Orbi Connectivity Issues

[rmiller1959]

I hope someone here can be of help. I just purchased a Netgear Orbi router and satellite based on the sterling reviews and individual recommendations I've read for months now. I have tried both Luma and eero; Luma was a disaster from the beginning, and the eero has worked just fine. The Orbi gives me great wireless coverage throughout my home, but my daughter and wife have complained about intermittent Internet connectivity issues, and I have had several problems this morning with Internet connectivity while working on my laptop.

The error message I get is "DNS probe finished - no Internet" or words to that effect. I've also tried restarting the cable modem, resetting the wireless connection on the client, and reviewing the Orbi logs; other than "UPnP set event" and "DoS attack", there is nothing there that would indicate a problem. I see a lot of message board posts in the Netgear community on Internet connectivity issues, but I'm hopeful that this community is a little more practical and less emotional!

 

[pete y testing]

I see a lot of message board posts in the Netgear community on Internet connectivity issues, but I'm hopeful that this community is a little more practical and less emotional!

if you have read the netgear forums on orbi you will know that there is a known and acknowledged issue surrounding connectivity and drop outs , mostly on apple gear and nest gear and a few others , as far as i know netgear are working on a fix , its prob best to keep an eye on

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WiFi-System/ct-p/home-orbi

for any reported fix

 

[aaz]

if you have read the netgear forums on orbi you will know that there is a known and acknowledged issue surrounding connectivity and drop outs , mostly on apple gear and nest gear and a few others , as far as i know netgear are working on a fix , its prob best to keep an eye on

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-WiFi-System/ct-p/home-orbi

for any reported fix

I just bought this system, and then after reading these forums was expecting a lot of problems, but have not experienced any yet after 5 days up. Is much more stable than my Shaw Hitron Router on wifi (well, a rock is probably a more stable wifi router than that POS). However I found it's better than my previous Asus AC88 and Apple Airport.

I have noticed that a few users that have experienced trouble have reset their NVRAM on the Orbi and that seems to have stabilized it.

I am running code 1.12.0.18 and Everything is working for me as it should, though I first did an upgrade with everything default to the latest code then configured my custom settings. I suspect it's an code upgrade issue between one of the versions that has caused the negative banter on the forums. Of course people rarely seek out a forum to post that everything is working well. It's a shame because it really is a good product, but it's ruined because Netgear support is not on top of issues and quashing the negative reviews.

 

[pete y testing]

because Netgear support is not on top of issues

i can assure you they know about these issues and are actively working on them

quashing the negative reviews.

why would you want to do that , its part of the process , these things usually only get found in the wild and reported to the forums where they can be auctioned and replicated and then attempted codes to fix , the issue is mesh / dw is far more complex and changing one bit of code can effect many others

i for one have had almost a perfect orbi since day one

 

[aaz]

I think I chose the wrong words. I meant they should respond to issues and not let them stay unanswered at least once in a while to remind people on their own forum that they are working on it if not resolved. With the amount of unanswered negative posts I almost returned the box without opening it. But considering I got it from Costo I decided to try it anyways because of Costco's great return policy. I was pleasantly surprised - after working through the manual update of the code since it came with a very old version and refused to auto-update.

I have a pretty large house that is not wired for Ethernet with cement and radiant heat throughout so there are some obstacles. This is exactly the kind of scenario this was designed for and it's working great so far. I've even turned on OpenDNS for protection and not having any issues.
The only thing to note is how immature this code is. Even their own apps on iOS such as Genie do not give correct stats for the devices. I was really hoping that the App could help me place the Orbi satellites around the house, but there is no connectivity information available to help you with that.

Having had a programming career previously I know how difficult it can be to work out issues, but communication with your customers should never be sacrificed.

 

[pete y testing]

the netgear forum is a community forum , you will almost never see a netgear rep or employee post there but im sure they read it , netger also have a beta test unit and community users are also in that and working on issues with the dev team , if you have a look at how many fw revisions there have been you may get some idea of the ones your havnt seen

 

[RogerSC]

At the moment, one of the biggest problems that the Orbi has, in my view, is that it does mandatory firmware auto-updating. So if you have a problem, you can't go back to a firmware version that doesn't have that problem for very long. The router will always auto-update back to the latest at some point, which isn't great if the latest firmware isn't working for you. I believe that they're changing this, in addition to working on the connection problems that some people are having with the latest firmware. The next version of the firmware, which is supposed to be coming real soon now *smile*, will hopefully put a lot of this to rest. The reports on the Beta test firmware that Netgear has out sound good.

For me, things are working just fine with the Orbi on the latest release, using it as an AP. No connection problems, it just works. With the usual great wireless. For those having problems, though, I have a lot of sympathy. Netgear has backed themselves into a corner with the auto-update feature, and needs to fix that.

 

[aaz]

At the moment, one of the biggest problems that the Orbi has, in my view, is that it does mandatory firmware auto-updating. So if you have a problem, you can't go back to a firmware version that doesn't have that problem for very long. The router will always auto-update back to the latest at some point, which isn't great if the latest firmware isn't working for you.

Welcome to the world of cloud software
This is the direction everything is moving - at least you do not need cloud to actually run the netgear Orbi system yet.

I believe that they're changing this, in addition to working on the connection problems that some people are having with the latest firmware. The next version of the firmware, which is supposed to be coming real soon now *smile*, will hopefully put a lot of this to rest. The reports on the Beta test firmware that Netgear has out sound good.

For me, things are working just fine with the Orbi on the latest release, using it as an AP. No connection problems, it just works. With the usual great wireless. For those having problems, though, I have a lot of sympathy. Netgear has backed themselves into a corner with the auto-update feature, and needs to fix that.

I think it would be a bit of a mistake to change this method entirely, it makes the entire system too vulnerable to the stupidity of users. Instead they should concentrate on putting out a more solid way of testing out features in their code. Also put out a better management page, or iOS, Android and Windows Apps. Also while I like the idea of Apps, most of what they do can be contolled by a web page so I don't know what the point of replicating those things that are possible to do in a web page in a half arsed app.
Going back to a traditional system will let google and others that are more cloud managed eat their lunch as those systems get the reputation of ease of setup and use.

At my workplace we have selected Meraki (now run by linksys) as our WiFi system, it does have its share of problems with this cloud based approach, but we recognize that it's not something our IT crew without resources wants to babysit so we chose a system that needs a minimum of attention day to day. There is a reason IT is moving into the cloud.

 

[RogerSC]

I think that the right approach to these things is to make desired behavior in an ideal world the default, but allow real world work-arounds for the customer, like going backwards with firmware versions if the situation requires it. I'm well aware that mesh systems do this sort of auto-updating as well, and that's fine, but I don't want my Orbi to work strictly this way *smile*. I really don't need to decide when to upgrade my "wireless system" unless it screws up because of a new client or combination of clients that Netgear couldn't test with that brings down my network, or even, heaven forbid, a firmware bug, or a combination of both.

Bugs will happen, and not everything can be tested unless you have every client in existence in your lab and infinite time for all the possible combinations and permutations. They have a similar task to Microsoft, where they can't anticipate or test for all the possible combinations of clients in an open system, and problems occur. Because of that, you can remove MS updates. For Apple, where they control pretty much everything, life is just a little simpler, and even they make mistakes *smile*. You just need to give your customers an out when you make a mistake.

 

[thiggins]

At my workplace we have selected Meraki (now run by linksys)

Meraki is now owned by Cisco. Cisco sold Linksys to Belkin years ago...

 

[aaz]

Meraki is now owned by Cisco. Cisco sold Linksys to Belkin years ago...

Thanks for the correction.

I do have a question, I have noticed that my Orbi which was stable for 5 days decided to act up and start dropping connections when I started playing with UPnP devices. In particular I noticed that two devices seemed to be flipping the same port back and forth, and this appeared to cause a VOIP session I was running to drop, also a RDP session also dropped and kept dropping approx every 30 seconds. Turning off UPnP seemed to resolve this issue for me. I set up explicit port forwarding for devices and I have not had any more disconnects.
Have you noticed anyone else report anything similar?

 

[pete y testing]

just be aware you cant do UPnP and port forwarding at the same time

what do you mean by started playing with UPnP devices ?

 

[aaz]

just be aware you cant do UPnP and port forwarding at the same time

what do you mean by started playing with UPnP devices ?

I tried to set up my synology ports using UPnP, the synology recognizes the router quite well and entered all the ports correctly, however around the same time a camera started fighting for port 80 as well. Not sure yet which camera it was or why it started inserting itself into the UPnP table when I did not see it there before I turned on UPnP configuration on the synology NAS.

I was in the middle of something else, so couldn't do more extensive troubleshooting.
However, if you cannot use UPnP and port forwarding at the same time shouldn't Netgear turn off UPnP automatically when you enter anything in the port forwarding table? Or do you mean you cannot use both with the same port?

Still, more baffling was the effect on some of my other networked devices. Why would UPnP devices fighting over a port cause interruptions to internet for my other devices?

One more Edit - I really think that netgear should turn off UPnP on these devices by default and strongly warn against turning it on if it causes internet interruptions when a UPnP devices is configured.

 

[pete y testing]

i think you misunderstand what UPnP does , if you turn of UPnP on a router you must manually port forward all and any connections needed and a lot of the comps need UPnP to run for things like video calling as well as many other things

 

[thiggins]

One of UPnP's functions is to automatically open (and close) ports through a router's NAT firewall. If you manually assign the same port that UPnP tries to access, you will see the effect you observed because a port can be forwarded to only one IP address as a time.

Manual port forwarding and UPnP can be used at the same time. Just not for the same port. The solution is to go into settings of the device or service that needs the port--not the router--and change the port used.

 

[aaz]

Ok so I understand what UPnP does, what I am wondering is why it would cause outages for internet on devices that have nothing to do with the ports in question? (The effect I observed is my RDP connection to an outside machine was being terminated every 30 seconds or so, as well as a VOIP session, both using different ports than the ones being configured by UPnP)

Shouldn’t it automatically open and close ports without affecting ports already in use? Wouldn’t an implimentation of upnp that interrupts the Internet access to everything when it’s being configured be pretty useless?
If that is what it is indeed doing then I’d argue that netgear programmers don’t understand the UPnP spec.

 

[thiggins]

Ok so I understand what UPnP does, what I am wondering is why it would cause outages for internet on devices that have nothing to do with the ports in question?

That's a question better put to NETGEAR.

 

[aaz]

That's a question better put to NETGEAR.

I just put in a support ticket regarding this. I was hoping that someone would know about this on either this or the netgear forums, but after searching it appears to be a new observation. Waiting to hear back from Netgear support now.
However, for now if anyone is having a disconnection issue with this latest code I'd like to recommend turning off UPnP and seeing if that issue goes away? At least we may be able to verify if multiple issues are at work here.

 

[njweb]

At the moment, one of the biggest problems that the Orbi has, in my view, is that it does mandatory firmware auto-updating. So if you have a problem, you can't go back to a firmware version that doesn't have that problem for very long. The router will always auto-update back to the latest at some point, which isn't great if the latest firmware isn't working for you. I believe that they're changing this, in addition to working on the connection problems that some people are having with the latest firmware. The next version of the firmware, which is supposed to be coming real soon now *smile*, will hopefully put a lot of this to rest. The reports on the Beta test firmware that Netgear has out sound good.

For me, things are working just fine with the Orbi on the latest release, using it as an AP. No connection problems, it just works. With the usual great wireless. For those having problems, though, I have a lot of sympathy. Netgear has backed themselves into a corner with the auto-update feature, and needs to fix that.

I have heard about bad experiences from one firmware to the next.
Therefore, since mine is working great, I blocked download.netgear.com (or extremely similar URL - I am going by memory) in Orbi's configuration screen, as suggested in one of the Netgear forum threads. It only took one minute and now it will never update the firmware before I am ready to allow it...

 

[RogerSC]

I have heard about bad experiences from one firmware to the next.
Therefore, since mine is working great, I blocked download.netgear.com (or extremely similar URL - I am going by memory) in Orbi's configuration screen, as suggested in one of the Netgear forum threads. It only took one minute and now it will never update the firmware before I am ready to allow it...

Yeah I tried that, and must not have the right domain to block...I think that I used download.netgear.com as well. I even thought that maybe my router wasn't doing domain blocking properly, so I used OpenDNS for a while and explicitly blocked that single domain. I could tell that OpenDNS was blocking as it should, but my router still auto-updated. So I gave up spending time on trying to block auto-update that way.