Interesting problem connecting to routerlogin.net

[eric_bor]

Hi,

I have a RAX54 and I'm able to get it setup and configured but I run into a weird problem where I can no longer access the routerlogin.net page after I've completed the setup and make a few updates. The changes that I make are:

1) switch the network to use 10.x instead of 192.x.

2) configure about 6-7 devices with static LAN addresses.

3) update the SSID names and passwords.

4) configure port forwarding and port triggering on a few items (for Fios).

After I make those changes and I get connected to the Internet, I can no longer access routerlogin.net, routerlogin.com or the IP address of the router.  For all, I get connection reset.  If I use curl, I see this error:

curl -I https://10.0.0.1/start.htm
curl: (28) SSL/TLS connection timeout

To 'fix' it, I can shutdown the router, unplug the internet cable, turn the router back on and I can access the UI again.  Once I plug the internet cable back in, then it's accessible again.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what might be interfering with accessing the start page?

[eric_bor]

I should have also mentioned that I don't have any firewall blocking.  I see the same behavior on my linux machine, desktop, laptop, etc.

[plemans]

What modem/gateway is it connected to? 

Are the devices directly connected to it or running through a switch/another router?

[eric_bor]

It's just connected directly to the Fios ONT ethernet port.  I had ethernet from ONT -> wire -> router -> wire -> PC.  No other switches involved (during set up).  Eventually, I am hoping to connect everything else up.

[plemans]

What fios ont is it? 

What happens if you leave the ip address on the 192 address? 

[eric_bor]

The ONT is verizon i211ml.  What would happen is my family would kill me since I have everything already configured for 10.x and things would not be working for some time.  😅  I guess I could try that but I previously had R7800, R7450 and R7000 with no problems.

[eric_bor]

I should also mention that the USB shared drive still works ok.

[eric_bor]

Also, I'm not sure if anyone wants to get into the weeds but in Wireshark, I see the initial GET:

GET / HTTP/1.1

Host: 10.0.0.1

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:107.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/107.0

Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8

Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

Connection: keep-alive

Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1

A bunch of re-transmits and then a final connection reset flag set in the response back from the router.

Flags: 0x004 (RST)
000. .... .... = Reserved: Not set
...0 .... .... = Accurate ECN: Not set
.... 0... .... = Congestion Window Reduced: Not set
.... .0.. .... = ECN-Echo: Not set
.... ..0. .... = Urgent: Not set
.... ...0 .... = Acknowledgment: Not set
.... .... 0... = Push: Not set
.... .... .1.. = Reset: Set
.... .... ..0. = Syn: Not set
.... .... ...0 = Fin: Not set
[TCP Flags: ·········R··]

[Some of the message was filtered by the forum for containing HTML]

[eric_bor]

Follow-up: I had a chance to try it with 192.168.1.1 and that has the same issue.  I'm also getting the dup ack in Wireshark there too.

[plemans]

When you reset it (to access it and change lan) , did you test after each change at what point the gui became in-accessible? 

[eric_bor]

Soooo.... this makes no sense to me at all but the issue is/was: *drum roll*

A Sandisk USB drive/stick plugged into the USB port!?!?!?

I reconfigured everything, one step at a time, rebooted, cleared cache, etc. after each step.  I made it all the way to the finish line - it was working, awesome!  Put it back into it's 'home' and plug the USB drive back in - *bam* connection reset.

The only explanation *sort of* that I could think is that, once it gets plugged in, the USB drive is getting published as a media server and everything on the network starts to scan it and the router throws up a block on traffic to the IP altogether.  I don't know - it's crazy!  My next step would be to plug in the USB and disable the media server but I've already spent too much time troubleshooting and I have ethernet cables going all over my house.  If I have a free minute, I'll try that out and see but, as of now, I can access the routerlogin page *and* type this message.  Crazy, I know!

Thank you, @plemans for hanging in there with me on this!  Not a great conclusion but I got it working.  I'll also update my ticket with Netgear support.

[plemans]

Glad to see it was a usb drive causing issues. I have had that happen long ago with an old school cisco router that crashed because of the media on a drive. Same kind of issue