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tidemd81's profile

Contributor

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2 Messages

Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 3:38 PM

Recurring and seemingly random loss of internet access, despite multiple troubleshooting calls.

I have been experiencing repeat episodes of degraded network functionality outside of my local environment. 

For background, my system is set up in the following way;

AT&T fiber service --> AT&T supplied modem --> Google OnHub router, which feeds a Google WiFi mesh network with a total of 3 hub points.

 

The fiber service was initiated in May/June 2017 and the above home mesh network was set up the following day. This system worked flawlessly for approximately 3-4 months. At that point, I began to notice degraded functionality for no apparent reason, as the device settings had not been changed and no alterations were made to the hardware configuration (beyond adding client devices).

Making this more confusing, the issue always comes about at some point during the night. Each occurrence is random and my network may go 1 day to a couple of weeks before the problem repeats. With each episode, I spend the evening enjoying normal functionality (able to stream UHD video, browse the web, check email; all done simultaneously with no problems detected); go to bed; wake up the following morning to find that there is no communication across the router and to the outside web.

 

To date, I have reset the modem and Google router to factory settings. Also, a home service call was performed Dec 29, 2017, at which time my modem was changed to the Arris BGW210-700 model and the technician informed me that any changes to SSID/password/etc would result in loss of function from the modem (which seems asinine, but that's a different story). Following the instructions provided here: BGW210 passthrough mode, I setup passthrough mode and enjoyed flawless home network service through my Google mesh system until Jan 9, 2018, at which point I awoke to find the data transmission outside of my local wifi environment was again disrupted.

 

At this point, I am extremely frustrated and confused by the seemingly random nature of these events. Multiple hours worth of tech calls to troubleshoot the issue have been useless, as the service reps 1)  consistently tell that enabling passthrough mode will render my network non-functional, and 2) sound completely clueless with regard to the underlying issue.

 

Any assistance or thoughts about how to work toward resolving this problem will be greatly appreciated.

Community Support

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2.7K Messages

6 years ago

Hi @tidemd81,

 

I am sorry about the issues, but I will be glad to help. For your setup, you can change the network information on our gateway. The BGW has band steering technology, and by changing the name, it will cause that not to work, but since you are not using our gateway for Wireless, you can change it. Make sure you disable the wireless on the BGW to make sure there is no wireless interference. When you do lose internet, is it just wireless? Does this happen on all devices? When researching, I ran into someone having a similar issue, but it was only their Samsung phones that were dropping. Other than that, from other research, there has been a few issues with the Google OnHub, but no root cause has been determined. One last resort may be to add another router behind our router and then attach the Google OnHub to it, as it sounds like the Google OnHub seems to have issues with certain connections. Hope this helps.

 

David, AT&T Community Specialist

Contributor

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2 Messages

6 years ago

Hi David,

Thanks for the info.

Oddly, the effects on my networked devices are sporadic - sometimes it affects only my phones, iPads, smart TVs, etc., leaving Ring doorbell, wifi bulbs, and WeMo switches function; the most recent event knocked out functionality of my wired desktop, wired garage door hub, and several smart home devices, but wifi over iPhones, iPads, and Macbook worked fine. 

I connected to the BGW gateway via direct wire from my iMac and still had no communication outside the LAN. However, I was able to open the BGW web interface and a reset of the gateway allowed me to gain web access; the remaining devices were still non-functional.

 

After spending a few hours researching last night, I realized the pass-through feature was enabled, but there was a fixed IP address allocated to my OnHub device (in the 192.168.1.xx range), rather than the WAN IP address that should have been assigned.

 

I reset the BGW gateway to factory configuration, then followed the pass-through activation steps outlined here: Enable gateway pass-through. I did not change the default cascade router settings, but did turn off all firewall, antenna, and packet filtering functions of the BGW device, and limited the gateway DHCP allocation scope to 5 slots. I also confirmed the BGW and OnHub LAN assignments were not conflicting (192.168.1.xx vs 192.168.86.xx, respectively)

 

After rebooting the BGW and OnHub, I am now seeing a public IP address assigned to the OnHub and all devices are fully connected. My up and down speeds are also faster than ever. Hopefully, this resolves the issue going forward (still waiting to hear back from the Google support team regarding diagnostics assessed from their side).

 

As an aside for my own understanding - shouldn't the BGW band steering maintain normal functionality as long as I assign the same SSID/password to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands? 

The AT&T fiber is the only gigabit service in our area at this time, so there are A LOT of generic "ATT__________" SSIDs floating around when searching for networks. Changing my network name to something a bit more recognizable would be beneficial, as I activate the BGW antennas for backup wifi if the Google mesh ever goes down.

Community Support

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231.9K Messages

6 years ago

Hi,


Yes, the band steering will still work as long as the SSID/passwords are the same. Sorry for overlooking this. I am hoping those changes help. If it doesn't, it may be the Google Router locking up our gateway, and you can try a router behind router setup to see if this helps.


David, AT&T Community Specialist

Contributor

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3 Messages

5 years ago

I seem to have the identical issues, and I use the linksys Velop mesh system. I tried both the pass through and actually using the at&T router with the linksys in bridge mode. Just using the mesh functionality. This allows me to use the AT&T wireless in parallel for that floor. 1 of the 3 linksys ( the main node) is hardwired to the router. I have had very little succes with the support from either AT&T or Linksys. ( other than willing, resetting and making extreme statements like passthrough cannot be used.

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