Odd LAN issue

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Jase2985

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#171107 6-Apr-2015 22:14

Hi Guys and girls

Ive got an odd LAN issue here at home.

On Saturday i brought a Netcomm NF8AC to replace my technicolour TG589VN modem. I have VDSL through Spark. i have a master filter and a dedicated jackpoint. Im on a 17a, 50/10 connection with DLM-1.

I connected the NF8AC to my laptop and set it all up before connecting it to my home network and the wall jack to minimize any need to restart it due to how VDSL is.

It all connected up fine and i have pretty much exactly the same sync as before. i have setup both the 2.4 (SSID home) and 5ghz (SSID Home-Fast) WiFi networks for use around the house by our mobile devices (2 laptops, 2 tablets and 2 phones), everything else is connected by Ethernet. Im using the old TG589vn as an access point and switch in our bedroom to give a bit more coverage at that end of house. its has the same SSID, password and channel as the 2.4ghz settings on the NF8AC. The devices roam with out much trouble around the house between the 2 access points.

here is a basic run down on the network, static IP's are anything less than .100
NF8AC IP .1
TG598 IP .2 (running as wifi access point, i have turned off DHCP, and assigned it a static IP)
.10-.19 Tv's and media players connected via ethernet
.20 Desktop PC connected via Ethernet
.21 Laptop 1 connected via WiFi
.103 Laptop 2 connected via WiFi
.104 Cell 1 connected via WiFi

There was no issues initially and all my devices could ping one another, but the following day i went to access some files on my desktop from laptop 1 and i couldn't, the laptop couldn't see the desktop and vise versa. No pings no nothing, either a destination unreachable or a time out message.

i tried on laptop 2, and also on cell 1 and got the same thing. Plugging laptop 1 into Ethernet straight into the NF8AC is fine it can ping away as normal.

This frustrated me a little so thankfully i had backed up the config of the router when i got it all working, and that seemed to fix the issue, but that was only temporary and now i cant access the desktop again.

I have touched nothing on the NF8AC and the only thing that has happened is both laptop 1 and cell 1 have roamed from the NF8AC to the TG589 and back to the NF8AC but this was done automatically by the devices. no other setting have been touched or even looked at.

does anyone know where to start looking for the issue? i dont want to have to keep restarting the NF8AC as its going to eventually affect my VDSL connection which i would rather avoid if possible.

any help or suggestions would be much appreciated and i can provide any screen shots or info as necessary

Jason

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#1277991 6-Apr-2015 22:16

Same thing I have had on the other netcomm and their support was pretty much useless.

Its like its mac address learning in its internal bridges is defective.

Richard rich.ms

Dynamic

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#1277995 6-Apr-2015 22:20

If you change the SSID on one of the devices and when you have the issue, try connecting to the other device to see if the issue exists, then connect back to the first device to see if the issue still exists?

When you can't access the files, can you still PING the desktop PC?

It's possible thjere is a firewall issue on the PC if you are using 3rd party firewall software. Some of these look at the MAC Address of the Default Gateway and set this as a ;trusted' zone, and when you are connected to a different default gateway (i.e. the new router) the PC puts itself in an untrusted zone and stops the file sharing.

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Jase2985

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#1278015 6-Apr-2015 22:36

Dynamic: If you change the SSID on one of the devices and when you have the issue, try connecting to the other device to see if the issue exists, then connect back to the first device to see if the issue still exists?

Laptop one uses SSID Home-Fast on the NF8C and Home on the TG589 it roams fine and the issue is still there when it uses the same SSID on both. Its still there on all the devices, its there on Laptop 2 which hasnt roamed and has been off the whole time which leads me to believe its an issue with the NF8AC.

Dynamic:
When you can't access the files, can you still PING the desktop PC?

No cannot ping get either destination unreachable or a time out message. That goes both ways from both devices, one on wired one on WiFi. Wired devices have no issues pinging other wired devices

Dynamic:
It's possible thjere is a firewall issue on the PC if you are using 3rd party firewall software. Some of these look at the MAC Address of the Default Gateway and set this as a ;trusted' zone, and when you are connected to a different default gateway (i.e. the new router) the PC puts itself in an untrusted zone and stops the file sharing.

But if i can connect the laptop via a ethernet cable i should still see the same thing shouldnt i? but i have tried turning off anti virus and firewall (windows) and it made no difference. and that doesnt explain why i cant ping the other devices connected via Ethernet, like the other access point which had no fire wall turned on.

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#1278017 6-Apr-2015 22:41

Jase2985:
does anyone know where to start looking for the issue? i dont want to have to keep restarting the NF8AC as its going to eventually affect my VDSL connection which i would rather avoid if possible.

Jason

Restarting your router will not affect your vdsl connection.

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richms

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#1278037 6-Apr-2015 22:45

cyberhub:
Jase2985:
does anyone know where to start looking for the issue? i dont want to have to keep restarting the NF8AC as its going to eventually affect my VDSL connection which i would rather avoid if possible.

Jason

Restarting your router will not affect your vdsl connection.

Yes it will. DLM tunes the line down after heaps of restarts and you have to get a port reset and hope your latency goes back to 1ms, it wont always go back to its tempting fate.

Turn off the wifi in the router, get a switch for all your wired connections and problems will be gone.

Or go around and around in circles with netcomm support.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1278047 6-Apr-2015 22:53

richms:

Turn off the wifi in the router, get a switch for all your wired connections and problems will be gone.

How does that help? where do my devices get there wifi from?

cyberhub:
Jase2985:
does anyone know where to start looking for the issue? i dont want to have to keep restarting the NF8AC as its going to eventually affect my VDSL connection which i would rather avoid if possible.

Jason

Restarting your router will not affect your vdsl connection.

thanks but no thanks, i don't think you fully understand how VDSL works with a comment like that.

richms

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#1278056 6-Apr-2015 23:05

Jase2985:
richms:
Turn off the wifi in the router, get a switch for all your wired connections and problems will be gone.

How does that help? where do my devices get there wifi from?

From a seperate wifi accesspoint that has working mac address learning which netcomm seem to have trouble with.

The netcomms are stuffed. There is nothing in your config that is at fault. Its a shame because the vdsl and routing side of them is rock solid, its just they cannot handle a mac address moving from a wired to wireless or in one case even between ethernet ports.

Richard rich.ms

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Jase2985

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#1278059 6-Apr-2015 23:15

richms: From a seperate wifi accesspoint that has working mac address learning which netcomm seem to have trouble with.

.

reason i brought it is the thomposn was having issues with its wifi (super high pings) and i dont have a tonne of money to spend on an ASUS. I also wanted the ability to go to UFB when it comes, and dual band wifi with AC

richms

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#1278060 6-Apr-2015 23:18

Well log faults with netcomm till they admit that they cant solve the problem for you.

Put fing or similar on your phones to scan the LAN and show half the hosts inaccessable and screenshot it. They just went silent with me when I emailed them all the details for the first one I had one on. Same problem at 3 houses with the N verson of it.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1278157 7-Apr-2015 09:13

So this is using Fing on my phone, cell 1, and it was connected to the WiFi on the tg589 which is in our bedroom, as you can see it can see it can see a heap of devices, both wifi devices and all the wired devices

walked back up the hall to the living room and tried again and i can see less than half the devices

Laptop 2 was connected to the NF8AC and was able to ping the desktop PC, walked up and it roamed to the TG589 and was unable to ping the desktop pc, walked back and it connected back to the NF8AC but was unable to ping the desktop

I did the same test with cell 1 connected to the NF8AC and was able to ping the desktop PC, walked up and it roamed to the TG589 and was unable to ping the desktop pc, walked back and it connected back to the NF8AC and was able to ping it again.

so the cell can roam then come back and work but the laptop cant.

sbiddle

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#1278164 7-Apr-2015 09:21

WAN/LAN ICMP traffic was blocked on the NF4V and it sounds like it is on the NF8AC as well. There are a number of threads on here discussing the NF4V that talk about this.

You also shouldn't be using the same channel for your 2nd AP. This should be on a different channel.

Jase2985

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#1278169 7-Apr-2015 09:28

sbiddle: WAN/LAN ICMP traffic was blocked on the NF4V and it sounds like it is on the NF8AC as well. There are a number of threads on here discussing the NF4V that talk about this.

You also shouldn't be using the same channel for your 2nd AP. This should be on a different channel.

Was there ever a solution to the above issue? its a little frustrating at the moment as there should be no reason why i cant roam and still have full accessibility of my network

The channel isnt going to change whats happening though? its just going to uncongest the spectrum and potentially offer better speed, the thing is there is 4-5 access points on channel 6 when walking around the entire property, there are 4-5 on channel 11, and there are my 2 + one other with about -95dBm on channel 1, hence using channel 1 for both.

webwat

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#1279703 9-Apr-2015 15:06

Yup, different channel reduces congestion.

Can you set each access point to allocate a separate range of IP addresses? See if that makes any difference.

Time to find a new industry!

richms

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#1279714 9-Apr-2015 15:17

Accesspoints dont allocate IP addresses. If you have multiple DHCP servers running on a home network then you will have problems.

The problem is that you lose connectivity at layer 2, the frames destined to a device are just being dropped by the bridge in the netcomm, they are not passing over to the other interface. I didnt bother to go deep enough into looking at it to see if the broadcast stuff is still making it thru or not, I am guessing not since things were not showing in the arp tables correctly on the PCs I was testing it with. Would do at one end and not the other.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1279743 9-Apr-2015 15:31

webwat: Yup, different channel reduces congestion.

Can you set each access point to allocate a separate range of IP addresses? See if that makes any difference.

so 2 different DHCP scopes? one on each wifi device? what happens with a device that has a static IP address?

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