USB Share not accessible when WAN is down

[Xuul]

My internet went down for a few hours, so decided to watch a movie stored on the USB drive attached to the XR1000 router. While every device in the house was able to make a connection to the router, none of them were able to access the USB share while the internet was down. Since network shares is an intranet (not internet) connection, why would the WAN being down cause this functionality to fail?

[Xuul · Accepted solution]

Welp, seems I got the share to work as expected with the WAN cable unplugged. Darned if I can fully explain why, but here's what I did...

I noticed in Windows Networking that my Sony 4k player UBP-X800 was still connecting via wireless from the last time I had it check for firmware updates. It showed as a media player and media source. Looking into the settings on it, apparently by default it had enabled it's media server and also network access control using UPNP. I turned all that off, and disabled the wireless conection on it so it no longer was connecting. I then turned on, then off, UPNP on the router under Advanced settings, which seemed to do a long reset each time. I'm guessing it was resetting some kind of networking cache and in the process flushed out the bad junk from the Sony player. If I had to guess, the Sony player was doing some kind of loop on UPNP bogging down other services....maybe.

I'm glad that my previous suspicion that the router was disabling SMB share functionality when WAN is down was wrong. Thanks to all who put time in to help work through this.

[FURRYe38]

What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?
Be sure your using a good quality LAN cable between the modem and router. CAT6 is recommended.

So what happens if you disconnect the WAN port from the ISP modem and try to stream from your USB drive? Same thing? 

[Netduma-Fraser]

Was the router interface still accessible at the time?

[Xuul]

Firmware version: 1.0.0.74

The cable between router and modem is high quality. With that said, the modem should not ever be used for communication on the internal network when accessing an intranet share.

I will try disconnecting the WAN port from the ISP modem when I can find time, though, I refer to my previous statement.

The router interface is still accessible when WAN is down. All other devices on internal network connect (i.e. computer, printer, smart tvs, etc.)

When WAN is down, I am unable to ping the router name I've set "XR1000". Also cannot access "\\XR1000".

When WAN is up I can do both.

When WAN is down, I am able to ping 192.168.1.1. However I cannot access "\\192.168.1.1".

When WAN is up I can do both.

XR1000 shows up in Windows networking as a Gateway device, but is still unable to access the share. Windows discovery is enabled. If I enable http access to share, I am able to successfully go to the URL and list files in the share. Not useful for playing videos when I wish to fwd, rwd, seek, etc.

It seems the router is disabling SMB share functionality when the WAN is down.

[FURRYe38]

What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?

How about routerlogin.net? 

\\XR1000 is not valid. routerlogin.net or 192.168.1.1 are valid WEB page access.

192.168.1.1 should be accessible at any time with WAN is connected or disconnected. I can access my XR1000 at anytime with WAN port disconnected. 

What PC platform are you using and does all browsers see this issue? 

[FURRYe38]

To best help and troubleshoot this, we do need to know the ISP Modem brand and model to help rule out problems that may come from the ISP modem. Just a question is all. 

Let us know if by disconnecting the modem from the XR router if the router web page and USB share is not accessible. 
I can help check this with mine as well. 

[Xuul]

I live out the country, so I get internet wirelessly from a modem mounted on my roof, that connects to a cell tower (this is not satellite service). The company I go through is Element8 (e8internet.com). So far I am unable to find the brand and model of thre modem. I'm also not planning to climb on my roof to find out.😜 Its snowing today on top of things.

If the ISP modem and or WAN availibility has anything to do with intranet share communication, then I have some serious concerns about security with this router. That type of communication should not require a WAN and should be firewalled from it.

I retract my previous statement about routerlogin.net working without the WAN. It does not. Previously I went to the router page using a shortcut I have saved that uses 192.168.1.1. That is the method that does work when the WAN is down.

I unplugged the WAN cable. Same problem. The router page works using 192.168.1.1, but I can not access the share using the internal home IP or the share device name. Very strange.

[Netduma-Fraser]

I'll continue to monitor the topic in case I can jump in but it's a purely NG feature so I have less knowledge on it and I can't think of anything on the DumaOS side that would be affecting it

[FURRYe38]

Ok so I formatted a 500Gb mech drive in Windows 11 for NTFS. Put it in a USB caddy I have here. 

Put some media files on it. 

Disconnected it from the PC. 

With my XR1000v1, after it was powered ON and ready and NOT connected to any ISP modem, using MS Edge, was able to log into the web page at both 192.168.1.1 and routerlogin.net:

 

Checked the USB settings and enabled the folowing:

After it was enabled, I rebooted the router and during the reboot, I connected the USB drive to the back USB 3.0 port of the router. After the drive was ready, I opened Network icon on the deak stop and found the XR1000 media being displayed:

 

RIght selecting on the icon, I selected Open in Media Player:

 

Media files are playable here. All this was with out the router connected to anything. XR1000 is not valid web page access here on mine nor is XR1000v1. 192.168.1.1 or routerlogin.net works for me. 

[Xuul]

Furry, I appreciate the effort doing all that.

MSEdge likely worked using routerlogin.net because the browser cached it's own DNS history. I addressed this in another post found here:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-Pro-Gaming-Routers/AdBlocker-Issues/m-p/2386823#M35030

I found that browsers typically will store their own DNS history, bypassing downstream DNS lookups at router or ISP and use it's own cached IP at the browser level. In order for AD blocking to work reliably, I have disabled the DNS cache in my browser, so routerlogin.net not working is not supprising, except that the router itself should have that cached since it's a built in default URL for access on an internal network.

In your USB settings, you have your "Network/Device Name" set to "readyshare". Lower in the page, it shows your valid string for the network share is "\\readyshare". Mine is named "XR1000", so "\\XR1000" is valid, not because it is the router's model name, but because I deliberately set "Network/Device Name" to "XR1000". With this, it shows lower in my page that "\\XR1000" is the string to use.

Other than that, I can not explain why yours works and mine does not. Looking at your media player, I'm betting that if you clicked in the address bar to see the full path, it would show "\\xr1000v1\....etc". This is strange given that you have your "Network/Device Name" set to "readyshare" not "xr1000v1". My best guess is you also have DLNA Media Server enabled and it's name was set to "xr1000v1". This is found on "Media Server" page under "USB Functions".

[Xuul]

I forgot to mention that enabling DLNA Media Server does work for me without the WAN.

I do not wish to use DLNA since it utilizes UPNP streaming protocol and does not allow for file management. In addition, the XR1000's functionality is limited for DLNA in which it does not recognized all video files as video files. As a result, many of the video files do not show up when connecting to this with a UPNP client. Plus there are no configuration options for DLNA to define what media files to present to connected clients.

[FURRYe38]

Whatt brand and model # USB drive and drive size do you have connected to the router? 

Maybe try a factory reset on your router and setup from scratch. I would try setting up with out it being connected to the ISP modem. 

MS Edge caches was cleared prior to connecting to the routers web UI. So all was new and clear with the browser and saw no issues using IP address or host name to access the web ui. 

Seems like your router maybe in some bad state or there is a mis-configuration at some level with your environment that seems to be maybe causing problems. 

Extreme altternative would be to try a different router with your USB drive and see the same problem follows on that router as well.

The XR1000 is not working for me to access the web ui. Only 192.168.1.1 or routerlogin.net. I've always used the IP asddress with out fail. 

[Xuul · Accepted solution]

Welp, seems I got the share to work as expected with the WAN cable unplugged. Darned if I can fully explain why, but here's what I did...

I noticed in Windows Networking that my Sony 4k player UBP-X800 was still connecting via wireless from the last time I had it check for firmware updates. It showed as a media player and media source. Looking into the settings on it, apparently by default it had enabled it's media server and also network access control using UPNP. I turned all that off, and disabled the wireless conection on it so it no longer was connecting. I then turned on, then off, UPNP on the router under Advanced settings, which seemed to do a long reset each time. I'm guessing it was resetting some kind of networking cache and in the process flushed out the bad junk from the Sony player. If I had to guess, the Sony player was doing some kind of loop on UPNP bogging down other services....maybe.

I'm glad that my previous suspicion that the router was disabling SMB share functionality when WAN is down was wrong. Thanks to all who put time in to help work through this.

[FURRYe38]

Glad you got it working. Be sure to save off a back up configuration to file for safe keeping. Saves time if a reset is needed.
https://kb.netgear.com/24231/How-do-I-back-up-the-router-configuration-settings-on-my-Nighthawk-rout...
Enjoy. 📡