wifi struggle

[mr...@ymail.com]

Recently purchased B2. Successfully ripped 400 CDs, 50 of which were not recognized by B2. Loaded "mydb" to formatted thumb drive and downloaded with USB C. Still not recognizing very common albums. Zero success accessing wifi. House has Orbi mesh system and all other devices work well. Blank reading on B2 for "signal strength" and "wifi scanning" fails. Have rebooted router per forum advice and tried accessing wifi with B2 and dongle very close to router. Frustration is mounting.   Michael

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Michael,

I think that the problem lies within the Orbi mesh set up.  Below is a link to a thread which shows a similar problem when the user attempted to use the B2 in an Orbi set up.

https://groups.google.com/g/brennanb2/c/k26kFzXNRNE/m/Z7AJ_Bi3AAAJ

He did eventually establish a connection between the B2 and his network by hardwiring the B2 to one of the Orbi satellites.  However, he could not get the B2 app to see the router.  The thread ended before the issue was resolved, but the suggestion was to report the issue to Netgear Support to see if they had any idea of how to resolve the problem.

I don't have an Orbi set up so I cannot be of any real assistance beyond this unfortunately,

Regards,

Peter.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Michael,

Another approach to resolving this issue might be to purchase two network mains adapters and connect the B2 through the hardwired B2's Cat5 connection through your mains power wiring  directly to your house router.  Something like Netgear Powerline Ethernet Adapters or similar, which would enable the B2 to talk directly with the router.

Regards,

Peter.

[Tom Piette]

Just a thought here.

I believe the issues experienced might be less to do with the Orbi(s) themselves and a lot to do with mesh networks and the way they are typically installed. The router itself (or base station) is wired to your internet modem and the Access Points (APs) are setup throughout the building or home offering connectivity where dead spots might otherwise occur. Sounds great. Connectivity no matter where you are in the building provided the Access Points can reliably connect to the Base. The APs rely on a wireless back-haul connection (unless you can hard wire them to the base).

So imagine this: Your B2 is wirelessly connected to one of the APs who then is wirelessly connected to the Base for internet connection and then is playing to a wireless speaker connected wirelessly through potentially yet another AP.  Wow - but this is real.

I have this setup myself and occasionaly I hear dropouts on a speaker here or there as their connection gets interupted. I do have my B2 wired to my Ethernet backbone network off of the Base router. All of the speakers are wireless as there are two APs in addition to the base router. I have been considering connecting the APs to the wired network as well to let them back-haul over the wired network. This would reduce the wireless hops and increase reliability as I am convinced the dropouts are caused by the wireless back-haul.

You also want to be sure that all of the devices and your mobile device with the Brennan App or laptop are on the same network. No subnets or guest connections that could hide the other devices otherwise they won't be seen by the Brennan or App.

Just a few thoughts

Just a couple of thoughts to why you might be expe

[Peter Lowham]

Hi All,

I received a PM from Michael which I have reposted here to inform others.

Peter  -  I plugged the B2 directly into the nearest Orbi wifi satellite with an ethernet cable. BINGO. All system go! Not very convenient, but the problem is not the B2. My wireless mesh system does not like to communicate with the B2. Is there an adapter for the B2 from USB port to ethernet so I do not have to keep the back of the unit open to the world???  The Powerline Extender may be a solution.  Michael

Regards

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Michael,

Great news!  You can purchase Cat5 'tails', that is a Cat5 male to Cat5 female cable about 15 cm long.  That will allow you to close up the case and gives you a flying Cat5 lead out of the back of the B2.  Then you have the option to disconnect the Cat5 cable outside of the box.  This is my preferred method as it does not use up a USB port.

There is also a USB to ethernet adapter capability available for the B2 so that is a feasible option.  As long as your B2 software is newer than May 2021, there is a feature to provide this capability.  If your software version is 'B2B' then you can run 'Settings' -->  'Web Upgrade' to get to the latest software version, currently 'B2B Oct 22 2021'.

Below is the entry from the Brennan Software webpage for software version on 12th May 2021 and onwards.

• B2B can now install a driver for USB Ethernet adaptors - so you can plug a B2 into Ethernet without opening the box. Settings->Maintenance->Advanced->Get Ethernet will install the driver. Turn the B2 off and plug in the USB Ethernet adaptor and the B2 will use Ethernet and/or Wifi

Regards,

Peter.

[PMB]

Hi All,

From another thread concerning 'mesh networks' - 

Yes! It was a security issue. I couldn't access the B2 on devices using WiFi, only from my Mac Pro which is hardwired via Ethernet. It turns out that my phone and laptop were logged into my Guest WiFi. As soon as I logged into our private LAN I could access the B2 using either a web browser or the app. I hope this helps.

ML

On Monday, January 3, 2022 at 1:18:48 PM UTC-8 mr...@ymail.com wrote:

mlh

Did you ever resolve your Orbi mesh issues? I recently purchased B2 and am having identical problems connection to wifi on my Orbi system

Paul

Brennan Support.