Netgear R6220 and microcell

Yes on the direct connect, no on testing voltage. Is the latter critical to being able to connect to the LAN?

I have spelunked the router logs. There is no evidence of the microcell's MAC address at all.

If the ac adapter starts to fail, which happens with the older model MicroCell's (the white ones), we have seen all kinds of odd things happen. There may be enough power to power on the MicroCell (hence the green power light) but not enough to power all of the other circuitry. The fact that your router doesn't see the MAC address of the MicroCell is the problem.

I'm still a little unclear on your hardware setup. Do you have a separate modem and router or do you have a gateway (combo). I know you can see the DHCP table on a router to see if a device is connected via the MAC address but are you able to access that as well on your modem?

If you had a working MicroCell before with other routers and you are just having this issue with the new one, I'd try a different router to rule out the MicroCell. I still say there is a setting or a "feature" on the new router that is interfering with the MicroCell's ability to communicate unhindered to AT&T.

@OttoPylot It sounded to me like @guyshomenet was able to direct-connect his Microcell to his modem, so I'm guessing seperate (also the comment on the logs).  It sounds like the unit fails to get a valid IP though, either via router, or direct-connect.

@guyshomenet That's interesting, no MAC evidence, or any IP was ever handed out to the Microcell either?

I was reading, and others had a similar LAN connection problem, on a firmware upgrade of the Microcell (obviously done background, a push), I think it was 1.4-L>1.51, but I'm not sure about those values.

I'd be trying to figure out, in your router history, if it EVER had an IP lease, if you can, and try to ping/trace it, to see if anything happens (trace in particular might be telling).

@pgrey - that's what I thought, he had a separate modem and router but when he mentioned connecting to the modem and then looking for the MAC address, I got confused a bit, unless there is a way to look at the tables in the modem. His modem needs to be in bridge so that it just connects the WAN to his LAN without any interference.

As far as MicroCell updates and version numbers, those are very difficult to get accurate reports on. AT&T is very tight-lipped about what the firmware pushes are for and version numbers. There is no way for the end-user to determine what version of firmware they are on without some very sophisticated snooping and even if you can find the version number, Support won't have a clue as to what is current and what the push did. I believe the most recent pushes were for corrections when handing off to, or from, an LTE connection because of recent network upgrades for VoLTE because of WiFi-C (WiFi Calling). Most often firmware pushes are regional or area when network upgrades are performed. There are no pushes to individual MicroCells. Besides, when the MicroCell is reset, one of the jobs it performs is to look for any new updates and if there are any it downloads them. This is especially true when one performs a hard reset.

I would start all over again and systematically troubleshoot. First off, check the ac adapter to see that it is delivering the proper voltage. Second, confirm that the router or gateway is meeting ALL of the router requirements as given in the setup instructions and in my Tech Guide. That is most critical. It all is well, connect evetything and power up. Find the MAC address for the MicroCell (it should be on the box or on a small sticker on the underside if memory serves me correctly). If the ethernet light is a solid green on the MicroCell, look at the DHCP table and see if you can find it.

The assumption is that the OP's MicroCell is still in the same location that it was before and he's not using any switches or PowerLine adapters. In other words, it is exactly as it was before when it was working with his other two routers.

---

@OttoPylot wrote:

@pgrey - that's what I thought, he had a separate modem and router but when he mentioned connecting to the modem and then looking for the MAC address, I got confused a bit, unless there is a way to look at the tables in the modem. His modem needs to be in bridge so that it just connects the WAN to his LAN without any interference.

 

As far as MicroCell updates and version numbers, those are very difficult to get accurate reports on. AT&T is very tight-lipped about what the firmware pushes are for and version numbers. 

 

If the ethernet light is a solid green on the MicroCell, look at the DHCP table and see if you can find it.

 

The assumption is that the OP's MicroCell is still in the same location that it was before and he's not using any switches or PowerLine adapters. In other words, it is exactly as it was before when it was working with his other two routers.

---

@OttoPylot Just a couple of comments, I think there's a lot of text here, to trace through. I'm almost positive he's saying his Microcell LAN light is flashing, NOT solid green, plus he said he couldn't find the MAC, and judging from the quick response, it seemed to me that @guyshomenet seemed to have a pretty good idea of what I was asking about there. Sometimes a MAC can be tricky, like if you've got a media bridge, or powerline bridge, but in this use-case, it should just show up, plain-as-day, unless there's something really odd going on.

I don't know about your cable modem, but I had to go through some pretty serious gymnastics (hidden pages and the like) to get it out of bridge, the providers really don't want you doing this (I jettisoned my cable awhile back, love my fiber, no more double-NAT weirdness for my switch or NAS, that was always a headache, lots of patchup garbage).  Not saying he couldn't have it out of bridge mode, which I guess could double-NAT his Microcell, and probably hose it.

It's too bad about the firmware revs, although I did find out quite a bit about the versions, by looking around, they seem to be documented, maybe not per AT&T's pushes necessarily, but they're out there, and there was some "interesting" info about them.  I wonder why they want to be so "secretive" about the updates; typically firmware releases are the opposite, "here's all the cool stuff we fixed, check it out 1,2,...!" ;-]

Yeah 100% on the same configuration.  That's where I was wondering, if the router or modem  took a firmware upgrade (often modem is something that's really difficult to refuse, if you have a provider's unit), I think this could be key?

Obviously, some other topology change would be important too, I did ask about a cable, every once in a while, something weird happens, like someone grabs an old patch cable (non-TP, DSL and similar days), and can't figure out why connections won't work...

@pgrey - good summary. If his LAN (ethenet light) is not lit or red, then there is no connection to his router so either the MicroCell is borked (that's why I want him to check the ac adapter), there is a router setting that is misconfigured, or his router isn't allowing the MicroCell to create a secure VPN tunnel.

I have DSL (which as always been rock solid at 18Gbps) and my line quality is excellent for VoIP. My modem came already in bridge mode so I just configured my router for port forwarding to a statically assigned IP address and it's been working flawlessly like that for years, even with router changes and multiple MicorCells.

The fact that the OP's MicroCel worked in (seemingly so) the same configuration for a long time and then choked with the new router points to an incompatibility with the new router.

Yep, a double NAT is another router setting that needs to be checked. Either the modem or the router handles the NAT duties, but not both. However, if the OP has the same modem, and it worked before......

Wow, 18GBps, I want YOUR connection ;-]  Here I though my 100/100 was pretty zippy (I could get 500 (1/2 gig), but it's really pricey, too many other bottlenecks anyway.

How about this, if he's feeling (really) adventurous, it's got a console, I'd be doing this, if I had reason to have one of these gadgets (I have lots of gadgets, but no reason for a microcell).  I have console debugged my cell booster before, just because I could ;-]

https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2012/microcell-fail.html

Double NAT is pretty common, in some cases, like when people run a fiber->cheesey_fiber_router->switch->router, but that's when you should really jettison that cheesy part, or get a 3-layer managed switch, and make it all better ;-]

I think the number of people out there that are double-natted, and have no idea, is really quite significant, but maybe I'm reaching, who knows. I've certainly seen my share of posts like this, over in the ASUS router forums, and other network forums and such.

I was sort of wondering if maybe the (possible) modem upgrade did something like this.  

This is sort of like chasing electrical gremlins in an older car, good stuff, lots of bad words, the multi-tester is out, and poking test holes in wires everywhere!

I bet the console above would be telling, but that's no small task, to get there...

Thanks for the reply.

I am using separate modem and router.

I may try to find my VOM and check the voltage, though I'm using the newer (black) Cisco microcell.

My guess is that the microcell started to flake and induced what I misinterpreted as a failing router, which I replaced, only to see similar symptoms with the new router (granted, two different router vendors, so this may be a bit of a stretch). If time and temperment permitted, I'd put the old router back to see what happens when the microcell is not connected.

@pgrey Correct. No IP was ever leased to the MAC address of the microcell.

How does one determine the firmware version in the microcell if it cannot establish an IP connection?

As mentioned way before, this microcell is about a year old and worked on two other routers (one Netgear and one Lynksys). So it muust have had many IP leases.