ADSL Router Stops accepting new internet connections

B

BluStorm

New member
Hi All,

Pretty much every day now, we have a situation where my computers/phones/tablets in the house stop being able to connect to the internet. Yet some machine that are already connected, continue to work.

As an example, my son will be playing DOTA, and be using TS. I'll be playing WoW, and my wife will come in and complain that she can't login to WoW or browse. I, whilst happily running around in WoW, will not be able to browse the internet.

This is "easily" solved by bouncing the router, but there are times where I can't just restart the router (eg my son is in the middle of a DOTA match etc), so I'm wondering if there is a better solution to this. Also if anyone know why it happens, and possibly how to prevent it, it would be appreciated.

With regards to the router, I've had several ADSL/VDSL routers, and it seems to happen regardless of the router.

Currently using the MWeb Technicolor VDSL router.
Previously Billion ADSL 2+ Router, and Netgear N300 router also displayed the same issues.
 
BluStorm said:
Hi All,

Pretty much every day now, we have a situation where my computers/phones/tablets in the house stop being able to connect to the internet. Yet some machine that are already connected, continue to work.

As an example, my son will be playing DOTA, and be using TS. I'll be playing WoW, and my wife will come in and complain that she can't login to WoW or browse. I, whilst happily running around in WoW, will not be able to browse the internet.

This is "easily" solved by bouncing the router, but there are times where I can't just restart the router (eg my son is in the middle of a DOTA match etc), so I'm wondering if there is a better solution to this. Also if anyone know why it happens, and possibly how to prevent it, it would be appreciated.

With regards to the router, I've had several ADSL/VDSL routers, and it seems to happen regardless of the router.

Currently using the MWeb Technicolor VDSL router.
Previously Billion ADSL 2+ Router, and Netgear N300 router also displayed the same issues.
Click to expand...

Hi BluStorm, it sounds like it could possibly be something like an IP conflict. Are you sure all your devices have different IPs?

Make sure to double check every single device on your network. Also make sure that if you're using DHCP that any devices with static IPs do not have IPs in the address range specified on in your DHCP pool.

It's unlikely that it would assign an IP that's already on your network, but sometimes it does happen. Also make sure that you don't have any devices other than your main router giving out DHCP on your network.

When these devices stop working, are they still on the correct IP subnet? And have you tried rebooting the particular device instead of the router? If so, what is the outcome?
 
All 3x PCs, 3x Laptops, 1x Media Player, 1x DSTv Explora, 5x phones, 1x Tablet are all using DHCP. The only devices that aren't using DHCP, are my 2x Wireless routers (former ADSL WiFi Routers with DHCP disabled) I have in the cottage and end of the house. The Wireless routers are on a COMPLETELY different subnet, so much so that you cannot connect to the router itself, unless you have manually entered your IP to be part of the wireless router's subnet.

Haven't tried it recently, but we did establish that restarting the ADSL router was the "only" way to reconnect the network to the internet.

Someone mentioned a possibility that the router was running out of ports, but I have no idea how one would check, or how to set an IP connection TTL on router connections.
 
BluStorm said:
All 3x PCs, 3x Laptops, 1x Media Player, 1x DSTv Explora, 5x phones, 1x Tablet are all using DHCP. The only devices that aren't using DHCP, are my 2x Wireless routers (former ADSL WiFi Routers with DHCP disabled) I have in the cottage and end of the house. The Wireless routers are on a COMPLETELY different subnet, so much so that you cannot connect to the router itself, unless you have manually entered your IP to be part of the wireless router's subnet.

Haven't tried it recently, but we did establish that restarting the ADSL router was the "only" way to reconnect the network to the internet.

Someone mentioned a possibility that the router was running out of ports, but I have no idea how one would check, or how to set an IP connection TTL on router connections.
Click to expand...

My initial thought was that it sounded like some kind of a Router OS firmware problem, NAT table corruption or some kind of TCP session limit being reached, but then you said that it's been happening with all all the routers you use?

And also, a standard SOHO routers such as ADSL modems and VDSL routers should be able to handle much, much more than 15+ devices and their connections.

Judging by what you're telling me, it could even be some sort of ARP table corruption.

Two quick questions:

#1- When the specific device loses internet connectivity, can you still ping your gateway IP?

#2- Make 100% sure that DHCP is disabled on your wireless routers/APs. The only device which should have DHCP enabled and serving is on your VDSL router. What can possibly happen here is that one of the devices' DHCP lease expires, sends a register probe packet and then gets a response first from one of the other devices, on a different subnet. See where I'm going with this?
 
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I have this exact same issue. I use a desktop computer for regular ADSL (it's plugged in etc.) and a laptop on wireless. At some point, I'll just be completely unable to browse any sites on either PC, but will still be logged into Steam for some reason on the desktop. I have to restart the router whenever this happens >:|
 
#1 - I can still connect to the Router, and bounce through the console.
#2 - I'll triple check tonight, but when I turn off the router, and reconnect a device, it does get an automatic private IP (169.x.x.x), which tends to indicate that the wireless APs are not serving DHCP.
 
Which devices are dropping - wifi or cabled ?

personally I don't like using old routers as wifi ap's as they still have the basic routing functions which are not really working now since you don't use them. Could just be routing tables getting confused.
 
Nimatek said:
Which devices are dropping - wifi or cabled ?

personally I don't like using old routers as wifi ap's as they still have the basic routing functions which are not really working now since you don't use them. Could just be routing tables getting confused.
Click to expand...

Yeah dude- must be a routing table issue if it's not the ARP table getting messed up. If you can still ping the gateway when the internet connectivity drops, then it's most likely a layer problem.

[MENTION=8936]BluStorm[/MENTION] Have you considered the problem being with the wireless access points? If it's only the wireless connections dropping, like asked above, then that could be the issue.
 
Both WiFi and Cabled.

Never really had an issue, but in the past few months it's gone from being a nuisance, to positively annoying.

I'll look at investing in some proper APs, when I have some money available.

Maybe as a first step, I'll change the static IPs of the APs to be in the same subnet as my ADSL router. Just liked that unless you knew the IP of the AP, you couldn't connect and allow access to new wireless devices.
 
BluStorm said:
Both WiFi and Cabled.

Never really had an issue, but in the past few months it's gone from being a nuisance, to positively annoying.

I'll look at investing in some proper APs, when I have some money available.

Maybe as a first step, I'll change the static IPs of the APs to be in the same subnet as my ADSL router. Just liked that unless you knew the IP of the AP, you couldn't connect and allow access to new wireless devices.
Click to expand...

Howzit man, good idea. Maybe give static IPs to all your devices.

And then, for instance, for easier management make it something like:

Gateway - 192.168.0.254
AP 1- 192.168.0.253
AP 2 - 192.168.0 252

etc.
 
Will look at that. Not too familiar with the Technicolor LAN config (miss my Netgear's one).

Out of interest, anyone have any recommendations on decent but reasonably priced APs?
 
BluStorm said:
#1 - I can still connect to the Router, and bounce through the console.
#2 - I'll triple check tonight, but when I turn off the router, and reconnect a device, it does get an automatic private IP (169.x.x.x), which tends to indicate that the wireless APs are not serving DHCP.
Click to expand...

when this happens can you try turning off these two devices

2x Wireless routers (former ADSL WiFi Routers with DHCP disabled)

then keep them off after the reboot and test to see if it happens again.. what are those devices doing ? just a pure hub at the moment ?
 
Nimatek said:
Look at Ubiquity Unifi series, you can buy them from Scoop Distributions. R900 odd but well worth it!
Click to expand...

Yip, try Scoop Distribution. Their prices are really good and they have a large variety of hardware.

Ubiquity is very good. Good quality hardware. Probably the best value for money you'll be able to get.
 
Nimatek said:
Look at Ubiquity Unifi series, you can buy them from Scoop Distributions. R900 odd but well worth it!
Click to expand...
Was looking at the long range one of those (on TakeALot), but I'm concerned that it's a 300Mbps router, but with only a 10/100Mbps ethernet port, it's not going to cope well with all the WiFi devices streaming off it. I'd also need to add the cost of getting a PoE switch.

Thadin said:
what are those devices doing ? just a pure hub at the moment ?
Click to expand...
The one in the cottage, is just a WiFi router. The one in the house also has my DSTv and Media player connected.
 
BluStorm said:
Was looking at the long range one of those (on TakeALot), but I'm concerned that it's a 300Mbps router, but with only a 10/100Mbps ethernet port, it's not going to cope well with all the WiFi devices streaming off it. I'd also need to add the cost of getting a PoE switch.


The one in the cottage, is just a WiFi router. The one in the house also has my DSTv and Media player connected.
Click to expand...

I still think you should test with both those routers off and see if the problem still arises. multiple routers on the same lan is never a good idea, rather look at a wifi extender and a switch to serve the same purpose.
 
Well, I changed the 2 WiFi router IPs to be on the same subnet as the ADSL router, and things are a lot better. I did not restart my ADSL router the whole weekend. I do suspect that my house WiFi router is giving issues though, as sometimes apps and games on the tablet and phones don't always work 100% over the WiFi.
 
BluStorm said:
Well, I changed the 2 WiFi router IPs to be on the same subnet as the ADSL router, and things are a lot better. I did not restart my ADSL router the whole weekend. I do suspect that my house WiFi router is giving issues though, as sometimes apps and games on the tablet and phones don't always work 100% over the WiFi.
Click to expand...

Good to hear. At least it will be easier to troubleshooting the AP issues now.
 
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