Orbi RBR50 occasionally doesn't route Internet traffic

[cwise]

Fairly frequently my Internet access will stop working whether wireless or wired. Nothing will load, though whatever device I'm on shows I'm still connected to the local network and can access the Orbi via the app and the admin web page. The Orbi itself apparently still has Internet access, because it reports a connected/online status and it will successfully execute a speed test, but it's not sharing that connection with anything on the LAN side. This might happen several times a day, or not quite every day (unless it happens at a time I don't notice). It may resolve itself within 30 minutes, but it could continue hours later. Seems like sometimes it resolves right after I run a speed test from the Orbi app. When that doesn't resolve it, rebooting the Orbi seems to do the trick. This is frustrating to troubleshoot because I can't intentionally cause the issue, I haven't found a solution that always works (except rebooting), and I haven't identified any pattern to when it occurs or when it resolves itself.

Don't think I have a double NAT situation. My cable modem is just a modem, and the Orbi's WAN IP is a public one.

There shouldn't be anything else on the LAN that could be inappropriately issuing DHCP leases, plus all the devices on the LAN lose or regain Internet connectivity at the same time.

Nothing stands out to me in the Orbi logs, just DHCP renewals, NTP syncs, and DoS attacks that don't seem to correlate with the local outages.

I'm at a loss. Any thoughts?

I have a RBR50 as router and a RBS50, both firmware version 2.3.5.30.

[ekhalil]

This can be related to the ISP Lease Time issue:

1. When this issue happens, what would you see in the web GUI under >> ADVANCED >> ADVANCED Home >> INTERNET PORT >> CONNECTION STATUS. What are the values for “Lease Obtained” and “Lease Expires”?
2. Will disconnecting the internet cable from Orbi’s WAN port and connecting it again resolve the issue?

[cwise]

Right now (though I am not currently having the issue) I see Lease Obtained 0d 8h 0m and Lease Expires about 5h, which would make sense since I rebooted about 3h ago.

I will report back when I have the issue again. Thanks for your really quick response.

[ekhalil]

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@cwise wrote:
Right now (though I am not currently having the issue) I see Lease Obtained 0d 8h 0m and Lease Expires about 5h, which would make sense since I rebooted about 3h ago.

I will report back when I have the issue again. Thanks for your really quick response.

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How is it going? 🙂

[cwise]

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@ekhalil wrote:

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How is it going? 🙂

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If it has happened in the past few days, it's happened when I wasn't home. Once it inevitably does, I'll hurry back to let you know. 🙂

[FURRYe38]

What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem? 

Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update? 

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@cwise wrote:

Fairly frequently my Internet access will stop working whether wireless or wired. Nothing will load, though whatever device I'm on shows I'm still connected to the local network and can access the Orbi via the app and the admin web page. The Orbi itself apparently still has Internet access, because it reports a connected/online status and it will successfully execute a speed test, but it's not sharing that connection with anything on the LAN side. This might happen several times a day, or not quite every day (unless it happens at a time I don't notice). It may resolve itself within 30 minutes, but it could continue hours later. Seems like sometimes it resolves right after I run a speed test from the Orbi app. When that doesn't resolve it, rebooting the Orbi seems to do the trick. This is frustrating to troubleshoot because I can't intentionally cause the issue, I haven't found a solution that always works (except rebooting), and I haven't identified any pattern to when it occurs or when it resolves itself.

Don't think I have a double NAT situation. My cable modem is just a modem, and the Orbi's WAN IP is a public one.

There shouldn't be anything else on the LAN that could be inappropriately issuing DHCP leases, plus all the devices on the LAN lose or regain Internet connectivity at the same time.

Nothing stands out to me in the Orbi logs, just DHCP renewals, NTP syncs, and DoS attacks that don't seem to correlate with the local outages.

I'm at a loss. Any thoughts?

I have a RBR50 as router and a RBS50, both firmware version 2.3.5.30.

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[cwise]

My ISP modem is an Arris TM1602A.

I have not performed a factory reset on the Orbi
since I set it up a couple months ago. I think there have been two firmware updates since then. Is it considered good practice to do that after every FW update?

[FURRYe38]

If you run into odd issue, yes, a reset and setup from scratch maybe needed. After the reset, I would set the default DHCP IP address pool size to 192.168.1.100 thru .200. 

I would power OFF the iSP modem for 1 minute while the Factory reset happens on the RBR. Then walk thru the setup wizard on the RBR. 

[ekhalil]

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@cwise wrote:

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If it has happened in the past few days, it's happened when I wasn't home. Once it inevitably does, I'll hurry back to let you know. 🙂

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Have you seen the issue again? Could you get the lease time values as explained?

[cwise]

Naturally, I haven't seen the problem since I asked this question, despite it happening consistently for months prior.... Hopefully that's a new normal, I guess.

If/when it does happen again, I'll be sure to report back with the lease info. Thanks to everyone for replying so quickly to help me out!

[FURRYe38]

As last resort, 

If you run into odd issue, yes, a reset and setup from scratch maybe needed. After the reset, I would set the default DHCP IP address pool size to 192.168.1.100 thru .200. 

I would power OFF the iSP modem for 1 minute while the Factory reset happens on the RBR. Then walk thru the setup wizard on the RBR.

Good Luck. 

[cwise]

Thanks for your suggestion. As it happens, I do have the DHCP pool set at 192.168.1.100 - .199, with a few dedicated assignments outside that range (RBS satellite is .2, file server and printer are .10 and .11, I think). But I have not done a complete reset and setup since I initially set it up a few months ago, so I will try that if the problem occurs again.

[FURRYe38]

Ok, sounds good.

Good Luck. 

[cwise]

Issue just occurred again while I was home to see it. Seems the ISP Lease idea is on the right track.

Lease obtained: 0d 8h 0m
Lease expires: 0d 7h 58m

So I’m assuming that it had just renewed two minutes ago?

Unplugged the WAN cable from RBR. Plugged it right back in and the Internet immediately started working on my phone.

[ekhalil]

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@cwise wrote:
Issue just occurred again while I was home to see it. Seems the ISP Lease idea is on the right track.

Lease obtained: 0d 8h 0m
Lease expires: 0d 7h 58m

So I’m assuming that it had just renewed two minutes ago?

Unplugged the WAN cable from RBR. Plugged it right back in and the Internet immediately started working on my phone.

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Then this must be the ISP lease time issue that I also had.

Please do the following:

• From browser go to the router's debug page (http://192.168.1.1/debug.htm). Use your router's IP address or http://orbilogin.com/debug.htm
• Enter admin as user name and your router’s management password
• Tick "Enable Telnet" option
• Use Telnet from a computer attached to Orbi to connect to your Router telnet 192.168.1.1 and enter admin and the same password as above
• Enter the following commands:
• root@RBR50:/# config get wan_lease    — Should give you --> 86400 (default value)
• root@RBR50:/# config set wan_lease=720
• root@RBR50:/# config commit

[cwise]

Ok, I set wan_lease to 720. What does this accomplish and how can I confirm that this has made a difference? Does this setting shorten the interval that the Orbi refreshes WAN network info or something? I’m still not totally clear what the root issue is. Thanks.

[ekhalil]

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@cwise wrote:
Ok, I set wan_lease to 720. What does this accomplish and how can I confirm that this has made a difference? Does this setting shorten the interval that the Orbi refreshes WAN network info or something? I’m still not totally clear what the root issue is. Thanks.

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This will make sure Orbi will ask to renew the lease time more frequently and avoid missed renewals. For some reason it seems that something happens that makes lease renewals to be missed sometimes, especially if the ISP renewal time is long (more than 1 hour).

If you don't see internet drop issues after the change then this means that the change helped. This for sure helped in my case.

[cwise]

Woke up to the issue happening again despite the change. I’m going to try a factory reset.

[ekhalil]

Please try to reduce the time further, please change the 720 in the command to 350 and repeat all commands again

[Blanca_O]

Hi @cwise

We’d greatly appreciate hearing your feedback letting us know if the information @ekhalil provided has helped resolve your issue or if you need further assistance.

Regards, 
Blanca 
Community Team
 

[cwise]

I did experience the issue again, after which I further bumped the wan_lease value down to 120. Even after that, this morning I woke up to the problem occurring again. Checking the connection status ISP lease time, it was an 8 hr lease with about 4.5 hr until expiry, so I presume I had been without connection for 3.5 hrs at that point.

I guess I will have to bite the bullet and try a factory reset when I have the time and it would be minimally disruptive. On a different note, I recently bought a second RBK50 kit. I just wanted a second satellite, but the RBR + RBS kit (open box, not brand new) was cheaper than a standalone RBS unit. Worst case, if factory reset still doesn’t resolve my woes, I have the luxury of trying a different RBR50 router unit in its place. Quite irritating all around.

[FURRYe38]

Seen others with this similar issue when connected to a Arris TM1600 series modem. It is a Intel Puma 6 chip set modem which is known for a few bugs:

http://badmodems.com/Forum/app.php/badmodems

Any chance you can connect a Motorola MB 7420 or 8600 series modem or a Arris SB 6183 or 8200 series modem to see if the problem continues? 

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@cwise wrote:
I did experience the issue again, after which I further bumped the wan_lease value down to 120. Even after that, this morning I woke up to the problem occurring again. Checking the connection status ISP lease time, it was an 8 hr lease with about 4.5 hr until expiry, so I presume I had been without connection for 3.5 hrs at that point.

I guess I will have to bite the bullet and try a factory reset when I have the time and it would be minimally disruptive. On a different note, I recently bought a second RBK50 kit. I just wanted a second satellite, but the RBR + RBS kit (open box, not brand new) was cheaper than a standalone RBS unit. Worst case, if factory reset still doesn’t resolve my woes, I have the luxury of trying a different RBR50 router unit in its place. Quite irritating all around.

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[cwise]

Thank you for those details and resources. I’ll have to call my ISP and ask if they can provide me a different modem, so hopefully I can use this info as leverage.

[FURRYe38]

Let us know how it goes.