What could be causing a LAN spike => lost internet ???

Hi all,

As above really - and this issue is beginning to really [censored] me off.

Let's start with my setup: Hey!Broadband 1gb connection, TP link router connected to the ONT, a few wired connections into the router including (a) a couple of daisy chained switches and (b) an Eero Pro mesh.

99.999% of the time the setup works absolutely perfectly.

Occasionally, normally whilst watching a movie from my LAN based Plex server, the movie will just stop and the whole house will lose it's internet connection. The lights on the eeros turn red, the internet LED on the router goes orange but all the lights on the ONT stay green.

The only solution I have found to fix this so far is turn everything - router, eeros and switches - off for several hours and then hope everything is fine when it's all powered up.

When the router is showing an orange light I can't even connect to it via a wired connection to see any logs - and the logs are wiped when the router reboots as well from what I can tell.

I am assuming green lights on the ONT mean the outside connection is still fine but is there anyway I can prove this ?

Does anyone have any ideas what sort of spike - for want of a better word - this could be and how I can stop it from having such a destructive effect ?

TIA for any help.

Regards,

Adam

Someone cleverer than me will be along shortly … but you ought to be able to set up a direct connection between a laptop / computer and the ONT directly.

My guess is maybe the router

What model is the tplink router?

also this may be of an issue after we sort the main issue

couple of daisy chained switches

updated bit

Also how many eero's have you got ....... (asking because i would like you at some stage to swap one of eero's in place of the tplink)?

Edited by Taras (Wed 24-Jan-24 08:35:46)

The red lights on the Eero just mean they can't see the Internet.

The green lights on the ONT suggest the ONT thinks the onward Internet connection is fine.

The lights on the router plus it being completely unresponsive over the LAN port suggest that your router is terminally crashing each time.

It is likely that if you just turned the router off for a period of time then you wouldn't need to power cycle everything else for it to come back.

My money is on a router that is overheating and dying unceremoniously and needing to be turned off for a time for the router to cool back down again. Once it is cool again it is able to boot back up.

If it is your own router then it is either trying to return it if under warranty or I think probably time to get a replacement.

It appears like the TP-Link may be suffering from buffer bloat or similar conditions that has been badly handled in its firmware or an overheating condition causing the router to just die.

Is there plenty of airflow around the router?

You don't state WHICH TP-Link router you are using, but my TP-Link Archer AX3000 seems to cope with a situation similar to yours (minus the eero - I'm using a TP-Link OneMesh extender), including the LAN hosted plex server.

As has previously been mentioned, you could try disconnecting everything and setting up a PPPoE session from a laptop connected via ethernet direct into the ONT.

Try streaming something from an online source then, and see if it drops.

Do you have an alternative router (can you use the eero kit as a router/mesh all-in-one for testing?) to see if that suffers the same fate?

Edited by haydnwalker (Wed 24-Jan-24 09:14:28)

the op's got several eros i thing (how ever they are written) so he can swap around. My old tp link archer did the constantly reboot thing when i added a new phone wifi calling...

That was years ago. but ideally he needs to play router swapsies. I can rule out at this stage the cascading switches - that i think has an impact but the "dead internet" situation.

Just a thought.
Can you setup a Syslog server on your Plex server (NAS?) If so, your TP-Link may be able to write logs to this Syslog server so you have logs even after a reboot of the Router.

According to the router's admin page it is an Archer AX20.

My limited knowledge of networking tells me the eeros are just showing the consequences of the router being 'down' rather than actually being part of the problem.

The device watching the film, and the the Plex server, are both hard wired (via the switches) to the router which is acting as the DHCP server. The main eero is just wired to the router (and has two satellite eeros off it)

I suppose I could use the eero as a test; the only reason I am still using the router is that the eero only has 1 LAN port on it so if I, eventually, made the eero the DHCP server (and entry to the LAN) then I would need another switch anyway.

I might look into that.

To be clear, the Plex server is actually running in a Docker container on a Raspberry Pi but I don't believe that is the issue either given how infrequently this issue happens.

Sorry ... are you saying the cascading switches might be an issue or are not an issue ?

Also, to be clear .... the router is not constantly rebooting. It just decides it can't connect to the internet anymore; and turning it off and immediately back on doesn't solve the issue (it still thinks it can't find the internet unless it left powered off for a while)

Edited by AdamBrunt (Wed 24-Jan-24 12:00:46)

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

Sorry ... are you saying the cascading switches might be an issue or are not an issue ?

Cascading switches is fine as long as you understand what you are doing and the implications .. Say you cascade two 1gbit routers, and understand that limitation; thats ok. It won't affect the tp router.

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

Also, to be clear .... the router is not constantly rebooting. It just decides it can't connect to the internet anymore; and turning it off and immediately back on doesn't solve the issue (it still thinks it can't find the internet unless it left powered off for a while)

either the router is at its limit or its faulty..

How many devices are on the network .... Wireless and wired?

In reply to a post by ian72:

My money is on a router that is overheating and dying unceremoniously and needing to be turned off for a time for the router to cool back down again. Once it is cool again it is able to boot back up.

If it is your own router then it is either trying to return it if under warranty or I think probably time to get a replacement.

or its at its limit ie with devices, and thus that is the end result. also it may be overheating due to lack of air around the router. At any rate Adam needs to try to recreate the same issue with another router.

Some routers and WiFi systems decide to "stop" running a local network when the internet (WAN) disappears. My friends BT WholeHome WiFi discs stop transmitting a WiFi signal if you disconnect the WAN port on the router, but wired devices carry on working. You'll have to test your equipment for this scenario, and perhaps reconfigure (if possible) or replace.

My ASUS router puts on a red WAN light and continues to provide DHCP and local DNS (of names you configure) to the LAN even with a WAN outage.

That's a possibility but, from what I can tell so far, there is no evidence that the WAN disappeared (the ONT showed green lights throughout) which suggests, to my crazy brain, that the LAN 'spike' caused the router to think the WAN had gone

In reply to a post by Taras:

Cascading switches is fine as long as you understand what you are doing and the implications .. Say you cascade two 1gbit routers, and understand that limitation; thats ok. It won't affect the tp router.

OK.

In reply to a post by Taras:

either the router is at its limit or its faulty..

How many devices are on the network .... Wireless and wired?

Wired - no more than 30.
Wireless - barely a handful (and they are all connected to the eero Mesh; not sure how they then get passed on to the router)

And when the outage happens there is no change in how many devices are connected [ that number is fairly constant 24/7 ]

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

That's a possibility but, from what I can tell so far, there is no evidence that the WAN disappeared (the ONT showed green lights throughout) which suggests, to my crazy brain, that the LAN 'spike' caused the router to think the WAN had gone

Green light means ONT can see its other end, doesn't mean that your router can talk to the ISP's DHCP server. You'd need to test your specific equipment, if the ISP provided IP address on the WAN port of your router expires, what happens. Only way to really test is to unplug the WAN cable to the ONT.

I have no idea what a 'spike' is, on an optical medium such as FTTP you can't get electrical spikes that might have been caused by a large amount of load coming on (e.g. industrial machinery) nearby.

two things, when you mean cascading switches, i was assuming you were not talking about the eero mesh 😀.

Adam could you do some checks for me ..

What version is the Archer AX20?

Also what version the firmware is on ?

I just want to exclude if a firmware update will resolve the issue and remove the need to start swapping devices !

In reply to a post by Taras:

two things, when you mean cascading switches, i was assuming you were not talking about the eero mesh 😀.

Indeed.

My setup is:

eero
|
router --- switch ---- switch

with only wifi connections onto the eero and multiple other wired connections off the two switches

In reply to a post by Taras:

What version is the Archer AX20?

Also what version the firmware is on ?

Archer AX20 v3.0

Firmware version 1.1.4 Build 20230219 rel. 69802(4555)

No firmware updates available.

thanks for network map!

Re firmware, theres not much we can do about that !

How many Eeros have you got?

asking because of simplicity/less hassle for you to resolve?

When did this first start happening ?

Also can you recreate the fault or is it random ?

Edited by Taras (Wed 24-Jan-24 15:09:31)

In reply to a post by Taras:

How many Eeros have you got?

Three altogether; one wired to the router and two others which connect to the "master" eero over wifi

In reply to a post by Taras:

When did this first start happening ?

Also can you recreate the fault or is it random ?

So it has probably happened about 3 times over the last 4 months but the fault is definitely random; in that if that I were to redo what I believe caused it, last time, then it won't happen again if that makes sense.

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

In reply to a post by Taras:

How many Eeros have you got?

Three altogether; one wired to the router and two others which connect to the "master" eero over wifi

In reply to a post by Taras:

When did this first start happening ?

Also can you recreate the fault or is it random ?

So it has probably happened about 3 times over the last 4 months but the fault is definitely random; in that if that I were to redo what I believe caused it, last time, then it won't happen again if that makes sense.

three final questions, was the tplink router new at that time?

if the tplink router wasn't new at that time, did you add devices around that time?

Do you reboot the router often or just leave it as it? (not rebooting regularly is normally ok).


this is one of "it may take awhile to resolve" type things.

two routes to resolving

try a monthly reboot of the tplink router and see if that resolves it.

if the tplink router goes down again, use the eero master in router mode and plug into ont and see if the wireless side is ok straight away. That way you can diagnose it being probably the tplink router.

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

In reply to a post by Taras:

How many Eeros have you got?

Three altogether; one wired to the router and two others which connect to the "master" eero over wifi

In reply to a post by Taras:

When did this first start happening ?

Also can you recreate the fault or is it random ?

So it has probably happened about 3 times over the last 4 months but the fault is definitely random; in that if that I were to redo what I believe caused it, last time, then it won't happen again if that makes sense.

three final questions, was the tplink router new at that time?

if the tplink router wasn't new at that time, did you add devices around that time?

Do you reboot the router often or just leave it as it? (not rebooting regularly is normally ok).


this is one of "it may take awhile to resolve" type things.

two routes to resolving

try a monthly reboot of the tplink router and see if that resolves it.

if the tplink router goes down again, use the eero master in router mode and plug into ont and see if the wireless side is ok straight away. That way you can diagnose it being probably the tplink router.

Had the router for at least 2 years I think and no devices have been added for months. The router is only rebooted when it indicates there is a problem otherwise it is not touched 24/7.

I am happy to concede that it may well be the router and, working in software development, I am all too aware of the PITA that are "intermittent non-reproducable issues"

If anyone has any suggestions for a better/more robust router [ doesn't even need to be a wifi one though that pretty much comes as standard these days ] for less than £100 then I am all ears.

In reply to a post by haydnwalker:

You don't state WHICH TP-Link router you are using, but my TP-Link Archer AX3000 seems to cope with a situation similar to yours (minus the eero - I'm using a TP-Link OneMesh extender), including the LAN hosted plex server.

Trying to workout the difference between AX1800, this AX3000 and this AX3000(?) in terms of whether the, up to, £20 extra is worth it ?

EDIT: Plumped for the last one of those - if it is no good then it can always go back and it looks to be fairly future proof

Edited by AdamBrunt (Wed 24-Jan-24 17:55:09)

It may be worth watching for some sales, as wifi 7 is about to hit the shelves and that will cause existing product stacks to be shifted downwards. Also its a balance of spending time diagnosing it and just replacing the router.

Given the age and also the intermittent nature of the fault, returning the unit is a no no.

I have the 2nd one of the ones you posted. Only difference between 2 and 3 is that 3 is the updated model which has 2.5gig WAN port (wish I'd have got that one!)

Its been good. Ensure you update to the latest firmware. I have mine set to reboot every sunday at like 0300hrs just to clear RAM and its rock solid.

Have you considered using the Eero itself as the router? I use the Eero 6+ as a router and it is fine (not as many bells and whistles as some but it is just working). If it is just the number of ports then you could get a gigabit switch for less than £20

In reply to a post by ian72:

Have you considered using the Eero itself as the router? I use the Eero 6+ as a router and it is fine (not as many bells and whistles as some but it is just working). If it is just the number of ports then you could get a gigabit switch for less than £20

It had definitely crossed my mind - and would certainly have the more "wife pleasing" and bank balance appeal.

I have slight reservations though, as I used to run one of the (current) switches off the LAN port on one of the satellite Eeros and it would occasionally get quite warm to the touch. Do you have similar issues with your setup ? Or do you only have it connected to the ONT ?

I'd be updating the Eero to handle all the 30+ connections to the internet, rather than just the current 4/5 WiFi devices it is currently handling

Edited by AdamBrunt (Thu 25-Jan-24 10:34:34)

I have an Eero connected to the ONT. On the other port of the Eero is a fairly old Netgear 8port 1Gb switch which services the "media" devices (TV, Sky box, etc). There are then 2 Eeros about the house that are used in mesh mode that allow the other devices in the house to connect to wifi (wifi is good enough in this to support the needs of the house, if I was on my own I might consider running LAN but I just can't justify it to the wife when wifi does what we need with the mesh network providing the coverage).

I haven't noticed any issues with the Eeros or the switch. The Eeros don't have anything particularly advanced in the way of management and I plan to drop the subscription this year (tried it for a year but it just doesn't provide enough advantage to keep paying for it - ad blocking was the feature that looked good but there are a growing number of sites that now just stop access if you are blocking ads so I gave up on it).

Planning on changing providers soon at which point I will need to decide whether to keep the Eero as the main router or to move it back to pure wifi mode and let the ISP router take the core network services - just depends on whether or not I like the ISP router.

Would need to check which Eero models I have - but I am currently not paying any sort of subscription charge for them.

I would need to check out the documentation for them to see what functionality I would lose. Though, to be fair, the only real "extra" thing I do on the current router is point it's DNS lookup to a Raspberry Pi (on the LAN) which is running Pi-hole [ takes care of all the add blocking ]. My current setup also renders the router's parental controls as most of the stuff I'd want to control is some Wifi devices which are all coming in via the Eero so the router can't pick up the devices - if that makes sense.

IME most ISP provided router's are either rubbish or totally locked down to prevent changes.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Have you considered using the Eero itself as the router? I use the Eero 6+ as a router and it is fine (not as many bells and whistles as some but it is just working). If it is just the number of ports then you could get a gigabit switch for less than £20

So I am trying to test using the Eero 6 as the router.

Slight problem is that PPPOE is not showing as an option under ISP settings !!??!!

https://support.eero.com/hc/en-us/articles/538259941...

In reply to a post by Taras:

https://support.eero.com/hc/en-us/articles/538259941...

Has already found that and followed it's instructions but the PPPOE option still doesn't appear

Bums!


Umm how did you aquire the eero? was it brought or part of an isp deal/pushed upon you/upgrade?


also is it on the latest firmware ? the eero needs to be on v6.61 (dec 2001 release) for pppoe support

Edited by Taras (Sat 27-Jan-24 10:54:45)

In reply to a post by Taras:

Bums!


Umm how did you aquire the eero? was it brought or part of an isp deal/pushed upon you/upgrade?


also is it on the latest firmware ? the eero needs to be on v6.61 (dec 2001 release) for pppoe support

They were bought as a triple back direct from Amazon about a year ago.

On the official Eero app they are identifying as "Eero Pro 6" and all running v7.1.1-16

It's very odd. And I am sure when I first set them up, PPPoE was definitely an option but I went straight for bridge mode.

I haven't resorted to a factory reset yet though ( not even sure that's an option )

Bridge Mode will kill the pppoe option.. Thanks for clarifying the origin... Its a bit like buying an android phone; same model but one via sim free and the other by 3 or o2 and you have two different phones and with different features. Hence why i asked, if you were wondering.

Edited by Taras (Sat 27-Jan-24 13:55:17)

In reply to a post by Taras:

Bridge Mode will kill the pppoe option.. Thanks for clarifying the origin... Its a bit like buying an android phone; same model but one via sim free and the other by 3 or o2 and you have two different phones and with different features. Hence why i asked, if you were wondering.

So ... it says take it out of bridge by selecting "automatic" ( and let it complete - whatever that means ) and then, when you go back in "PPPoE" should be an option at the bottom.

I am also 99% sure all the units are the same so it's not that either

the units should be identical .. its just that one will act as a router and others as slaves in the mesh.