wrong with my setup.
t_kwrote:I'm writing this mainly because a post like this would have saved me a lot of time and effort. If you're thinking about buying an Orbi system, or recently purchased one, here's a few things you can expect:
- The devices look great so you can set them up anywhere.
- The wifi speed is impressive - 200-300Mbs actual throughout most of the coverage area.
- The band steering (the feature that tries to keep 5Ghz capable clients on the 5Ghz network), doesn't really work. 5Ghz capable devices keep ending up on the 2.4Ghz radio even though a useable 5Ghz signal is available.
- You'll keep lossing connectivity, partial or complete, for a few seconds or a few minutes. This will happen a few times a day if you use it all day.
After working for over a year trying to chase down and fix problems, here's the situaton with those last two problems.
First, the band steering implemented by netgear just doesn't work very well. There are no magic switches or settings to change, it's just not reliable. There isn't way to make it reliable, but you can work around the issue. There is an undocumented way to separate out the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz SSIDs that a helpful user detailed. If you use this, you just avoid the bandsteering problems.
Second are the disconnects. They will seem random, they are hard to reproduce, and restarting any satellite or the router will resolve them when they show up. I spent months trying to track this one down specificially and never got farther than confirming it's a layer 2 issue with the Orbi backhaul. The fact that it's a layer 2 backhaul issue is easy to confirm. When you're having any connectivity problems with a device, just change the device radio's MAC address, wait a few seconds for a new DHCP address and "viola", the connectivity problems will be fixed.
If you dive deeper into the sauce, poking around the Orbi's customized OpenWRT system using their telnet access, you'll find that the WDS system is incredibly unreliable. All it takes is a few laps around your house switching APs to cause a MAC address to get "stuck". Roaming isn't a requirement for the backhaul to start messing up, but it's easier to cause it to happen that way.
There is no fix for this second issue. It's something you have to just live with. If you don't use your system for work, and rarely roam between APs with your devices, you probably won't notice it too much. If you do - sorry, this is going to drive you crazy.
If you call netgear, you'll be told to restart the system, reload the firmware, play with channels, and a host of other things. None of them will help. You're just wasting time.
Note, these problems have existed for at least the past 8 revisions of their firmware and have shown no improvement. There is no reason to think that netgear will fix this, ever. They have the easy "reboot and it works again" fix available. So, this is one of those things you'll have to live with.
This is so spot on!
Hi. I'm currently looking at purchasing the Orbi and I came across this thread.
I was mainly looking at the RBK33 3-pack, with the main router and 2 small satellites. My house is quite long and thin and the router is on one end. Most usage would be in the center of the house, but it would be nice to have a boost in the laundry room/garage, so I was investigating mesh solutions.
I'm not sure if the latest firmware revision - 2.1.4.16 - is newer or older than the last post here, but if it is newer, I'm wondering: Does it address the issues that OP was describing?
Thanks.
v.16 is the most current version of FW. Theres nothing newer. Yet.
This post is a few months old and theres been FW updates since then. You can check out there release notes for each FW update to see if anything is addressed.
There maybe differences between your 33 series and the OP 50 series so there maybe problems not seen with the model you have. If any. Something you'll have to try and see what happens.
ossiangrr wrote:
Hi. I'm currently looking at purchasing the Orbi and I came across this thread.
I was mainly looking at the RBK33 3-pack, with the main router and 2 small satellites. My house is quite long and thin and the router is on one end. Most usage would be in the center of the house, but it would be nice to have a boost in the laundry room/garage, so I was investigating mesh solutions.
I'm not sure if the latest firmware revision - 2.1.4.16 - is newer or older than the last post here, but if it is newer, I'm wondering: Does it address the issues that OP was describing?
Thanks.
t_k,
The experience that you so eloquently described in your first post in this thread is exactly the experience I had. Thanks for taking the time to write it out so clearly. It's exactly why I tried to find a way to essentially "disable" band steering. It doesn't work. Using separate SSIDs allows me to decide which band each device connects to, and my Orbi went from a pile of garbage to the most reliable connection I've had in years.
I'm glad my tutorial continues to help folks, but it boggles my mind that Netgear hasn't made a single attempt to try to resolve all of the problems you outline.
Cheers!
Roamabout As promised, a guide for how to reproduce the issue! It took a bit of time to put it together and I had other projects that required my attention.
Now that I've written it up, I sure hope people are able to use it to get refunds and that Netgear realizes it can't hide behind consumer confusion anymore.
Placement between the Orbi router and Satellite(s) is also key. Satellites should be place in good range of the Orbi router and not at far distances. Need to maintain good signal between them.
Just curious, did you try disabling Beamforming and or MIMO on the Orbi router?
Also have you tried just using one Satellite instead of two? I'm currently using just one Satellite at the far end of my 5000sq ft house.
Was the system running well before any FW updates or was the latest FW installed and seem to degrade some?
Just trying to help with some short term solutions until NG comes out with another FW update. Soon we all hope for those needing it.
I'm not sure who some of the questions were directed at, but just to be clear in case it is helpful for anyone:
- My original system was with ONE satellite and worked great (or so it seemed) for the first few months starting around July 2017.
- Towards the end of the year (don't know exactly when) I started experiencing the internet lockups but didn't think much about it at first; I would just do the standard restart wifi and/or reboot satellite to fix
- The freezes started becoming more and more frequent, and I was getting dropped out of games both on iPad and PC, and then eventually my computer wifi needed to be reset every single time I woke it from sleep
- I decided then (should have done research argh) to ADD a second/new satellite. I swapped the "old" one to another location and put the new one close to my room and it seemed better for a few weeks
- Around January I found these forums and tried all the suggestions (updating firmware, disabling MIMO and beamforming, etc), but the problems persisted
- Finally this month, I bit the bullet and replaced the Orbi with a Linksys Velop, and (fingers crossed) have not experienced any issues in the first two weeks. At bare minimum I know the problem with my computer not auto-connecting to wifi was due to the Orbi satellite because that never happens any more.
Yep rphsia, these are the exact issues that many people are experiencing.
And its obvious that it's an actual issue but some members here and netgear support will give you the standard "Try disabling mimo/beamforming, try power cycling the satellite, try moving the satellite closer to the router" etc. and that's whats super frustrating.
Some people will even say that we must be doing something wrong. Glad your Velop works great. I've personally gone with the Eero and have had your same experience. No more constant connectivity issues, and no need to reboot the access points multiple times per day.
FURRYe38 why did you post and delete a reply to me? I was just typing another reply to say that your claim of 'one device can have multiple connections if they have multiple browser windows open to count towards the 250 connection' is total ignorance and almost laughable - especially if you are in the testing field as you say, I hope you aren't one of the people testing the Orbi for Netgear. Please refrain from spreading misinformation on these forums.
So someone is removing my posts I'm not.
So I'll digress from this and continue to post other wise. Information is up to users to use or not. If you feel that i'm not giving good info, then thats fine too. It's clear that you don't. I can accept that. I'l still posting. I'll agree to disagree and keep it professional. Moderators can always contact me directly if there is a problem.
Good Luck.Yeah, I agree with you that information is up to the user to use. However you are giving out bad, incorrect, and repetitive information that has been covered in this thread, along with the LARGEST thread in these forums that discuss the exact issue here: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Orbi-satellite-dropping-connection/m-p/1355419#M12533
Users should try disabling Beamforming and MIMO if there experiencing wifi issues. Seen some client side HW not work well with Beamforming or MIMO when they are enabled on the router. I have mine disabled currently. Working great with a few cameras, controllers and a bridge.
I suspect most of the people who made it as far as this forum already tried disabling all the added features to get better stability, and, like me, found it made no difference. Of course it begs the question if I have to disable key selling points like MIMO and beam-forming, why did I buy this product in the first place?
Sadly, it appears the majority of users are not seeing these issues (yet), and posting 5 star reviews on Amazon. Just in the past few days there have been dozens of 5 star reviews, so any lower ratings are drowned out in the noise. I'm guessing people post immediately, and even if they later see the problems don't come back to revise their review. Will be interesting to see if more people end up here after time passes.
There are many factors and variables and many environments that can impact router and wireless HW and operations. The HW works as its stands. It's when it's set up by users and the environments that will start to see various issues that need to be identified to see where the real issues are. This has been going on with routers and wireless devices since they first came to market. Problems still happen. The forums are here to help each other find out where the real problems are and maybe help resolve them. Many devices depending upon sign by all the various Mfrs, may not work well with new features like Beamforming, Smart Connect or MIMO. So offering troubleshooting options is to help see weather if the system can work better with some of these disabled. It's up to users weather or not to try them.
Users can talk all day about how good or bad theres work. It all comes down to what really works and where the real problem is.
rphsiawrote:I suspect most of the people who made it as far as this forum already tried disabling all the added features to get better stability, and, like me, found it made no difference. Of course it begs the question if I have to disable key selling points like MIMO and beam-forming, why did I buy this product in the first place?
Sadly, it appears the majority of users are not seeing these issues (yet), and posting 5 star reviews on Amazon. Just in the past few days there have been dozens of 5 star reviews, so any lower ratings are drowned out in the noise. I'm guessing people post immediately, and even if they later see the problems don't come back to revise their review. Will be interesting to see if more people end up here after time passes.
The Orbi is/was great when it worked. OP here sums up my experience to a dot.
The partial and/or complete connection losses were driving me insane. It would happen to the same 3-4 devices (2 macbooks, 1 macbook air, 1 macbook pro) multiple times per day. Sometimes it would show full signal for WiFi but have no access to the web, sometimes it would drop WiFi completely, and there would be no rhyme or reason. Resetting the satellites fixed this but I shouldn't have to be resetting access points 4-5 times a day.
Connecting those same devices via ethernet to satellites would work. I spent weeks troubleshooting this for a home office setting. I decided to just replace the Orbis completely 2 weekends ago and have had 0 issues since.
I even got my place hardwired and installed a switch between the main Orbi router and satellites to utilize the ethernet backhaul, and even that feature is still really buggy (sometimes shows satellites as disconnected or connected via WiFi instead of ethernet). The disconnect from satellite issues still persist even in ethernet backhaul mode.
- So glad I’m not the only one experiencing these issues. I’ve been searching the web for months seeing if I’m the only one that noticed this. Should have posted something sooner. Things like this should not be an issue... great idea Netgear, rushed execution.
Just wanted to bump this post so it doesn't get lost. I think the OP really describes the problems I've had perfectly, and includes detail I don't really understand but make sense.
The interesting thing to note is that because of the nature of the issue, I suspect many users won't notice it, or will pass it off with a reboot or two. I used to turn my computer off every night and I think that also helped to mask the problem; once I started putting the computer into sleep/hibernation, every time on wake the internet connection would be frozen and I'd have to play the reset/reboot game.
Sadly, many of us have been so conditioned to this kind of problem that we consider it the norm, and don't hold the vendor responsible. Whether Netgear responds or not, I'm glad people are bringing light to the issue and not just letting them off the hook. I plan to write up a suitable review on Amazon as soon as I get the time, and will reference the information from the OP.
