Netcomm NF4V dropping link?

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quickymart

13932 posts

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#151309 20-Aug-2014 22:21

I upgraded to VDSL a few months ago and had to purchase a new router in order to use it. I purchased a Netcomm NF4V. It's been working awesome for the last few months. Around a month ago (may be a coincidence, maybe not) I have noticed it loses all connectivity. At first I thought it was my laptop (connected wirelessly) so I rebooted the laptop, only to have the same issue after restarting. I tried another wireless device but nope, still nothing.
One morning it did it I tried my desktop (just to see if it was wireless affecting only) but got the same thing - shows as connected, wired or wireless, but no traffic and no connectivity. All lights on the router are normal.
Powercycling the router resolves it and I can browse the web and access my network again, but this is frustrating, to say the least.
Anyone got any ideas? Should I roll back to my previous firmware (is that even possible)?

This is my current router device information (is that VDSL profile correct as well?):

Device Info

Manufacturer:

NetComm Wireless

Product Class:

NF4V

Serial Number:

Build Timestamp:

201407071026

Software Version:

GURNV5.OT132A-8-NC.AU-R5B019.EN

Bootloader (CFE) Version:

1.0.38-114.170

DSL PHY and Driver Version:

A2pv6F039k.d25b

VDSL PROFILE:

17a

Wireless Driver Version:

6.30.163.23.cpe4.12L

Voice Service Version:

V2.4

Uptime:

0D 0H 40M 22S

Any help greatly appreciated...I'm tearing out (what little I have left of) my hair here.

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61 posts

Master Geek

#1112497 20-Aug-2014 23:01

Not sure what could be causing the lock ups. Your firmware version looks to be the latest from the web which I am running on mine right now without issue. The 17a profile you are on will make some ADSL2+ and lesser mortals on 8b profile VDSL envious.

NealMaxwell

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1112499 20-Aug-2014 23:10

Hi there

May I ask what ISP you are with?

I have exactly the same problem. We have 70+ branches using Netcomm NF4V modems on a mix of VDSL and ADSL lines. I currently have a case open with Netcomm and after several troubleshooting steps and packet captures, we are still no closer to solving the issue. We have been able to accurately determine when this issue arises at our various branches. Basically, as soon as the ISP has a maintenance outage/window which generally would happen overnight through the early hours of the morning, as soon as their infrastructure is back up and running, the modems are supposed to just re-establish their connections. This appears to be the case on the face of things and it looks like the modem has a public IP address assigned and a routes exist in the routing tables however from the modem you are unable to ping the default gateway from the ISP.

The only way to resolve the issue is to reboot the modem or disconnect the RJ11 line cable and reconnect it.

I'm interested to know what ISP you are with, because we are running these devices with two different ISP's and only seem to have the issue arising with one ISP and not the other. I'm not suggesting that this is a service provider issue, but it looks like there is some incompatibility between Netcomm and the ISP. The ISP we have this problem with is Vodafone, and I have been working closely with a Vodafone Engineer to try and solve this issue, and provide data to Netcomm support to try and pinpoint where the problem is. I believe it may be a case where the Netcomm is not communicating with the B-RAS equipment at the ISP properly, and they probably need to write a patch for this, however Netcomm have still not been able to determine what the problem is, and I don't have confidence at this stage that the problem will be resolved anytime soon.

I've now gotten to the point where I ping these branch devices on a daily basis to check which devices are down. It's interesting, because you can almost determine in what areas the ISP has been performing maintenance changes, because I will normally find that if one branch is down in a certain region of Auckland, all branches in that region will be down.

Sorry, I can't provide you a fix, but I can say that I have been dealing with this for quite some time now, and believe that Netcomm have an issue with this particular model that they are not able to pinpoint or they are not being fully transparent about. Both old and new firmware has the same result as well.

Regards

quickymart

13932 posts

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#1112500 20-Aug-2014 23:13

Sorry, forgot to add that part. I'm with Xtra.

NealMaxwell

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1112502 20-Aug-2014 23:17

That's interesting. I definitely think there is a problem with this model.

gregmcc

2147 posts

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Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1112541 21-Aug-2014 05:37

quickymart: I upgraded to VDSL a few months ago and had to purchase a new router in order to use it. I purchased a Netcomm NF4V. It's been working awesome for the last few months. Around a month ago (may be a coincidence, maybe not) I have noticed it loses all connectivity. At first I thought it was my laptop (connected wirelessly) so I rebooted the laptop, only to have the same issue after restarting. I tried another wireless device but nope, still nothing.
One morning it did it I tried my desktop (just to see if it was wireless affecting only) but got the same thing - shows as connected, wired or wireless, but no traffic and no connectivity. All lights on the router are normal.
Powercycling the router resolves it and I can browse the web and access my network again, but this is frustrating, to say the least.
Anyone got any ideas? Should I roll back to my previous firmware (is that even possible)?

This is my current router device information (is that VDSL profile correct as well?):

Device Info

Manufacturer: NetComm Wireless Product Class: NF4V Serial Number: Build Timestamp: 201407071026 Software Version: GURNV5.OT132A-8-NC.AU-R5B019.EN Bootloader (CFE) Version: 1.0.38-114.170 DSL PHY and Driver Version: A2pv6F039k.d25b VDSL PROFILE: 17a Wireless Driver Version: 6.30.163.23.cpe4.12L Voice Service Version: V2.4 Uptime: 0D 0H 40M 22S
Any help greatly appreciated...I'm tearing out (what little I have left of) my hair here.

I've had the same problem as well. I'm with vodafone and the fix was to use google DNS servers and it went away.

NealMaxwell

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1112603 21-Aug-2014 08:43

I Was also told to use google DNS when I first logged a case with Netcomm. Unfortunately this never resolved our issue.

quickymart

13932 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1122182 4-Sep-2014 21:53

Update - tried 8.8.8.8 as suggested above, worked for a bit but started again in the last few days.
As an example - tonight I was visiting the Stuff website, clicked a link to go to another page, nope, Firefox reports "The connection was reset". Yet 20 minutes later I refreshed the page and it loaded perfectly.
This was on a wired connection.

I've gone back to Xtra's DNS servers for the moment but darn if this isn't frustrating :( seems awfully flakey.

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dcole13

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1122192 4-Sep-2014 22:05

What is your SNR and Attenuation?

Home ADSL: School:

quickymart

13932 posts

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#1122196 4-Sep-2014 22:09

Er...how do I find that out? I posted some stats in the initial post (maybe not the right ones)?

dcole13

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1122202 4-Sep-2014 22:15

quickymart: Er...how do I find that out? I posted some stats in the initial post (maybe not the right ones)?

On the left side click on "Device Info", then "Statistics", then "xDSL". It should then say on there. Here is a picture:

Home ADSL: School:

quickymart

13932 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1122209 4-Sep-2014 22:23

Downstream

Upstream

Line Coding(Trellis):

SNR Margin (0.1 dB):

126

185

Attenuation (0.1 dB):

Output Power (0.1 dBm):

135

-158

Attainable Rate (Kbps):

46433

14584

Not sure if I mentioned it already or not but I have a master VDSL filter installed. I'm leaning towards it being something to do with the router...

quickymart

13932 posts

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ID Verified

#1122210 4-Sep-2014 22:23

Ack sorry that should be in a table - I pasted it and it looked that way but got all mucked up when I clicked post reply...sorry :(

dcole13

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1122216 4-Sep-2014 22:27

quickymart: Downstream Upstream Line Coding(Trellis): On On SNR Margin (0.1 dB): 126 185 Attenuation (0.1 dB): 88 0 Output Power (0.1 dBm): 135 -158 Attainable Rate (Kbps): 46433 14584
Not sure if I mentioned it already or not but I have a master VDSL filter installed. I'm leaning towards it being something to do with the router...

Looks normal to me, not sure if anyone else will see something wrong. Possibly contact Spark? Or ask someone from Spark on here, they are very helpful I imagine.

Home ADSL: School:

quickymart

13932 posts

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#1122744 5-Sep-2014 20:41

Another weird problem - I will lose connectivity to some websites, but not all. This happened just now. I clicked on a subforum to view here and "Firefox can't find the server..." Yet when I tried to load the Herald website, it loaded perfectly. I know it wasn't a problem with Geekzone, because I could get to it from my cellphone. And the Herald was working fine, so it wasn't a total connectivity loss.
But what would cause this router to not display some pages, yet some work just fine???

This was over wireless, using Xtra's DNS servers.

quickymart

13932 posts

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#1122749 5-Sep-2014 21:11

I've also noticed I lose connectivity to anything on my local network when this happens, sigh...

Right, fault logged with Netcomm. Let's see what they say (posting from Vodafone 3G - at least that works reliably!)

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