Nighthawk M1 - Data offloading won't work

[HannuKop]

Nighthawk M1 LTE Mobile Router, latest firmware (of March 2018), latest Netgeat Mobile App installed.
I'm trying to get the data offloading feature to work, with little success. Tested it with two separate locations/WiFi networks and nope.

The UI of both app and web browser setup is really bad, and the App doesn't let me to change the offloading at all, no effects, doesn't change anything. The browser setup works better and it at least does something, though it finally ends with this error:
"Networking error

Data offloading disabled due to IP address conclit. To to m1login* to configure unique subnet."
I have zero clue what I'm supposed to do and nothing in manual about this error message.
The router settings seem to be fine at the default settings:
Gateway IP 192.168.1. IP subnet mask 255.255.255.0 DNS mode auto DHCP checked starting IP 192.168.1.20 ending IP 192.168.1.99.

So, what to do next? With mobile data, SIM installed, the router seems to work fine, but data offloading just doesn't.

[UK-based]

Is it possible that the router you are connecting to, via WiFi or Ethernet data offloading, has the same IP address as your M1 (192.168.1.1 by default)? If so, you could try changing the Gateway IP address of the M1. I'm not sure what happens when you enable data offloading - I guess the M1 could pick up an address via DHCP from the other router, or perhaps it retains its own IP address.

[HannuKop]

This happens with two separate WiFi routers I'm trying to offload to, but could be. What would be workable alternate gateway IP?

[HannuKop]

Tiny addition: with wired connection the data offloading works perfectly. I plugged the network cable in and everything worked great right away. WiFi offloading on the other hand....

[UK-based]

Before making any changes, can you log into the other router and find out if it's IP address is indeed 192.168.1.1? If this isn't the case, the problem must be something else. If it's the same as the M1, you could try changing the M1 IP to 192.168.1.2, assuming that's not included in the DHCP address range of the other router, in which case you could still have an IP address clash. Remember that if you change the M1 IP address, you'll have to use that new address if you want to access its interface via a browser. If this doesn't work out, you can always do a factory reset on the M1 to get the default gateway IP address back - you'll of course lose any other setting changes from default that you've made.

[UK-based]

Sorry, I didn't see your "tiny addition" before sending my reply. If it works with the wired connection, I have my doubts about a clash with the other router's IP address but you could always check this. There are other more experienced contributors than me who may be able to help you further, such as @MicW

[HannuKop]

Hi,

The router indeed has that IP:

- IP Address:     192.168.1.1
- IP Subnet Mask:     255.255.255.0
- DHCP:     Server

And I presume the other has as well.
But when connected to this router with ethernet cable offloading works, when trying WiFi with the same router I get the error mentioned. But I will try changing the IP.
Thanks!

[MicW]

Thanks for the vote of confidence @UK-based . It looks like you spotted the issue and answered it great :). @HannuKop let us know if it works once you get the M1 gateway IP address moved away from the routers address ( I'd also make sure its outside the routers DHCP range too so no other device gets a conflicting IP with the M1).

[MicW]

The only other issue I can see that might crop up is if both the M1 and the router are running DHCP services, that could cause some confusion on the network. Do as UK-based says and correct the IP conflict and see if that works, if you get issues with other devices on your network I'd disable the DHCP service on the router . If the router has a dhcp relay setting I'd enable that to pass through any DHCP queries from the M1 to devices directly connected to the router. But if all your devices connect via the M1 the issue may never crop up, the issue may only appear if you have some devices connecting via th router and some via the M1

[UK-based]

@MicW: thanks for responding and filling in important details that I'd omitted - I knew I could rely on you .

This raises some questions in my own mind. If this is how the data offloading process is implemented in other devices, surely there will frequently be IP address clashes since the default gateway IP address of virtually all routers is either 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254. It seems to me that there should be a more intelligent approach to data offloading. For example, when data offloading is set up in the mobile router, it should check the gateway address of the "wired" router and if there is a clash, offer the user an alternative address that it will "adopt", instead of its current address, warning the user that once changed, the new address will be needed to access it via a browser. At least this would be a lot more helpful to users who aren't that familiar with networking. There are probably even better approaches that haven't yet occurred to me - does anyone have other ideas on improving this process?

[UK-based]

If you find that the DHCP address ranges on your M1 and the other router overlap but you want to keep DHCP active on both devices, you could change the ranges so that there's no overlap. I've got a landline-connected router and also the M1, which I bought because I only get 3Mbps on the landline - yes, you read that correctly! Both routers have DHCP enabled so that if the M1 goes down, I still have WiFi access. I've changed the ranges on both devices so that they don't overlap. You may find that it's only necessary to change the range on one device if the other has an unused block of addresses - you may only need a handful for your mobile devices.

[MicW]

You make a valid point. As DHCP won't cross foreign routers and the M1 is just off loading to the primary router/modem the 2 DHCP services with non overlapping ranges will work for internet access . Trying access from devices attached to the M1 to a device attached to the primary router may be worth testing though. And I suspect if some devices are within range of both DHCP services may cause both to respond. Again probably not a issue on a small home network.

[MicW]

Actually ignore what I just said, I wasn't thinking. Since the router and M1 will have their own seperate wifi ssid you won't get both DHCP services responding. The data offloading should work fine simply set, each group having net access seperate from each other I suspect, I haven't tested any of this just a thought process

[ralphstead]

Did the proposed solution work?

I've got a similar problem. Trying to offload data via Wifi.

I've changed the landline-wifi's IP to 192.168.1.9 but am still receiving the "unique subnet" problem.

Any change to the IP of the nighthawk requires a factoy reset afterwards to continue using 😞

[UK-based]

@ralphstead: what aspect of the M1 can't be used after changing its address? Can't you access it via a web browser using the new IP address?

[HannuKop]

Hi and thanks for all the suggestions and help. Unfortunately: doesn't still work.
I did the simplest thing and changed the router's IP from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.2. After that I couldn't even connect  to the Dashboard anymore, neither with the Netgear App or with iPad or a laptop. Trying to connect to the Dashboard either by the m1login.net address or direct IP to 192.168.1.2 resulted just "time out / taking too long to respond / cannot open the page because too many redirects occurred" errors. Had to do factory reset to access the dashboard.

I tried also to change the DHCP address range to start from .50, after checking there's no devices connected with that high IPs in my wlan and then tried the data offloading connection again. Nope, still "networking error" and "ip address confect" and "configure a unique subnet."
And I see ralphstead tried changing his home router's IP too, and same problem. This seems to be a definite problem within M1 itself, with a major feature just not working at all.
Data offloading possibility to Ethernet/Wlan in addition to mobile data was my primary interest, main selling feature, so this is kind of disappointing. Any suggestions for further testing are still welcome.

[Daniel84]

Same issue here. Any definitive solution so far? As someone mention here this is one of the main features here and is badly implemented!

[Daniel84]

So I have managed to make it work.

So what you will need to do is change your mobile router network address, in this case by default is 192.168.1.1 and the Wifi Router I was trying to offload data from is 192.168.1.254 hence belonging to the same subnet.

I just change in the Nighthawk all router internal addresses to 192.168.2.1 and problem solved.

Happy offloading! Cheers!