Hi, has anyone witnessed Route10 drop connections intermittently? The internet will drop once or twice a day and return after a minute or two. I tried to connect to the Alta dashboard, but it shows no connection. I just wanted to ask if anyone has witnessed this happening to them or has any advice on what to look for.
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I’m not sure if this is the fix, but I saw LAN 3 was offline. The port is being used to connect to a switch (Netgear), but I don’t see any activity (lights flashing or being alive on the dashboard). I clicked on LAN 3, selected Mode = Standard, and hit Reset. This looks like it fixed the issue. I’m not sure what caused the LAN 3 to go down.
What was it set to before you changed it? That is an odd case and not expected as by default it would be set to Standard. Please do let us know if it reoccurs, or if the disconnects still persist.
There are logs we can check on the device, either from web management (as long as it’s online at the time), or by connecting via SSH. To use SSH you need to install an SSH key in Control. We have a guide on that HERE if that would be helpful. The logs are /var/log/messages, and the file rotates (so can be .0 or .1). That’s some general info for now..
Do you know for certain that it’s the internet which is dropping? Or could it be the LAN side that’s dropping? How are you testing to verify this?
Hi Mike, I never changed the setting; it’s always set to Standard. It’s the LAN side that’s dropping. Things connected to Wi-Fi still work (they have an internet connection). I’ll try to set up SSH and respond if it happens again.
Hmm, sounds like it’s a little more specific. If Wi-Fi devices are working, and they’re running off the same Netgear switch connected to LAN3, then it’s (probably) not LAN specific. However if the APs are say wired direct to the Route10, and the problem devices are wired to the switch on LAN3, that gives a more specific focus.
If/when it happens again, I’d suggest starting with ping just to verify connectivity, directly to the gateway, and then to the internet twice, once by IP, next by name. So an example from a wired computer, assuming default Route10 IP.
ping 192.168.1.1
ping 1.1.1.1
ping google.com
Run 1 at a time, if getting replies, ctrl+c to cancel, move to the next. If you wanted to run a similar test from the Route10 itself, you would skip pinging itself. This is where the SSH keys would be needed, so you connect to it via ssh then run the second 2 ping commands.
ping 1.1.1.1
ping google.com
Ping is the simplest form of health check, and if we can narrow down what part of it is failing, that will ultimately tell us more.
Obviously, if it magically disappeared that would be nice, but I’m not expecting that. Please let me know when it happens again, and if you’re able to check those various pings. Ideally we’ll be peeling this back layer by layer to get to the source of the issue, this is just the start.
I did what you mentioned; I can ping Route10 (10.10.0.1), but cannot ping google.com. I have 2 AP, AP1 connected directly to Route10 and another AP2 on the switch (Netgear). AP2 stopped and connected to mesh config; while, Switch1 didn’t.
What about ping 1.1.1.1? That was a very important one to include. If it’s ongoing, please check, if it’s not, please do taht next time, too.
Sounds like it’s the link to switch 2 (in a quick glance), but were you pinging the Route10 from a computer wired to that switch?
I’ll give 1.1.1.1 a try next time. Yes, my computer is wired to the switch.
The reason to try 1.1.1.1 is because it removes the DNS variable. If your computer is wired to the switch and you can ping the router by IP, then that means IP connectivity is still present up to the Route10. So that is interesting. It’s still possible it could be link flapping. Still curious if 1.1.1.1 works, but google.com fails.
There are logs on Route10. It should log in your local time (other devices are in UTC). I’d suggest checking that next time, too. This will need an SSH key added, or for you to be able to access manage.alta.inc from a computer. Presumably when checking the issue will have just occurred so there are 2 ways to do this. Well, first, note the time. Then you can either check the logs from shell or web terminal, or you can transfer the current log file.
To check logs from shell or web terminal you would connect via shell and issue: cat /var/log/messages, then go to around the time when you observed the issue. Copy + paste those log lines, and send them to me via DM for review (please and thank you). Web terminal is access by going to manage.alta.inc from a computer, going to Network, holding shift and clicking on the (text) name of the Route10 (which will open a web terminal). Direct shell access is ssh root@10.10.0.1 from Terminal.
Alternatively you can also copy via scp, and either review in your preferred text editor. It’s natively supported on Linux/macOS, and you could do scp root@10.10.0.1:/var/log/messages ~/Downloads to download the messages file to your Downloads directory. If you’re on Windows you can install WSL2 which will give you the same functionality from Terminal, or you can use WinSCP if you prefer a drag and drop GUI (WinSCP is free for personal use at least).
Thank you for the write up. I did setup SSH to Route10 and everything is working. Once this happens again, I’ll do what you mentioned and send the logs over to you.
No problem at all! This will help a lot to narrow it down further. I’ll send you a DM with my email in case that’s easier for sharing logs than messaging here on the forum.