Fibre Outages

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ronw

1222 posts

Uber Geek

#215305 21-Jun-2017 11:17

I have the odd fibre outages usually in the night I am guess that something is being done at the back end. I always have to reboot my router after these to get everything working again. The problems is with so many services using the Internet for alerting and other activities, also my phone is IP based If I am not in the house I cannot reboot the router and wondered if anyone has come up with an answer for this.

Ideally a box that has a cellular connection that can also cut power to a device momentarily might do trick but not of course if you have to press a button to reset router.

Amy thoughts

Nokia 7 Plus
Nexus 6P 32Gb
Nexus 6 Phone
Nexus 5 Phone
Nexus 7 2013 Tablet
Samsung TAB A 8"
Samsung TAB A 10"

& many Windows laptops, Desktops etc

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238 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1804544 21-Jun-2017 11:22

Hmmm, try using a wifi controlled power switch connected to a cellphone wifi hotspot?

I have the NZ version of this which works well for a troublesome raspberry pi.

jnimmo

1097 posts

Uber Geek

#1804546 21-Jun-2017 11:26

Can I suggest getting a different router?
For example, I've never had to reboot my Fritz!box to make it reconnect after an issue

ronw

1222 posts

Uber Geek

#1804563 21-Jun-2017 11:50

Unfortunately I cannot its supplied by Orcon (Netcomm NF4V) and I cannot really swap it out. I am surprised that you never have to manually reboot. I even have to reboot the ONT at times

Nokia 7 Plus
Nexus 6P 32Gb
Nexus 6 Phone
Nexus 5 Phone
Nexus 7 2013 Tablet
Samsung TAB A 8"
Samsung TAB A 10"

& many Windows laptops, Desktops etc

ronw

1222 posts

Uber Geek

#1804565 21-Jun-2017 11:54

What Wifi there is no wifi until I can reboot. It would require a cellular device that I could dial into which would mean using a sim card just for that purpose which would be pretty expensive if only used on odd occasions. Or are you thinking of something else?

Resnick:

Hmmm, try using a wifi controlled power switch connected to a cellphone wifi hotspot?

I have the NZ version of this which works well for a troublesome raspberry pi.

Nokia 7 Plus
Nexus 6P 32Gb
Nexus 6 Phone
Nexus 5 Phone
Nexus 7 2013 Tablet
Samsung TAB A 8"
Samsung TAB A 10"

& many Windows laptops, Desktops etc

nitrotech

1285 posts

Uber Geek

#1804569 21-Jun-2017 12:13

On 2 degrees we sometimes see these outages during their maintenance window in the early hours of the morning.

I guess it depends on the quality of your router as to whether it reconnects automatically.

Mikrotik does a great job of this and you can set watchdog too - this allows the router to auto-reboot if connection is lost for a set period of time - this to me is preferable to the 'cellular' connection which would incur ongoing fees.

richms

28198 posts

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#1804570 21-Jun-2017 12:17

Prepay is cheap - yearly topup to keep the sim alive or if you have a mobile hotspot or similar that you use, just alternate sims since they will usually stay alive for a year after the last topup.

GSM controled power strips are dirt cheap on aliexpress/ebay. And there are low voltage relay options too that you could just power off the existing wallwart if you dont want to get a mains device with a foregn plug on it.

Richard rich.ms

Behodar

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#1804580 21-Jun-2017 12:38

ronw: I am surprised that you never have to manually reboot. I even have to reboot the ONT at times

That doesn't sound right. I've had fibre for 2.5 years and I don't recall ever needing to reboot the ONT.

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jnimmo

1097 posts

Uber Geek

#1804585 21-Jun-2017 12:42

Looks like you're not the only one

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=82&topicid=206177

Check whether you can update firmware to the latest http://support.netcommwireless.com/product/nf4v#Firmware

And on BigPipe's blog you can see there is a Keepalive option in one of the screenshots - No idea whether this would fix the issue but seems worth a try

http://pages.bigpipe.co.nz/netcomm-nf4v-modem-router-setup-guide-adsl/

Depending what else you have running, you could use like a Wemo switch (or TP Link whatever other brands do them) - then use a Raspberry Pi or ESP8266 or something which could be on the Wifi and be pinging IPs, on event of a failure it could control the Wemo switch over Wifi and power cycle the devices. I'd use Home Assistant to do this (because I'm running Home Assistant anyway for other stuff)

Resnick

238 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1804586 21-Jun-2017 12:43

ronw:

What Wifi there is no wifi until I can reboot. It would require a cellular device that I could dial into which would mean using a sim card just for that purpose which would be pretty expensive if only used on odd occasions. Or are you thinking of something else?

Wifi hotspot via a cheap cellphone on prepay data plan.

robjg63

4100 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1804600 21-Jun-2017 13:04

How about a simple electric timer like this https://www.bunnings.co.nz/hpm-plug-in-digital-timer-7-day-white_p00108484

Aprox $15.

Have it switch on at (say) 6am and shut off again at 5.59am every day. ie reboot at 6am?

Ideally though the router should re-establish the connection by itself if the internet goes out and comes back on.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

richms

28198 posts

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#1804613 21-Jun-2017 13:19

If you're going to do the pi thing, the no need for a wemo or whatver, just hang a cheap relay board off a GPIO pin and intercept the low voltage feed to the router. Put it on the normaly closed pin of the relay so if the pi goes down the relay will be off and keep powering the router.

Richard rich.ms

ronw

1222 posts

Uber Geek

#1804664 21-Jun-2017 14:41

Firstly thanks to everyone who has offered help. Some of the options are probably beyond a simple chap like me. I have been considering something like this:

As the LAN around the house still works back to the router I wondered if I left a PC on and maybe using ITTT or just a scrip I could ping and outside site that should always be up.

Maybe every 10 minutes. If a reply comes back then all OK if no reply presume router may need a reboot and here it gets difficult. I am guessing I should be able to SFTP or Telnet into the router and should be able to find a command line to force a reboot.

If it works then all is OK if not then it must be something else in which case I should stop the script on the computer otherwise it would keep repeating. maybe switch to 30 minute wait and restart the script.

Something like that

Just checked yes I can telnet (once I turn it on) and use reboot command.

Is this something that I should explore and see if it works?

Nokia 7 Plus
Nexus 6P 32Gb
Nexus 6 Phone
Nexus 5 Phone
Nexus 7 2013 Tablet
Samsung TAB A 8"
Samsung TAB A 10"

& many Windows laptops, Desktops etc

deadlyllama

1264 posts

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Trusted

#1804668 21-Jun-2017 14:52

We used to have issues like this, with an ISP who gave out addresses via DHCP. The lease would still be valid but at some time early in the morning traffic would stop passing through. DHCP release/renew would bring things back.

PPPoE is "chattier" so it should notice the PPP session has died and try to reconnect.

timmmay

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#1804744 21-Jun-2017 16:28

I use 2degrees fiber, have for a couple of years. I don't recall having to ever reset the ONT or Fritzbox 7390, and definitely not in the past 6 months. I'd remember because it's a PITA to reach, in the top of a cupboard that needs a ladder to get to. It's on a small UPS.

Scott3

3980 posts

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#1804922 21-Jun-2017 22:42

Sounds like a router issue.

Try getting a new one from your ISP

I had some issues like this when I first got fibre, I think a firmware update sorted them.

[edit] - No need to stick with the ISP supplied router if you would prefer something else...

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