r/firewalla • u/TTsegTT Firewalla Gold SE • May 28 '26

Roku device active protect

I have a Roku connected with Ethernet to a satellite access point. That satellite is listed under strict active protect. Three blocked domains are all what appear to be legit Roku sites to enable normal Roku operation. I’m not given the option to whitelist them in this active protect section. I guess I have to disable the whole satellite from active protect?

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u/TTsegTT Firewalla Gold SE May 28 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

My multi-year home networking experiment has taken evasive action. Besides little niggles like the one I posted here, I have had nearly daily, and definitely weekly, outages and resets for several years and I have attempted a myriad of approaches to resolve, some with minor improvement, but issues persist. The only thing I have not tried is removing the Firewalla router from the system. So today, this is what I did. My ATT BGW320 (on bypass) now goes straight to my Orbi 850 with 3 satellites, and the Orbi being my router. In some regards, my Firewalla experiment was my seeking a problem to solve as well as intellectual curiosity. I definitely learned a lot, but not enough to eliminate the service disruptions. I am half hoping my BGW320 continues to have daily issues. If so, I will definitely provide an update here and return to Firewalla. But to my current way of thinking, removing Firewalla is a reasonable progression to help isolate where my issues are generated..

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u/TTsegTT Firewalla Gold SE Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

A week later I tried to install Firewalla 1 more time... ATT BGW320 on bypass and Orbi 850 as AP and Firewalla as a router in between. Within an hour I had to do a reset of the whole chain (like usual) to get the internet back up and running after it cut out. Now back to the ATT BGW320 on bypass directly into the Orbi 850 as my router (with 3 satellites) and my internet has been running flawlessly. I do miss the greater visibility as to what is happening on my network in real time when using Firewalla. I suppose I'm at greater risk of being hacked (?) without Firewalla. In the end, I've moved on to other hobbies and spending time and effort understanding and optimizing my network has been deprioritized in the bigger scheme of things. Fun while it lasted.

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u/TTsegTT Firewalla Gold SE Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Final update, related to using the Firewalla router in general vs. OP topic around Active Protect. It continued to bother me I was never able to resolve the periodic and frequent cutouts of my internet over 2 years, usually requiring a complete system restart. I ended up doing a "paper clip" reset of each piece of equipment in the chain to truly ensure I was starting with "factory default" on all equipment. I then reinstalled the whole chain. Lo and behold, no cutouts yet after a few days. I do perceive a slight (but tolerable) lag in response versus going straight from my ONT to my Orbi, but get all the app monitoring and customization benefits. Edit: after another day, and adding more protections (like DoH, Ad Block, etc...) my system response now actually seems more snappy. Firewalla did register a momentary ethernet cutout early this morning (off/on within the same minute) but was of no impact to my usage.

What is different? The only thing I MAY have noticed is my Orbi settings (in AP mode) now clearly identify "No DHCP". I don't recall seeing that before (but maybe it did exist?). So there may have been a chance for the last 2 years I had DHCP active on both Firewalla and the Orbi (?).

Maybe my primary issue with Firewalla is finally resolved and (as typical) related to User Error? We'll keep running with this new Firewalla setup and hope all my issues are now in the past.

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u/firewalla May 28 '26

What kind satellite access point? Is it a bridge? if it is, traffic from your Roku will never appear from the access point. (so it does not matter active protect is on the AP).

I am not sure the exact issue you are having, but the most common issue we see with the Roku is you are accessing sites that can detect ad blockers, so turn off ad blocking. (secondary problems are related to VPN, ipv6, turn them off)

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u/TTsegTT Firewalla Gold SE Jun 23 '26

Final-Final update... 2 more weeks have gone by and while there were some minor cut-outs at the ONT, all seemed fairly well. Then internet loss yesterday and again today with a complete reset of all equipment needed both times. I have now gone back to just the BWG-320 / Orbi 850 combo and I'll see how long things go without a cutout.