One NZ short DHCP lease on Fibre along with WAN drops outs

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › One NZ short DHCP lease on Fibre along with WAN drops outs

nthucker

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#320174 14-Jul-2025 15:14

Anyone else got issues with frequent WAN drop outs on Fibre along with observed short DHCP leases from OneNZ (Christchurch)? I'm talking leases of 230 to 600 seconds. I'd expect a DHCP lease on fibre to be 4 hours up till a day.

I'm still using an old Vodafone UltraHub router that connects to a Huawei EchoLife HG8240H ONT.
The UltraHub is a bit of a POS but I can't fault it in this instance. It's event logs show
`Removing intercept reason: "wan_down"`
shortly before a lease renewal like
`Switching to bound; server 10.0.0.100 assigned ip [Public IP] (leasetime 599 T1 299 T2 524)`

thinking it could be my dodgey Ultrahub. I connected to the ONT directly with a linux PC and brough up the ethernet on the WAN port spoofing the ultrahub MAC address.
I set up a vlan dhcp client and got it to make DHCP requests successfully. And I saw the same short leases being issued.

I've "chatted" to at least 2 of the their supports (I really hate their chat support service, it takes forever). They say they log onto the ONT and can't see anything wrong. Eventually one tech guy copy and pasted a DHCP service definition to me and suggested why the leases would be shorter in times of high demand to remove stale clients. When I pointed out that fibre connections are normally pretty constant and don't churn much compare to WiFi, he then just says, that the short leases are normal for their service. He then proceeded to suggest I buy one of their Deco Modems. I can't see replacing the router/modem would be of any benefit when
1. I see the same behavior on multiple devices
2. The leases are issued by them
3. They couldn't actually pinpoint anything wrong with my router.
4. The router's WAN connection is stable 99% of the time ... except when the leases are expiring.

The Deco Modem's apparent draw card is the mesh wifi ... which does nothing to address WAN stability.

I'm assuming if they are dynamically shortening their leases to 240 seconds etc... then their network must be over saturated. What do you think?
It's like this at any time of day.

Any suggestions from anyone?

RunningMan

8965 posts

Uber Geek

#3393923 14-Jul-2025 15:33

10-20 mins is about right for a DHCP lease in this case. Your router should renew the lease at half the lease time though, so there shouldn't be a drop.

Sounds like.a router issue at your end. Check the log to see if it's attempting renewal at half lease time.

nztim

3829 posts

Uber Geek

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TEAMnetwork

Subscriber

#3393924 14-Jul-2025 15:35

We had this problem with VOIP phones & VPN Clients behind the old ultra hubs, as soon as we replaced them with Mikrotik routers the problem went away

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

nthucker

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3393928 14-Jul-2025 16:02

it attempts a lease renewal after the WAN goes down. Sometimes that happens sooner that the lease expiry.
@runningman 10-20 Minutes leases still seem quite short to me, but regardless, they're giving me leases that are 240 seconds etc... ( 6 minutes ). I'm also getting that when I request a lease via a linux laptop, not just the ultrahub

In some cases I get low data flow and byte check errors just before the wan goes down.

e.g. this right now.

07/14/2025 15:59:27 Rx Byte Check: 90006135 <> 89987568 WAN
07/14/2025 15:59:27 (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout) WAN
07/14/2025 15:58:27 Rx Byte Check: 89987568 <> 89959145 WAN
07/14/2025 15:58:26 (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout) WAN
07/14/2025 15:57:26 Rx Byte Check: 89959145 <> 89923475 WAN
07/14/2025 15:57:26 (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout) WAN
07/14/2025 15:56:46 wan (31717): Switching to bound; server 10.0.0.100 assigned ip <my publick IP> (leasetime 599 T1 299 T2 524) WAN
07/14/2025 15:56:46 wan (31717): Switching to renewing WAN
07/14/2025 15:56:26 Rx Byte Check: 89923475 <> 89907242 WAN
07/14/2025 15:56:26 (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout) WAN
07/14/2025 15:56:21 Removing intercept reason: "wan_down" WAN
07/14/2025 15:55:26 Rx Byte Check: 89907242 <> 89887675 WAN
07/14/2025 15:55:26 (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout) WAN

@nztim so you think it is a router issue if you had similar issues with the ultrahubs ?

RunningMan

8965 posts

Uber Geek

#3393929 14-Jul-2025 16:06

nthucker:[snip]

it attempts a lease renewal after the WAN goes down.

There's your problem. It needs to renew before expiry, not after.

nthucker

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3393934 14-Jul-2025 16:26

Isn't it attempting a lease renewal because the wan has done down though?

nztim

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#3393935 14-Jul-2025 16:34

I can 100% back the OP up on the experience he is having, unlike any other router I have seen, when the lease renews it drops all connections and gets an entire new lease

The lease time is obtained by the router from the RSP handover, when the expiry of the lease occurs (on any router except the ultra hub) it simply updates the lease time expiry

But the ultra-hub treats it as a whole new lease, and drops all connections in the process

The only place that ultrahub should be is in the e-waste bin

Nothing wrong with the RSP or their end, just that shitty upright box from the past days of Voda

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

nthucker

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3393936 14-Jul-2025 16:45

Router shopping it is then I guess. Thanks for your help @nztim and @runningman

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nztim

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#3393989 14-Jul-2025 22:38

nthucker:

Router shopping it is then I guess. Thanks for your help @nztim and @runningman

To be honest, most people wouldnt notice it if you are doing regular web browsing or streaming then there is sufficient buffer to handle the connection drop

It's only when using real time applications like Teams/VOIP or VPN that it gets noticed

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

nthucker

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3394286 15-Jul-2025 13:31

@nztim that's exactly where I'm seeing it. Drop outs during teams meetings. I also have the added complication of a Tailscale VPN into work which gives me headaches at the best of times, especially around IPV6. Also I've noticed One NZ's default DNS Server struggles with IPV6. I usually need to set DNS to google or quad 9 or something unless I use the TailScale DNS.
Today has been terrible for OneNZ drop outs with this issue plus what ever else is going on at OneNZ

e.g. I'm getting this sporadically through out the day

15.07.2025 11:28:39 wan Notice (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout)
15.07.2025 11:28:23 wan Notice wan (31717): Switching to bound; server 10.0.0.100 assigned ip <my ip> (leasetime 599 T1 299 T2 524)
15.07.2025 11:28:23 wan Notice wan (31717): Switching to renewing
15.07.2025 11:27:39 wan Notice Rx Byte Check: 173525098 <> 173440896
15.07.2025 11:27:39 wan Notice (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout)
15.07.2025 11:26:38 wan Notice Rx Byte Check: 173440896 <> 173342927
15.07.2025 11:26:38 wan Notice (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout)
15.07.2025 11:26:30 wan Info Removing intercept reason: "wan_down"
15.07.2025 11:25:38 wan Notice Rx Byte Check: 173342927 <> 173252100
15.07.2025 11:25:38 wan Notice (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout)
15.07.2025 11:24:38 wan Notice Rx Byte Check: 173252100 <> 173180974
15.07.2025 11:24:38 wan Notice (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout)
15.07.2025 11:23:38 wan Notice Rx Byte Check: 173180974 <> 173104290
15.07.2025 11:23:37 wan Notice (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout)
15.07.2025 11:23:24 wan Notice wan (31717): Switching to bound; server 10.0.0.100 assigned ip <my ip> (leasetime 599 T1 299 T2 524)
15.07.2025 11:23:24 wan Notice wan (31717): Switching to renewing
15.07.2025 11:22:37 wan Notice Rx Byte Check: 173104290 <> 173019440
15.07.2025 11:22:37 wan Notice (EWAN) runs L3_EWANMain.check(ETH,timeout)