ERL Lite 3 - Needs a Shutdown, Power Off and Power on weekly

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › ERL Lite 3 - Needs a Shutdown, Power Off and Power on weekly - Why?

alisam

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#277088 25-Sep-2020 07:56

The ERL Lite 3 (now v2.0.8, purchased May 2016) supports 2 powerline devices and 3 Grandstream GWN7610 AP's.

The 2 powerline devices are for an HDHomerun Connect and 1 AP (the other 2 are PoE and Mesh)

Most of my devices are on the AP's. At present there are 15.

About once a week I have determined that the ERL needs (not a reboot) a shutdown, remove power cable, wait, and then attach power cable.

I have done this for a couple of months now.

I came to this conclusion because I noticed (in particular) my NUC (BOXNUC7i5BNH) and FireTV's would feel very sluggish accessing the internet (5GHz) and it would drop to about 1.2 Mbps (when I am on a Spark 100/20 Plan).

Also, a 1 year old Dell 10th Generation Laptop, will lose internet connection every 2-3 days. The Dell is about 2 metres away from one of the AP's.

Today I tried and tried to get Wifi back on the Dell, and could not. My warranty expires on 29th this month (4 days away) and was tempted to ring Dell Support (PS I won't renew, because they want $275 for a year) but finally shutdown the ERL and then re-booted the AP's (I don't normally reboot the AP's).

My conclusion is the issue lies with the ERL.

The Dell is back up and running now.

PC: Dell Inspiron 16 5640 (Windows 11 Home), Dell Inspiron 7591 2n1 (Windows 11 Pro), HP ProBook 470G1 (Windows 10 Pro), Intel NUC7I5BNH (Zorin)
Net: Grandstream 1 x GWN7062 Router, 1 x GWN7665 Access Point
Storage: Synology DS216play NAS, 2 x 6TB
Media: 3 x Amazon FireTV. Echo, Dot, Spot
TV: 2 x Samsung H6400 55" LED TV, Panasonic TH-P50G10Z 50" Plasma TV
Mobile: Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
Wearable: Gear S3 Frontier

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#2574497 25-Sep-2020 21:27

Are you sure the USB stick isn’t starting to fail. As I recently had to replace it as it completely failed.

fe31nz

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#2574523 26-Sep-2020 00:42

Unlike some routers, EdgeRouters in my experience do not exhibit problems that go away by rebooting them, let alone having to do a full power cycle. Unless they have a hardware fault.

I have had two failure modes with my two ERLs. One is the USB stick - I had one of the first production ones with not-so-good USB sticks, and it went strange and I had to reflash it several times. Then I bought my second ERL and sent the first one back under warranty and it was replaced with one with a better USB stick. I have not had any USB troubles since then. However, if you do the wrong things with an ERL, for example have something that writes a log to the USB, you can kill its USB fairly quickly. Bad USBs can exhibit all kinds of strange behaviour. It is unlikely that you will have done that though as it normally needs fiddling around with a root login. The way people do it most often is to run tcpdump and send its output to the USB, instead of to a safe place on RAM drive such as /var/log.

The other failure has been the power packs. Both my ERLs have now had their power pack fail. When it happened, strange things happened with the ERL and on reboot, it would then power up (LEDs on), but would not boot properly. The failure of the power packs is gradual - as long as you do not reboot, you may not notice a problem until it becomes really bad. I replaced both power packs with decent units from Jaycar (not cheap) and they have been fine since. This is what I would suspect would be happening to your ERL. The time frame is right if you have been using it 24/7 since 2016. So look at the specifications on the bottom of the power pack and see if you have one that is the right voltage, the right plug and the same or better current output. If you have one or can borrow one (I had one on an old retired access point), swap it on to the ERL and see if the problem goes away.

Also, is the firmware 2.0.8, or 2.0.8 hotfix 1? If it does not have the hotfix, you should update to that.

alisam

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#2574533 26-Sep-2020 07:31

Now upgraded to 'v2.0.8-hotfix.1'

alisam

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#2574536 26-Sep-2020 07:58

Logged on to ERL via PuTTY (it's been a long time) and it says:

Linux EdgeRouter-Lite-3-Port 4.9.79-UBNT #1 SMP Thu Mar 5 16:46:00 UTC 2020 mips64
Boot image can be upgraded to version [ e102_003_eace7 ].
Run "add system boot-image" to upgrade boot image.

Should I do this?

Don't really understand Power Supply lingo, so emailed www.gowifi.co.nz to see if they can supply one. Model is GP-F120-100 but couldn't find one on their web site.

alisam

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#2574540 26-Sep-2020 08:29

fe31nz:

I have had two failure modes with my two ERLs. One is the USB stick - I had one of the first production ones with not-so-good USB sticks, and it went strange and I had to reflash it several times.

I have had a look around for replacing the SD Card, but they all seem complicated and/or requiring Linux.

Do you have any instructions you perhaps saved for future reference?

fe31nz

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#2574772 27-Sep-2020 01:27

alisam:

Logged on to ERL via PuTTY (it's been a long time) and it says:

Linux EdgeRouter-Lite-3-Port 4.9.79-UBNT #1 SMP Thu Mar 5 16:46:00 UTC 2020 mips64
Boot image can be upgraded to version [ e102_003_eace7 ].
Run "add system boot-image" to upgrade boot image.

Should I do this?

Don't really understand Power Supply lingo, so emailed www.gowifi.co.nz to see if they can supply one. Model is GP-F120-100 but couldn't find one on their web site.

Yes, you should upgrade the boot image. It is a more dangerous thing to upgrade though, so I would not do it until you are sure the power pack is OK.

If you get an official replacement power pack, you run the risk that it will be the same as the original one and die in 4-5 years again. I think it is better to get a good quality replacement. The specifications required for my two ERL power packs is ouptut of 12 volts DC, 1 amp. The plug into the ERL is centre positive. To make sure you get the right plug, the best way to buy one is to take the old power pack into Jaycar (or whoever you are buying from) and get them to check the plug is the same size and type. However, if you want to buy one online, it looks like Jaycar are still selling the last one I bought:

https://www.jaycar.co.nz/12v-dc-1-5a-slim-power-supply-7dc-plugs/p/MP3486

This is a "Powertech Plus MP-3486 12VDC 1.5 A Switchmode Regulated Plugpack" and I know it has the right plug to fit an ERL. It comes with several different plugs - the one to use is the one that is the same diameter and type as the original power pack's plug. Make sure to connect it to the cable the right way around so that the centre of the plug is the positive voltage. To do that, the + marked pin of the two pins on the plug assembly goes into the "+ Tip" hole in the socket on the cable.

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fe31nz

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#2574773 27-Sep-2020 01:40

alisam:

fe31nz:

I have had two failure modes with my two ERLs. One is the USB stick - I had one of the first production ones with not-so-good USB sticks, and it went strange and I had to reflash it several times.

I have had a look around for replacing the SD Card, but they all seem complicated and/or requiring Linux.

Do you have any instructions you perhaps saved for future reference?

Replacing the USB stick myself is something I have never done. I have only had to reflash it with it already in place. There are instructions out there that work, as I can remember reading them. But I would have been looking for Linux based instructions as I use Linux all the time. If you need to do this and have problems, please PM me and I would be happy for you to send me the replacement USB stick and do the install for you.

When choosing a replacement, you have to make sure it will physically fit. Only quite small USB sticks work, so you need to choose one that the Ubiquiti forums tell you is one that will work.

But my recollection is that you can just replace the USB stick and then follow the instructions for reflashing it. This works because the ERL has another much smaller flash device soldered onto the PCB where the boot loader lives. That boot loader code is enough to flash the USB stick even if the USB is completely empty. I did the reflashing using my Windows 7 (at the time) laptop, so that I could manually put the necessary IP address on the laptop's Ethernet port. The laptop had to run a basic TFTP server to provide the flash image file - there are several Windows programs that can do that.

michaelmurfy

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#2574847 27-Sep-2020 12:08

@alisam First backup your configuration. I have an image here: https://files.murfy.nz/ER-e100.v1.10.9.5166937.img.tar.gz

Extract that (using 7zip) and from there use Etcher (https://etcher.io) to flash this onto a USB stick. Do a firmware upgrade once your ERL is booted to the latest version, restore your configuration and done.

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alisam

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#2574849 27-Sep-2020 12:17

michaelmurfy:

@alisam First backup your configuration. I have an image here: https://files.murfy.nz/ER-e100.v1.10.9.5166937.img.tar.gz

Extract that (using 7zip) and from there use Etcher (https://etcher.io) to flash this onto a USB stick. Do a firmware upgrade once your ERL is booted to the latest version, restore your configuration and done.

Thank you.

I have started to research USB sticks, some posts on the EdgeMAX Community page are quite old and I wondered whether you may have a recommendation for a USB stick.

AKLWestie

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#2574859 27-Sep-2020 12:42

@alisam, this should work:

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/MEMKIC2016/Kingston-16GB-USB-DataTraveler-SE9-stylish-metal-c

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#2574881 27-Sep-2020 14:19

AKLWestie:
@alisam, this should work:

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/MEMKIC2016/Kingston-16GB-USB-DataTraveler-SE9-stylish-metal-c

Just a heads up I purchased exactly that one. It fits fine but I had to change the bootcmd in red boot as it kept on timing out finding the USB.

If you’re in Wellington I can help just message me.

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alisam

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#2576248 30-Sep-2020 06:11

I purchased this one from gowifi.co.nz. $20.70 including overnight courier (and it was delivered the next day).

Will see what happens and then move onto the USB stick.

alisam

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#2576249 30-Sep-2020 06:16

michaelmurfy:

@alisam First backup your configuration. I have an image here: https://files.murfy.nz/ER-e100.v1.10.9.5166937.img.tar.gz

Extract that (using 7zip) and from there use Etcher (https://etcher.io) to flash this onto a USB stick. Do a firmware upgrade once your ERL is booted to the latest version, restore your configuration and done.

I have downloaded the image.

Thank you

alisam

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#2577217 1-Oct-2020 13:25

michaelmurfy:

@alisam First backup your configuration. I have an image here: https://files.murfy.nz/ER-e100.v1.10.9.5166937.img.tar.gz

Extract that (using 7zip) and from there use Etcher (https://etcher.io) to flash this onto a USB stick. Do a firmware upgrade once your ERL is booted to the latest version, restore your configuration and done.

Ordered a

Kingston 16GB USB DataTraveler SE9 stylish metal casing Memory Stick DTSE9H/16GB

from PBTech (as it was the only recommendation in this topic)

Does it need to be specially formatted?

PS I ordered the USB Stick because yesterday my NUC went to 620Kbps (Wireless, 5GHZ) according to Fast.com, even though I had only installed the new power supply a few hours earlier.

(perhaps I should have re-tested with the NUC hooked up to a powerline).

Rebooting the 3 AP's didn't help, so it was a shutdown of the ERL3.

If a new USB stick doesn't help, does it mean I should be looking for a new router e.g. EdgeRouter 4.

michaelmurfy

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#2577504 1-Oct-2020 21:41

@alisam The Edgerouter Lite is still very capable router. Have you got offloading set correctly on it? (look at my guide).

The Edgerouter 4 is a very good router and what I use personally here. If you want to upgrade then go for it, I won't hold you back :) It is vastly improved as it generates less heat, has an integrated power supply etc. Another router to look into is the Edgerouter 10x which I was very impressed with also.

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