Quic on Unifi UCG Ultra - frequent WAN dropouts

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Gouda

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#322754 19-Sep-2025 12:31

Hi all,

Yesterday my Quic connection went live, and I got a Unifi UCG Ultra to go with it. Getting it up and running was pretty simple (using DHCP/VLAN 10) but I've been plagued with constant dropouts since. I've done some Googling and performed some troubleshooting such as changing changing the default WAN port from 2.5Gb to 1Gb, changing the default WAN port to a different one all together, using Cloudflare/Google for DNS, etc etc. The dropouts can happen once every hour or so, or 4-5 times an hour, and last anywhere from a few seconds, 5 minutes, and there was even one early this morning around 4am that lasted for 40 minutes.

I did contact Ubiquiti support earlier and this what the agent had to say after reviewing my logs:

From the logs we can see that your WAN lease is being renewed frequently by the ISP, which is causing brief drops as the lease is lost and then re-acquired. For example:

2025-09-19T05:46:44 udhcpc: lease lost, entering init state (interface:eth3.10)
2025-09-19T05:46:47 udhcpc: received offer of **MY IP** (interface:eth3.10)
2025-09-19T05:46:51 udhcpc: received ACK: lease of **MY IP** obtained from 103.243.102.32, lease time 1200
This confirms the WAN is dropping due to the ISP forcing short DHCP renewals (1200 seconds = 20 minutes).

Is there any extra setup needed for Unifi gateways? The next thing I was going to try is plugging into the other port on my ONT (since my old ISP is still live for a few more weeks) and seeing if that is stable when I get home from work later tonight.

Thanks!

3l3m3nt

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#3416347 19-Sep-2025 13:16

I wonder if it's afflicted with the same bug as some of the other unifi gear when it comes to /32 subnets.

See: https://www.quic.nz/support/

Section: "I have an ubiquiti edgerouter using dhcp for authentication"

Otherwise, give PPPoE a whirl and see if your issues resolve?

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michaelmurfy

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#3416350 19-Sep-2025 13:28

I think use PPPoE if you're on Gigabit or less. You'll need to wait 22mins.

Others are using UniFi gear no problems. Out of interest, where are you based?

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Gouda

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#3416354 19-Sep-2025 13:39

I think use PPPoE if you're on Gigabit or less. You'll need to wait 22mins.

Others are using UniFi gear no problems. Out of interest, where are you based?

Admittedly I didn't think of trying PPPoE, so I'll give that a go when I get home. So the process is disconnect the UCG from the ONT, change from DHCP to PPPoE, then plug the UCG back in after 22 minutes?

I'm in the Waikato so on TFF.

michaelmurfy

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#3416355 19-Sep-2025 13:43

Yep before PPPoE will connect the DHCP lease needs to time out so 22mins then you should be back :)

boosacnoodle

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#3416444 19-Sep-2025 18:35

What’s the actual issue here? Surely using PPPoE is just a workaround.

Gouda

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#3416447 19-Sep-2025 18:57

I gave PPPoE a go but I can't even get it to connect. Waited a bit longer for the lease to expire (30 minutes) before reconnecting and disabled DHCP on my Quic account as well, double checked I had the username/password filled, but no dice.

I've set it back to DHCP so I am at least back online. I'll try and track down a different gateway this weekend for further testing. Wonder if I just got a bad unit.

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MaxineN

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#3416449 19-Sep-2025 19:09

Gouda:

I gave PPPoE a go but I can't even get it to connect. Waited a bit longer for the lease to expire (30 minutes) before reconnecting and disabled DHCP on my Quic account as well, double checked I had the username/password filled, but no dice.

I've set it back to DHCP so I am at least back online. I'll try and track down a different gateway this weekend for further testing. Wonder if I just got a bad unit.

If you can, you can use a laptop or a desktop and just make a PPPoE dialer on the interface (may have to set VLAN depending on your configuration).

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fe31nz

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#3416517 19-Sep-2025 22:56

Just a general comment here about how DHCP should work. It is normal to renew a DHCP lease about half way through its lease time, so that it will not expire even if there are problems with renewals. Any renewal done before the expiry time of the previous lease should not cause any disruption of traffic, as there is always a valid lease in place.

MaxineN

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#3416526 20-Sep-2025 06:11

fe31nz:

Just a general comment here about how DHCP should work. It is normal to renew a DHCP lease about half way through its lease time, so that it will not expire even if there are problems with renewals. Any renewal done before the expiry time of the previous lease should not cause any disruption of traffic, as there is always a valid lease in place.

Keyword should but that's not what is happening here as OP is complaining about disruptions to service so no DHCP renewal is being received by the CPE.

Also Vetta's DHCP leave time is not short... So unsure why in the opening post the ubiquiti engineer made that comment.

2degrees and One NZ have very short lease times, Mercury is also pretty short too.

Part of me thinks this is an issue on the ONT side and beyond, but we really need another CPE to rule out the UCG Ultra and I myself am curious on how it would behave with a PPPoE setup, because it's a tunnel... It's up or not.

I also wonder if in the Quic portal the ONT is reporting correctly in a line test when the issue is occurring.

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fearandloathing

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#3416535 20-Sep-2025 08:10

I have a udm-pro connected without issue using ppoe. I had an issue at one point the advice offered to me by Quic was switch off, udm-pro and ont for twenty minutes then switch them both on again. This fixed any issues for me.

AKLWestie

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#3416626 20-Sep-2025 11:15

@Gouda, I do not have any unifi gear so this may be a long shot.

Assuming you are still using DHCP.

On your router, if you can update firewall rules, try allowing UDP (not TCP) traffic that is coming from port 67 (i.e. source port) to port 68 (i.e. destination port).

If you want to lock down it a bit more, only allow those traffic from 103.243.102.32 and 103.243.102.38. Those are the BNGs + DHCP servers used by quic in Auckland. From your screenshot, I can see it is connecting to one of them.

Then save the setting. Reboot your UCG.

Then, turn off both the router, and ONT for 22+ minutes.

Then, turn on your ONT, wait for 5 minutes for it to be ready, then your UCG.

Let us know how it goes.

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waikariboy

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#3416631 20-Sep-2025 11:28

was looking at moving to Quic when contact runs out. Will monitor this cause i use Unifi UGC Max.

Balm its gone!

michaelmurfy

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#3416633 20-Sep-2025 11:40

A number of people do. I’m wondering if this is a potential fault.

@Gouda you in the Quic discord? It’s worth opening a troubleshooting thread there too.

Gouda

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#3416636 20-Sep-2025 12:05

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I dug out an old Netcomm NF8AC (which I completely forgot I had) this morning and have gotten that connected with PPPoE. DHCP is disabled on Quic. WAN uptime is 3+ hours so far, no drops.

@michaelmurfy I am in the Discord, will have a look in there if I make no progress. But I don't believe it's a fault with Quic, I'm certain it's between chair and keyboard :) I was a bit tired when I was troubleshooting last night so I may have missed something simple, like maybe not turning the ONT off long enough or something like that.

I'm going to keep the NF8AC up until tomorrow to see if it remains stable then try again with PPPoE on the UCG.

Gouda

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#3417865 23-Sep-2025 13:18

An update: I made a troubleshooting thread on the Quic Discord and got a lot of helpful advice. Last night I had another go. The UCG is connected with PPPoE now, and has been solid for the last 12+ hours so I'd say the issue is resolved.

Another user who also is using a UCG with PPPoE mentioned they waited an hour after the DHCP lease expired, so I turned DHCP off, waited 30 minutes, plugged the UCG in with PPPoE enabled, then just messed around on my phone for about an hour. And it connected!