Re: wn3000RPv3 keeps disconnecting and taking rest of internet with it?

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

"The network gateway is accessible, but Windows couldn’t receive network traffic from the Internet."

This is the message I keep getting and my internet keeps cutting out.

I have Windows 10 and my Wifi keeps cutting out on my PC and my PS4 (which are practically side by side).

I am using a Netgear WN3000RP WiFi Range Extender and I have made sure that I have updated/upgraded it to the latest firmware. I have repeatedly ran virus scans in case malware was compromising my signal, intefering with the Wifi etc.

So I have to restart my Wifi Extender and the internet comes back, for a short period of time.

The wireless signal stands at about 91% from the router. The Wifi Extender is right beside my PC and PS4, and only goes throgh one floor and no walls.

When I disabled the Wifi Extender, and left my PS4 to be connected to the router directly throughout the night, there was no interruption or dropping of signal at all. This was evidenced by virtue of the fact that I was downloading games and they have downloaded successfully with no interruption of service/signal for over ten hours.

Rest assured, I definitely have not had a quality of service THAT good with the Wifi Extender.

There is also something a tad peculiar with the Wifi Extender, I have enclosed a picture of the Wifi genie to demonstrate.

"My" router and the wifi extender are both on the same channel, there is nothing else on the channel according to Wifi Analytics.

Ok! So when I turned the Wifi Extender on it cut out again. Lost internet to my PC, and shortly after my PS4 was affected also. The ONLY way I can recover internet on my PC is resetting the Wifi Extender.

If I leave the Wifi Extender on, I cannot connect to the router at all, on my PS4. As soon as the Extender is turned off? Boom, perfect connection and signal when connected to the router.

My router is Technicolor, MediaAccess TG589vac with software version 17.2 I have no idea how old it is sorry. Hardware version VANT-E

StephenB · ‎2018-08-15

@apronedsamurai wrote:

There is also something a tad peculiar with the Wifi Extender, I have enclosed a picture of the Wifi genie to demonstrate.

The screenshot says that the extender is connected to the router, and that no clients are connected to the extender.

That isn't peculiar (unless it's incorrect status).

@apronedsamurai wrote:

The wireless signal stands at about 91% from the router.

That's a high signal strength - suggesting that you don't need an extender in that location. What are you hoping to gain by using one?

@apronedsamurai wrote:

If I leave the Wifi Extender on, I cannot connect to the router at all, on my PS4. As soon as the Extender is turned off? Boom, perfect connection and signal when connected to the router.

Extenders can't block your your ability to connect to the router's wifi.

When there are multiple wireless networks available, the PC (or PS4) choose what network they want to connect to. In mesh networks the network can provide hints suggesting that the device switch to a different access point or a different band. But even there, the client doesn't have to follow those hints.

Your issue might be caused by your PC/PS4 deciding they want to switch between the router and the extender. You can try telling the PC to "forget" the extender network, and see if that helps it maintain a stable connection to the the router.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

The reason I am using the Wifi Extender was so that I could plug an Ethernet cable into my PC computer and that is why I have used the wifi extender.

My PC does not have wifi capability on its own, like a Wireless USB adapter and is only drawing its Internet connection FROM the Wifi Extender.

StephenB · ‎2018-08-15

@apronedsamurai wrote:

The reason I am using the Wifi Extender was so that I could plug an Ethernet cable into my PC computer

Thx, that helps.

That suggests that you don't want the PS4 to use the extender wifi network at all. Is it set up to only connect to the router wifi?

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

Not sure tbh. See, the router generated network is called:

TNCAP4BB7D3

The network generated by the Wifi Extender, is called:

TNCAP4BB7D3-EXT

I've always set the TNCAP4BB7D3-EXT password to the same as the TNCAP4BB7D3 network....and as far as I am aware I would need to specifically connect the PS4 to the TNCAP4BB7D3-EXT nextwork (which I have never done...?)

StephenB · ‎2018-08-15

@apronedsamurai wrote:

as far as I am aware I would need to specifically connect the PS4 to the TNCAP4BB7D3-EXT nextwork (which I have never done...?)

Yes, you would have needed to specifically connect the PS4 to the wifi network - it wouldn't assume that the password is the same.

Ok, so let's clarify the symptoms, now that I understand the setup better.

The PC is seeing internet connectivity drops - correct?

What are you seeing on the PS4? Does this change when the extender is turned off? What color is the link rate LED on the extender?

Also, your router is a dual-band router (802.11n on the 2.4 ghz band, and 802.11ac on the 5 ghz band). Some new 2017 PS4s (slim PS4 and PS4 Pro) support 5 ghz, older models are 2.4 ghz only. Does your PS4 support 5Ghz?

A couple of things to try:

Check that the extender is firmly plugged in and doesn't wiggle in the socket. If it isn't secure, you can try connecting it with an extension cord.
If the tabs on the ethernet connectors are broken off, you should try a different ethernet cable.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

My PS4 doesn't seem to recognise the 5 GHZ network, so I assume that it only accepts 2.4 Ghz

There again, the internet cut out on my PC. I tried to explicitly connect to the Wifi- Extender generated network, was unable to do so:

"No DNS sever could be reached in time."

same outcome when I tried to connect directly to the router generated network.

Soon as I turned off the Wifi Extender, was able to connect to the router network immediately with no inteference/difficulty.

The ethernet cable is totally fine, not damaged in any way.

The extender is fully flush in the socket.

When the internet cuts out, there does not seem to be any change at all with the Wifi Extender, all lights remain green...

StephenB · ‎2018-08-15

@apronedsamurai wrote:

My PS4 doesn't seem to recognise the 5 GHZ network, so I assume that it only accepts 2.4 Ghz

Likely true. Your extender is 2.4 ghz only too.

And there are no network issues with the PS4, correct?

@apronedsamurai wrote:

I tried to explicitly connect to the Wifi- Extender generated network... same outcome when I tried to connect directly to the router generated network.

You are confusing me. Your PC has no wifi, how can you connect it directly to the router wifi network? And how can you connect it to the wifi-extender network????

@apronedsamurai wrote:

"No DNS sever could be reached in time."

DNS or DHCP? Is this coming from Windows, or are you seeing it in your browser?

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

" I tried to explicitly connect to the Wifi- Extender generated network... same outcome when I tried to connect directly to the router generated network."

That was a reference to the PS4. Whenever the internet cuts out, I have been testing it on my PS4. When the internet DOES cut out, I am unable to connect to EITHER network on my PS4.

For what it is worth, I was able to successfully download a rather large game file on my PS4 from the Playstation Store overnight. The reason I mention this, is due to the fact that it the download completed successfully which in turn means one of two possibilities:

1) The download was concluded successfully with absolutely no interruption of the Wifi.

2) The Wifi was interrupted but reconnected successfully.

The portion of text in italics refers to when I have the Wifi Extender turned off, and only connect the PS4 to the router directly. As I said, when the Wifi Extender goes down, it seems to bring the PS4 with it.....and I am unable to connect the PS4 to either network i.e, the router network, or the network generated by the Wifi Extender.

I get the following message:

"No DNS sever could be reached in time."

That is appearing on both the PS4 AND the browser on my PC.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

Again, everything seems ok/stableNo internet connectionInternet seems to be ok...Some more odd observations.

Internet cut out on my PC.

Both the Wifi Extender and the router both remain exactly the same with all green lights remaining exactly the same, with no change in colour/frequency/speed/intensity etc

StephenB · ‎2018-08-15

@apronedsamurai wrote:

The portion of text in italics refers to when I have the Wifi Extender turned off, and only connect the PS4 to the router directly. As I said, when the Wifi Extender goes down, it seems to bring the PS4 with it.....and I am unable to connect the PS4 to either network i.e, the router network, or the network generated by the Wifi Extender.

You said before that you had never tried to connect the PS4 to the extender network, so this is a bit contradictory.

I am not seeing how an extender can bring down your router. It looks like any other wifi client device to the router.

Maybe go to your router's attached device list, and write down the IP address of the extender, along with the LAN address of the router (generally 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1).

Then wait for it to happen again. First try going into your PC browser, and enter http://extender-ip-address (using the real extender ip address) and see if you get to the wifi extender's web page. If that works, try to get to your router's web page (again using the IP address).

If both of those work, then try http://mywifiext.net and see if that brings you to the extender's web page.

The idea here is to see if you are losing both local and internet connectivity, or only internet connectivity.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

Yes, I have only tried to connect the PS4 to the Wifi Extender generated network once, to see what would happen. When I was unable to connect, I ensured that from thereon, the PS4 was only connected to the router network because tbh, that seems the most consistent and reliable.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

Another weird thing.

I am unable to find .etl file that is generated by the Network and Internet Settings troubleshooting wizard?

Doesn't matter if I search manually, or enter the full name in the "file explorer" or "search" facility....It cannot be located/seems not to exist....I mention this because I thought/hoped it could/would shed some light on the issue....

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-15

"

Maybe go to your router's attached device list, and write down the IP address of the extender, along with the LAN address of the router (generally 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1).

Then wait for it to happen again. First try going into your PC browser, and enter http://extender-ip-address (using the real extender ip address) and see if you get to the wifi extender's web page. If that works, try to get to your router's web page (again using the IP address). yes

If both of those work, then try http://mywifiext.net and see if that brings you to the extender's web page.

The idea here is to see if you are losing both local and internet connectivity, or only internet connectivity."

Yes both of them worked, when my internet went down again I was successfully able to login into the router, into the Wifi Extender, and was also able to access the extender's web page.....

What on earth does this mean...

StephenB · ‎2018-08-15

It suggests that the issue is with the internet connection (the connection from the gateway to the internet) - not the router wifi or extender, since you can reach both of their web pages. What's puzzling is that turning off the extender seems to fix it.

Next time you might try ping 8.8.8.8 (either from Windows command box or the PS4 if it lets you). That's the IP address of Google's public DNS server. Pinging the numeric IP address checks the internet connection w/o using a DNS server (which was giving you those timeout errors in the browser window). If that works, try ping google.com which will add DNS.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-16

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

That was generated whenever the internet was down and I pinged from cmd.

Pinging google.com also did not work:

Ping request could not find host google.com. Please check the name and try again.

When I turned off the Wifi Extender, and then pinged from the PS4 I pinged successfully.

StephenB · ‎2018-08-16

So this is what I think we know:

When the internet connection drops:

you can still reach both the router and extender over the local wifi network
The ping 8.8.8.8 failure confirms that the internet can't be reached.
The internet can't be reached on either extender wifi or the router wifi
turning off the WN3000rpv3 restores the internet connection on the router wifi.

Do you agree?

This is a confusing combination of symptoms. Here's one more experiment: The next time it fails, leave the extender on, and instead power-cycle the router (turning it off and on), and wait for it to boot up and it's LEDs to settle down to their usual state. See if that also re-establishes the internet connection. Check the internet connection on both the router wifi and the extender wifi.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-16

Ok.

So I did what you said, power cycled the router and left the Extender on.

No change at all, the internet was still inaccessible. When I pinged 8.8.8.8 and google, no luck with either.

The weird thing...I was unable to access either the Router OR the Wifi Extender ip addresses!

StephenB · ‎2018-08-16

Thanks (though I wasn't expecting that result).

One more test that that might be useful. That is to disconnect the PC ethernet cable when the problem occurs, and see if the PS4 can then reach the internet.

I am wondering if all this might be a result of some malware on the PC congesting your network. So perhaps download malwarebytes, and do a full scan. https://www.malwarebytes.com/ The free version is enough for this, though of course you could take the free premium trial.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-16

Hi,

Did what you said tried to access internet via the PS4 with the Ethernet cable disconnected from the PC, unable to get/form connection.

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-16

Have also tried a different Wifi Extender model....getting exactly same issue 😞

StephenB · ‎2018-08-17

@apronedsamurai wrote:

Have also tried a different Wifi Extender model....getting exactly same issue 😞

Which says it's not the extender, it has to be something else. I'm thinking the PC is the most likely cause. Did you try running the malware scan on the PC?

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-17

Yes I did, some issues were detected, I removed them all, ran several other scans after that, still the issue persists...

apronedsamurai · ‎2018-08-17

I have reinstalled Windows 10.

Hopefully that helps...

StephenB · ‎2018-08-17

@apronedsamurai wrote:

I have reinstalled Windows 10. ... Hopefully that helps...

I hope so too.