AIS Playbox losing internet connection when waking from standby?

[Pib]

53 minutes ago, SooKee said:

3 hours ago, maxpower said:

If you assigned ip at the router with MAC id it will keep the device in the lease agreement. If you set a static ip gateway and DNS at the device it will be out of DHCP control and have values ready for when it wakes up from sleep. Remember that a static ip set at the device must be out of the DHCP range set in your router. 
 
Example. My home router has 192.168.1.20 upwards for DHCP use and anything below I use for static devices like TV boxes HTPC and server.

Cheers. Will give it a try if I need. At the moment it seems to have been cured. Will wait and see and if it breaks again, try and fix it again ????

I was going to ask you if you had tried or would consider trying setting the lease time back to 1 day to see if the problem comes back.  But then again, if it ain't broke then don't try to fix it.  

 

On a related issue one thing I noticed on the 86U "immediately after changing the lease time from 1 to 2 days" is when looking at all the devices on my home network (I usually have around 10 connected at anyone time) by clicking the "View List" icon on page one of the 86U menu (see snapshot below) that all my connected devices are correctly identified as a "DHCP" address.   

 

And see snapshot 2 which is partial list of what I mean by correctly reporting "DHCP" but before the lease time change some devices might report as "Static" instead of their true DHCP status.

 

Before doing that lease time change and as long as I've had the 86U for about a year now (got mine a few weeks before you got yours) "some" of my devices would show up as "Static" IP although they were not setup with Static IP except for the brief tests with my two Playboxes where I did set a static IP for them.  And just because today a connected device might show as static when looking in the 86U, then next time you look it might show as DHCP.  It was like the router was not always properly displaying/reporting the  true IP type status....as in DHCP or static/manual.

 

In goggling this "why do some of my devices show as static vs DHCP on my Asus router" it showed many Asus router owners had the same issue.  Never found a convincing answer as to why or how to fix it.  The typical response was reload the firmware...with some typical responses of tried a firmware reload and it didn't help.   Seems some people experienced this issue and some didn't on their Asus routers even when running the latest firmware as I do on the 86U which seems to get a new firmware update every few months.

 

But anyway, when I changed the lease time yesterday to 1 to 2 days, now all my devices correctly report they have a DHCP IP address.    At this point in time since I'm doing this Playbox lease time test, I don't want to set it back to 1 day to see if the misreporting returns.   I hold off on running that test.

 

Did you notice the same issue with you 86U in it not correcting reporting the type of IP connection for "some" devices"...that is, DHCP or static/manual?

 

 

 

[Pib]

31 minutes ago, maxpower said:

STATIC DYNAMIC RESERVED

 

A device with static network settings does not need to get involved with DHCP or lease times. Reserving an ip in the routers DHCP pool does not make a device static it just reserves an address for the device with matching MAC. To avoid confusion it is best to think of static devices as those with ip's locked in the device and outside of the DHCP pool. Now we have static ip and reserved ip without confusion.

 

If your device can only obtain network setting via DHCP please ignore the rest of this post.

My experience tells me that your Android devices are having problems with DHCP lease while sleeping.

 

The way to prove this is to take DHCP involvement and leases away from the device completely and if this cures the fault then we know the device has problems with DHCP leases only.

 

Lets stop here and say devices do not need to get involved with a DHCP server if they are capable of storing basic network settings.

 

IP address - Mask - Gateway - DNS Primary - DNS Secondary

By selecting an ip outside of the routers DHCP pool, example settings might be :-

IP 192.168.1.4 - GATEWAY 192.168.1.1 - MASK 255.255.255.0 - DNS1 8.8.8.8 - DNS2 8.8.4.4

With static settings the device can wake up and go about network business armed with its local settings. It will not need to deal with the router DHCP server and its lease times ever again.

 

Regarding the static/reserved IP subject, last night when I spent a couple hours googling and reviewing youtubes on IP addresses with focus on "DHCP, Static, and Lease Time" it seemed a lot of variation existed in how the a "static" IP was setup....and it varied depending on the type of "DHCP or router" you were using....to include the age of the device.  Seems the new devices had simplified the setting up of an static IP.

 

This article from the ASUS website does an excellent job of describing static IP setup and it how I did it with my Playbox test...actually there are two ways but both do the exact same thing as talked in the article.  Just providing this article to show on Asus refers to static IP setup in Asus routers.

https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/114068/

 

Regarding the does my device (Playbox) only have DHCP capability?  As mentioned in an earlier post it does have a DHCP on-off setting which has a default to On.  But change it to off and do a hard reboot (power switch on-off) versus just taking the device into and out of standby, and the DHCP goes back to On. 

 

And doing this hard reboot is what is required most times to get the Playbox to make a connection which means it used DCHP to make the connection although the router still has a static IP setting for the Playbox.  Of course with the router set to give out a static IP, it hands out that static IP when a DCHP request comes in. 

 

But when I had turned the DHCP setting to off and pressed a "Submit" button that appears when DHCP is off that implies it may be setting a static IP on it's end....then you go set it your router the same IP to complete the static IP setup process.  However, doing this (several times over the past months) never helped to prevent the no internet connection error from coming back in a day or so.

 

Time will tell.  Before I start playing around with 86U settings again, like changing the least time back to 1 day, see if my Asus router will allow a static IP setup outside of the DHCP IP scope, etc., I going to wait and see how this current lease time change works out. 

 

"If', repeat, if my Playboxes make it to around a week with no connection error (so far it been around 31 hours since changing the least time from 24 hours to 48 hours), I will then do some more router tinkering to see what happens.  Break a rule of "Don't fix it if it ain't broke" in order to satisfy my curiosity. ????

 

 

 

 

 

[Pib]

1 hour ago, maxpower said:

 

Lets stop here and say devices do not need to get involved with a DHCP server if they are capable of storing basic network settings.

 

IP address - Mask - Gateway - DNS Primary - DNS Secondary

By selecting an ip outside of the routers DHCP pool, example settings might be :-

IP 192.168.1.4 - GATEWAY 192.168.1.1 - MASK 255.255.255.0 - DNS1 8.8.8.8 - DNS2 8.8.4.4

With static settings the device can wake up and go about network business armed with its local settings. It will not need to deal with the router DHCP server and its lease times ever again.

 

Those four things, and only those four things, are what display in the Playbox "ethernet" menu setting.  Whenever the no internet connection error occurs if you quickly go to that ethernet menu settings one to three of those setting will be blank.  Sometimes one is missing....other times 2...other times 3.  However, the one setting I've never seen missing/blank is the DNS setting which uses Google DNS 8.8.8.8.

 

Sometimes while looking at the menu, all the blanks will get populated and you now have a connection.  Other times the missing IP data does not populate and you must do a hard reboot to get a connection.

 

 

[SooKee]

Briefly, I do seem to recall seeing 'Static' at some stage in the device list, likely when I've been viewing the router UI to do a FW update but can't be 100% certain and can't recall when.  As of now they all show either DHCP or, in most cases, Manual.  As PIB points out, anything you change on the PB just defaults when you do a reset so I pretty much gave up bothering to configure it there.  Mine invariably wouldn't fire up when I went to the 'Settings' page as the prompt directs, so I invariably just hit the reset button or just pulled the ethernet cable briefly.  Thankfully, I've not had to do it in ages now, it was REALLY starting to pi55 me off!

 

Not planning to change any settings to see if I can break it again TBH, if the problem resurfaces I'll try and resolve it again, otherwise I'll just let it be.  As I said before, not had the 'Internet Connecting' message come up on the box since I changed the lease time.  Not really sure how it's affected things and certainly can't be bothered researching to see why it has (networking is not a hobby of mine), just content that it seems to have fixed it, either that or the fix has coincided with a change that I'm not responsible for.

[Fruit Trader]

Just read thru most of this topic.

I setup my brother in laws security cameras on ais earlier this year and almost sure I set the playbox  networking setting to dhcp off because my note show its ip is one above his Synology storage box and camera DVR which are all fixed range. tells me he leaves the playbox on standby for days never had network problem or need to do hard reset. box is on lan plugged into camera switch under tv.

[maxpower]

20 hours ago, Pib said:

Regarding the static/reserved IP subject, last night when I spent a couple hours googling and reviewing youtubes on IP addresses with focus on "DHCP, Static, and Lease Time" it seemed a lot of variation existed in how the a "static" IP was setup....and it varied depending on the type of "DHCP or router" you were using....to include the age of the device.  Seems the new devices had simplified the setting up of an static IP.

Static is static now lets turn off DHCP and its so called static reservation. No, lets go the full hog and turn off the router. 

DHCP servers are just a convenient way to dish out network info and addresses on demand nothing more. DHCP ip reservation is a convenient add on feature.

 

Our workshops gateway router DHCP is turned off, wirless devices are dished up address from a pool somewhere else.

 

I can turn off my home router and continue to use the network with all devices talking to each other including the media server. This is because they are all static addressed and simply play along through a common switch. There is no internet of course because routers gateway is turned off. None of my static devices gives a rats ass about the routers DHCP or it leases.

 

The Android box which I rarely use has DHCP turned off and just powers up using its static settings without fail. If I factory reset the Android box then I would of course need to give it the static network settings again. 

 

Standard test procedure when a device fails to handle DHCP properly is to turn off DHCP and go static. The results of the test will then move the procedure in simple logical steps.

 

The Crunch

 

If after turning DHCP off your device turns it back on during power cycle then it has a serious firmware error that needs sorting by the vendor. The only time DHCP should be switch to default is at settings or hard reset.

 

Why would you waste time fighting with a device that cant keep basic settings during power cycle or even worse requires a hard rest to continue operating?

 

PS

I see member Fruit Trader has indicated a similar 'playbox' device has DHCP turned off and possibly holds it static network settings without problem. Maybe a clue to some having faulty devices or a device variant with bad firmware. 

[Pib]

The AiS Playbox has firmware developed/"modified" by AIS.   it's no longer a typical Android box. 

 

It can "only" run the AIS apps like "AIS Play" which is where you select the TV channel/movie channels to watch.  In fact, that's the only app it can run although when you go to Settings where you can see apps installed only around 17 apps are listed like AIS Play, Firefox, Android browser, HooQ, NetFlix, File explorer, and around a dozen of system apps.  These probably work in the background to support the AIS Play app. 

 

Now your can not use Firefox or Android browser by themselves....they are not even shown with any icons to click to run....you can just see they are installed when looking at settings....they must be used to a degree by the AIS Play app for certain tasks in the background.  When you turn on the Playbox it immediately boots into the AIS Play app.   AIS Play is the only app you can run and it starts automatically.

 

When you go into Settings, specifically Advanced Settings, like you would on a Android phone the number of settings you can adjust/tinker with is greatly different/reduced.....as mentioned the firmware is modified (neutered) by AIS.   

 

The Playbox use to be a normal Android box where you had a full range of settings to play/tinker with like on an Android phone....but when AIS decided to reverse course and not allow "non-AIS programmed apps" like Youtube, Kodi, whatever app on Playbox the firmware pushed to the boxes pretty much turned the Playbox into a cable TV box just for using the AIS Play app which is used to display TV channels/movies.   

 

And you can not run the AIS Play app on a regular Android box; it will only run on the Playbox....the Playbox is married to the AIS TV servers.  You cannot interface a standard Android box to the AIS TV/movie servers 

 

However there is a mobile AIS Play app which you can run on your smartphone but that app will not run on a AIS Playbox....no need to since it has a special AIS Play app just for the Playbox.   

 

Summary: the AIS Playbox is not a normal Android box due to it's AIS modified/restricted firmware.

 

 

[maxpower]

1 hour ago, Pib said:

The AiS Playbox has firmware developed/"modified" by AIS.   it's no longer a typical Android box. 

Locking down a Android device is quite understandable as it takes a load off support desks and helps with security. AIS  have most likely screwed up the network routines while attempting to idiot proof the device but I cant believe a developer would be foolish enough to force DHCP on at every boot up. 

 

If its a pay TV system I would keep on at AIS until the annoying network problem was resolved.

[Pib]

It's now been 2 days and 7 hours since changing the lease time from 1 to 2 days.  Haven't got the no internet connection message on either of my Playboxes since.   Still too early to tell because as mentioned in earlier posts sometimes i go to around 3 days before the message appears and a few times maybe a week. 

 

But for the last few months getting the message within 1 to 2 days on each box has been common, although one of the two boxes "usually" only displays the message for 5 seconds or so, makes connection and then message goes away.  But on the other box "usually" it does not make a connection within 5 seconds or so of the message appearing and you need to reboot the box to get a connection.  

 

I may jinx myself by saying this, but I'm feeling positive about the lease time change from 1 to 2 days just may be a fix.  Time will tell...if the message don't return over the next 24 hours getting me past 3 days I will be feeling very positive....get to a week and I'll be durn sure was a fix. 

 

I say "a" fix versus "the" fix, because there may be other router settings that may provide a fix also. 

 

Like I still plan to try using a static IP "outside" of my router DHCP scope/pool versus using the two methods the Asus router allows.   I'm going to reduce the scope a from it .2 to .254 range to say like .50 to .254 and then see if I can manually set a static IP between .2 to .49 with a Playbox on the router end.  Not sure the router will even allow that since it allows manual/static reservations within it's DCHP pool but I don't know if it will allow such outside it's DHCP.  Plus one very creditable poster on another site for some router if you set a static IP outside your DHCP scope you may lose some router functions on that static IP like QoS settings, etc.   

 

I do plan to run this test after this current lease time setting change gets a week or so under it's belt.  I probably will even run another test of just changing the lease time to 25 hours....just something greater than 1 day to see what happens.  Heck, I plan to even go back to 1 day (or less) to see what happens...see if the problem comes back in trying to confirm it's a lease time issue between the router and Playbox....although none of my other numerous device hooked to my router have any connection issues.  

 

The reason I want to try the 1 day lease time to see if the mere changing of the router's lease time from 1 to 2 days may have triggered/reset something in the router which my be causing the problem. Especially when I saw all my IP addresses/devices start to be identified as "DHCP" (which was correct) where before a few devices were showing up as "Static" although I had not made any Static setting for those devices except briefly for one Playbox which I changed back to DHCP a few days later after confirming it didn't help.  That's why I asked SooKee if he had noticed some of his devices being identified as Static IP like I was experiencing and per my googling other Asus router users were experiencing....devices showing as having a Static IP when they were really a DHCP IP....they had never been setup with Static IPs.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Pib

[SooKee]

@Pib Since changing the lease time I've had no instances of the "Internet connecting" message. Are you still without problem?


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[Pib]

2 hours ago, SooKee said:

@Pib Since changing the lease time I've had no instances of the "Internet connecting" message. Are you still without problem?

SooKee,

No I haven't....and I do not think it's due to a "2" day lease time....I think it was just when changing the lease time it cleared/reset something in the router that made our Playboxes start playing properly with our Asus 86U router.   A person could immediately set it back to 1 day and the problem is still fixed.  

 

I say that because on Tuesday (20 Nov) after 3 days of operating with a 2 day lease time versus a 1 day lease time and not seeing the no internet connection message on either of my PBs, I decided to start tinkering, experimenting with router settings instead of waiting for a week or so with without the message.  My curiosity couldn't wait any longer.   I did several things. 

 

1.  I changed the lease time back to 1 day

 

2.  I also changed the router's DHCP server scope (range) from .2 to .254 to .21 to .254 as I wanted to be able to  manually set one of the PBs to an IP "outside" of the DHCP scope just to see if I could on the router and see if the PB no internet connection message might come back.  I could have just manually reserved an IP within the DHCP servers scope "like we both tried before with negative results in fixing the issue."  In fact, you said it seemed to make the problem worst....and my result was definitely no improvement.   So, I manually set one PB IP to an IP within the .2-.20 range....a range that I had excluded from the DHCP scope.   I left my other PB within the DHCP server scope.   I really wanted to test this DHCP scope thing separately....not at the same time as the lease time change back to 1 day....but I just didn't want to wait any longer.

 

So, now I have one PB operating within the DHCP server scope like it has for the longest time and also having the intermittent but annoying no internet connection frequently.  The other PB set to an IP address outside of the DHCP scope.  And now both operating with a 1 day lease time again because the lease time applies to all types of IP addresses the router issues out....whether you want to call the IP address in use a  Dynamic, Static, Reserved, etc.  Plus you can actually see the lease time remaining on all IPs issued out by the routers.  Ran this test for 2 days and still not getting any PB no internet connection message....all is still good.

 

So I'm now up to around 5 days without the problem reappearing with the routers set to a 2 day lease time for 3 days and then change back to 1 day lease time for 2 more days  One PB operating with an IP address "inside" the router's DHCP scope...and one PB set "outside" the the router's DHCP scope.  Before you and I had set an manual IP "within" the DHCP's server scope and it didn't help, HOWEVER, BUT, I bet if both of use tried it again it would work...we would not get the no internet connection message periodically.  Anyway, I'm tinkering with the "IP address stuff" trying to figure out if it's the problem....and it does "not" appear to be.

 

On 22 Nov, 2 days ago, I set the other PB IP address to outside the router's DHCP sever scope also...so both PBs are now in the .2-.20 range.  And I even briefly set the lease time back to 2 days just for a few minutes and then back to 1 day on 22 Nov in working this issue I mentioned earlier where the router will sometimes identify a DHCP IP address as a static IP when it's not, but that's not really related to the issue we are talking about.  Anyway, for the last 4 days I've been back on the 1 day lease time....the no internet connection has not appeared on either PB.

 

But me thinks in all the IP and lease time testing I've done over the last week that a lease time of 2 days (or any lease time other than the router's default lease time of 1 day) is "not" the fix.  And whether the IP is given the PB manually or dynamically is not the fix either like how I ran tests setting PBs IPs inside and outside the DHCP server's scope/range.   

 

Well, what do I think the fix was?  IMO the fix was just "something" in the router that got cleared/fixed/straightened out by changing the lease time even if immediately setting it back to the original lease time of 1 day....kinda like clearing some corrupted setting/file by doing the lease time change.

 

And just last night I notice a problem I've had for months with one of my Win 10 computers being able to retain IP mapping to my Western Digital Home server I was able to fix last night....that is, get it to retain mapping through a computer power down-up.   The last time I tried to fix it was over a week ago (one of many attempted fixes over several months) before I did all of this router lease time and IP tinkering.   I bet my computer to home server mapping problem was also fixed by changing the router's lease time from 1 day to 2 days and then back again to 1 day which just cleared/fixed some router lease time wise

 

Anyway, it's now been around 7 days without the problem on either PB...and as mentioned I switched back to a 1 day (router default) lease time 4 days ago.

 

Hopefully the problem is gone.  And anyone listening in shouldn't think the Asus 86U router is the problem because I had the same problem on my Asus 55UHP and the AIS-provided Huawei HG8245H router.   Same problem being the periodic PB no internet connection even though a dozen other devices on my home network have no problem connecting to the router via Wifi or ethernet connection.   

 

Your lease time change of 1 day to 2 days (or just any lease time change...and even if changing it back to 1 day) seemed to have fixed the problem.   If you feel like tinkering, change your lease time back to 1 day (or even less) and I bet your PB will not experience the intermittent connection problem.  

 

Summary: a lot of IP related talk above which is probably very confusing...glazed your eyes over...bored the hell out of you, but the lease time change (even if changing it back to the default lease time) sure seems to have fixed the PB's intermittent connection problem.   Hopefully others having this same PB problem will give the router lease time change a try to see what happens and give us some feedback.

 

 

 

 

 

[maxpower]

1 hour ago, Pib said:

So, now I have one PB operating within the DHCP server scope like it has for the longest time and also having the intermittent but annoying no internet connection frequently.  The other PB set to an IP address outside of the DHCP scope.  And now both operating with a 1 day lease time again because the lease time applies to all types of IP addresses the router issues out....whether you want to call the IP address in use a  Dynamic, Static, Reserved, etc.  Plus you can actually see the lease time remaining on all IPs issued out by the routers.  Ran this test for 2 days and still not getting any PB no internet connection message....all is still good.

How can the Playbox with an IP outside of the DHCP scope be operating with a 1 day lease? If its not within DHCP scope DHCP did not issue the IP and give it lease time.

Unless of course you have the facility to issue an IP outside of the DHCP scope and include it in the least time setting. 

[SooKee]

@Pib. Interesting. I'll likely try that if the problem reappears. I'll just leave it be for now. Not much into experimenting unless things break. Like you say, the change just probably cleared a problem with the Playbox. Be interesting to see if it comes back after any further FW update.

[Pib]

1 hour ago, maxpower said:

How can the Playbox with an IP outside of the DHCP scope be operating with a 1 day lease? If its not within DHCP scope DHCP did not issue the IP and give it lease time.

Unless of course you have the facility to issue an IP outside of the DHCP scope and include it in the least time setting. 

yeap, the two PBs are not operating outside the DHCP scope.  I changed the DHCP scope from .2 to .254 to .21 to .254.  Then I assigned the PBs IPs within the left over .2 to .20 range....assigned from the router end.   All done on the router end....nothing done on the PB end. 

 

There is only one place to set lease time in the router and it applies to all IPs managed by the router.  When I go the DHCP Lease menu you can see all the leases to include those I have set in the .2 to .20 range.  All leases shown never exceed the the lease time setting which I currently have at 1 day/24 hours.

[Pib]

1 hour ago, SooKee said:

@Pib. Interesting. I'll likely try that if the problem reappears. I'll just leave it be for now. Not much into experimenting unless things break. Like you say, the change just probably cleared a problem with the Playbox. Be interesting to see if it comes back after any further FW update.

I was thinking the same thing since the Asus puts out frequent firmware updates, especially for it higher end routers like our 86U, that maybe something go confused during a firmware update.  

 

I had an IPv6 issue a few months ago where my computer would keep loosing it's IPv6 address...I would check by going to ipv6-test.com.    This was going on for days....maybe longer as I hadn't checked with IPv6-test.com for a while. I would reboot my computer and maybe I would get the IPv6 address; maybe I would'n't.   Go to the 86U IPv6 menu and it showed it was receiving an IPv6 address from AIS.

 

I even did a hard reboot of the 86U and AIS-provided router set to bridge mode several times to see if that helped....it didn't.

 

Now I have a secondary laptop and that really just for backup...I turn in on once a week just to grab updates...make sure it's still alive.  It was getting an IPv6 address from the 86U no problem in the limited checking I did.

 

And when doing a Wifi connection with my smartphones/tables/Nvidia Shield  they are getting an IPv6 address no problem. 

OK, back to primary computer which is having this IPv6 issue...an intermittent issue.  A person would naturally think it's a problem with just that computer "and not the router" since the other computer and Android devices get an IPv6 address OK.

 

However,  I decided to go into the 86U IPv6 memu, "deactivate" IPv6, it does it reboot.  I then immediately "reactivated" IPv6, it does a reboot, and my primary computer now has an IPv6 address....and ever since then been fine....IPv6 intermittent problem on my primary computer is gone (knock on wood....my head). 

 

Once again, the fix turned out to be something simple...a setting deactivation then reactivation....a change of a setting only to immediately set it right back think kinda like the lease time change.

 

I'm just not smart enough to figure out why things would this way sometimes.

 

 

[SooKee]

Just had cause to assign a new static IP so I too tried a few changes:

 

1) Set the DHCP range from 100 - 200

2) Assigned all devices with static IP with IP addresses to below 100

3) Reset lease time to 86400

 

One thing I did notice when I looked at LAN > DHCP settings the devices were all showing as just 'new device'.  Were not showing their device names which they did under Network Status > Connected Devices.  Once I hit apply they all showed up in LAN / DHCP with device names.

 

Another thing I notice when doing such changes within the Asus, when you check Status, despite being connected it shows 'Internet: Disconnected' and I need to reboot the router to bring the correct 'Internet: Connected' status back up.  If I refresh the page before rebooting in briefly shows the connected status and IP address etc but then immediately reverts to 'Disconnected'.  I'm guessing the reboot forces either the router or the web UI to refresh correctly.

 

Will see how it goes with the Playbox message and whether the recent changes break it again or whether an update either to the router or PB FW breaks it again.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2018 by SooKee

[Pib]

All right!!!!....tinkering underway....I'm proud of you.  ????

 

P.S. I will take no responsibility if it don't work out (a.k.a., the Donald Trump train of thought)   

[maxpower]

4 hours ago, Pib said:

So, now I have one PB operating within the DHCP server scope like it has for the longest time and also having the intermittent but annoying no internet connection frequently.  The other PB set to an IP address outside of the DHCP scope.  And now both operating with a 1 day lease time again because the lease time applies to all types of IP addresses the router issues out....whether you want to call the IP address in use a  Dynamic, Static, Reserved, etc.  Plus you can actually see the lease time remaining on all IPs issued out by the routers.  Ran this test for 2 days and still not getting any PB no internet connection message....all is still good.

 

1 hour ago, Pib said:

yeap, the two PBs are not operating outside the DHCP scope.  I changed the DHCP scope from .2 to .254 to .21 to .254.  Then I assigned the PBs IPs within the left over .2 to .20 range....assigned from the router end.   All done on the router end....nothing done on the PB end. 

Unless you only have more than one set of scope rules DHCP can only issue from the .21 - .254 range. If a DHCP request is being dished up an ip below .21 then you have more than one set of scope rules in operation. 

 

And again. Static IP's outside of router scope are free from any lease. 

Edited November 24, 2018 by maxpower

[maxpower]

34 minutes ago, SooKee said:

1) Set the DHCP range from 100 - 200

2) Assigned all devices with static IP with IP addresses to below 100

3) Reset lease time to 86400

Your description might clear up some confusion here.

 

You have set a DHCP range from 100 - 200 in the router.

You are setting static ips below 100 at the router using MAC address correct?

 

If not, how and where are you setting static ip's below 100.
 

[Pib]

19 minutes ago, maxpower said:

 

Unless you only have more than one set of scope rules DHCP can only issue from the .21 - .254 range. If a DHCP request is being dished up an ip below .21 then you have more than one set of scope rules in operation. 

 

And again. Static IP's outside of router scope are free from any lease. 

Could be.   Just saying what I set up....basically same-same as what Sookee just setup except he chose a different scope range of .100 to .200 for his DHCP scope where I used .21 to 254.  And both of us manually entered the a Playbox IP for use outside (below) the DHCP scope.  

 

As mentioned earlier the IPs set outside the DHCP scope are still getting the same lease time as devices within the DHCP lease.  The IPs outside the DHCP scope do not get indefinite lease times....they are getting 24 hour lease times since the DHCP lease time is set to 24 hours.

 

Personally I think it basically the same as leaving the DHCP scope set to .2 thru .254 and manually selecting in IP for a device....or what is also called a Reservation.   My gut tells me if I set the scope back to .2 thru .254 and whether I manually selected IP for my Playboxes or not the internet connection problem would not return.   

 

But since I can't test various IP settings "willy-nilly" because of other household members using the home internet most of the time and my tests possibly impacting them I need to wait to those times when I won't impact them....give me time to right things if I break something with my testing.

 

Actually I found a silver lining in this issue as this week I spend a good amount of time googling/youtubing the IP assignment and Lease Time.  Been interesting....learned a lot....now more dangerous.

[Pib]

47 minutes ago, SooKee said:

Just had cause to assign a new static IP so I too tried a few changes:

 

1) Set the DHCP range from 100 - 200

2) Assigned all devices with static IP with IP addresses to below 100

3) Reset lease time to 86400

 

One thing I did notice when I looked at LAN > DHCP settings the devices were all showing as just 'new device'.  Were not showing their device names which they did under Network Status > Connected Devices.  Once I hit apply they all showed up in LAN / DHCP with device names.

 

Another thing I notice when doing such changes within the Asus, when you check Status, despite being connected it shows 'Internet: Disconnected' and I need to reboot the router to bring the correct 'Internet: Connected' status back up.  If I refresh the page before rebooting in briefly shows the connected status and IP address etc but then immediately reverts to 'Disconnected'.  I'm guessing the reboot forces either the router or the web UI to refresh correctly.

 

Will see how it goes with the Playbox message and whether the recent changes break it again or whether an update either to the router or PB FW breaks it again.

 

 

 

Now that you got some IPs set outside the DHCP scope, take a look under the 86U System Logs, DHCP Leases menu and you'll see those IPs have lease times just like the ones within the DHCP lease.   But I notice they may not show up there immediately if you have done something like a router reboot, etc.   You might have to give it a few hours or even overnight....it depends on whether you might go reboot those devices also after assigning/changing an IP.

 

Like the three IPs I set outside the DHCP scope: one for the PB upstairs, one for the PB downstairs, and my Home server.  All are showing lease times just like the devices within the DHCP scope.

 

Now this may be due to the fact the IPs were manually set "from the router end" and not the device end.  Like you can go into the device and select either DHCP or Static and enter an available IP address if the device allows such like an Android phone...I call that being manually set "from the Device end;" not from the Router end.

[maxpower]

25 minutes ago, Pib said:

Could be.   Just saying what I set up....basically same-same as what Sookee just setup except he chose a different scope range of .100 to .200 for his DHCP scope where I used .21 to 254.  And both of us manually entered the a Playbox IP for use outside (below) the DHCP scope.  

 

As mentioned earlier the IPs set outside the DHCP scope are still getting the same lease time as devices within the DHCP lease.  The IPs outside the DHCP scope do not get indefinite lease times....they are getting 24 hour lease times since the DHCP lease time is set to 24 hours.

 

Personally I think it basically the same as leaving the DHCP scope set to .2 thru .254 and manually selecting in IP for a device....or what is also called a Reservation.   My gut tells me if I set the scope back to .2 thru .254 and whether I manually selected IP for my Playboxes or not the internet connection problem would not return.   

 

But since I can't test various IP settings "willy-nilly" because of other household members using the home internet most of the time and my tests possibly impacting them I need to wait to those times when I won't impact them....give me time to right things if I break something with my testing.

 

Actually I found a silver lining in this issue as this week I spend a good amount of time googling/youtubing the IP assignment and Lease Time.  Been interesting....learned a lot....now more dangerous.

This is where networks become confused because a lease is given to a DHCP request which should only give out ip's within its range.

Like I have said before, my home devices have a static ip's and the router has no business using them because it has been told the range it can use.

If I login to my router and try to set a reserved IP out of DHCP limit it will show error because it does not want a collision with something outside of its range.

[SooKee]

Your description might clear up some confusion here.
 
You have set a DHCP range from 100 - 200 in the router.
You are setting static ips below 100 at the router using MAC address correct?
 
If not, how and where are you setting static ip's below 100.
 

Yes. Everything is set at the router. I set nothing on devices.

[maxpower]

17 minutes ago, SooKee said:

Yes. Everything is set at the router. I set nothing on devices.

So when one of your devices makes a DHCP request for network info it gets given a fixed IP out of DHCP range along with a lease. Interesting arrangement.

Edited November 24, 2018 by maxpower

[Pib]

1 hour ago, maxpower said:

This is where networks become confused because a lease is given to a DHCP request which should only give out ip's within its range.

Like I have said before, my home devices have a static ip's and the router has no business using them because it has been told the range it can use.

If I login to my router and try to set a reserved IP out of DHCP limit it will show error because it does not want a collision with something outside of its range.

Does you router show lease times anywhere like Asus routers under System Log, DHCP Leases?  Don't know what brand of router you have.  

 

I'm not talking the master lease time setting; I'm talking where each IP is shown with it's remaining lease time.  Heck, until I started messing around in changing IP settings in the router, I had never noticed there was an area where I could see the lease time remaining on each connected device.

 

If it does, take a look at your static IPs and see if they have a lease time or not.  All of my IPs do....regardless of them being within or outside of the DHCP scope.  Like where I mentioned before I set my DHCP scope to .21 - .254 and they set the Playbox IP in the .2 - .20 range (i.e., outside my DHCP scope of .21 -.254)

 

Edited November 24, 2018 by Pib

[Pib]

Below from RMerlin himself...the guy who programs the renowned Merlin firmware for some Asus router models  His post is basically talking some of the confusion caused by how different network IT equipment makers and so called experts refer to the various types of IPs (i.e., static, reserved, manual, dynamic, etc).  I clearly noticed this in my googling/youtubing over the last week or so where "static" IP seemed to be a loosely used term...possibly incorrectly referenced in many cases.  

 

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dhcp-server-stops-handing-out-ips-for-wireless.40751/

 

My understanding of a "static" IP is one you set on the "client's end," repeat the client's end, like you can do in Android phone or on a Windows computer where you can select either a DCHP IP or Static IP.  

 

If you are setting an IP on the "router's end," repeat, the router's end you are really just manually reserving an IP.  And on Asus routers you can manually reserve an IP either inside or outside the DHCP scope. 

 

RMerlin recommends reserving IPs "within" the DHCP's scope....he did't explain why but I'm sure he has good reasons.  With that being said, my Playboxes are now set on the router's end to IPs "outside" the DHCP scope....so is SooKee's as of today.  This goes against RMerlin's recommendation, however, both my Playboxes are working fine so far for the last few days I've had them set this way.

 

Early testing with IPs manually set "within" the DHCP didn't help the problem for me or SooKee, but that was before we changed the lease time which appears to have fixed/cleared the problem. 

 

As mentioned in an earlier post and my testing this week my gut now tells me the Playbox will work fine with an IP within the router's DHCP scope whether manually set or dynamics set since the lease time change seemed to have cleared the problem.  At some point in the near future I'll probably put both Playbox IPs back within the DHCP scope and let them be assigned dynamically just to see if the problem comes back.

 

[maxpower]

47 minutes ago, Pib said:

Below from RMerlin himself...the guy who programs the renowned Merlin firmware for some Asus router models  His post is basically talking some of the confusion caused by how different network IT equipment makers and so called experts refer to the various types of IPs (i.e., static, reserved, manual, dynamic, etc).  I clearly noticed this in my googling/youtubing over the last week or so where "static" IP seemed to be a loosely used term...possibly incorrectly referenced in many cases.  

 

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dhcp-server-stops-handing-out-ips-for-wireless.40751/

 

My understanding of a "static" IP is one you set on the "client's end," repeat the client's end, like you can do in Android phone or on a Windows computer where you can select either a DCHP IP or Static IP.  

 

If you are setting an IP on the "router's end," repeat, the router's end you are really just manually reserving an IP.  And on Asus routers you can manually reserve an IP either inside or outside the DHCP scope. 

 

RMerlin recommends reserving IPs "within" the DHCP's scope....he did't explain why but I'm sure he has good reasons.  With that being said, my Playboxes are now set on the router's end to IPs "outside" the DHCP scope....so is SooKee's as of today.  This goes against RMerlin's recommendation, however, both my Playboxes are working fine so far for the last few days I've had them set this way.

 

Early testing with IPs manually set "within" the DHCP didn't help the problem for me or SooKee, but that was before we changed the lease time which appears to have fixed/cleared the problem. 

 

As mentioned in an earlier post and my testing this week my gut now tells me the Playbox will work fine with an IP within the router's DHCP scope whether manually set or dynamics set since the lease time change seemed to have cleared the problem.  At some point in the near future I'll probably put both Playbox IPs back within the DHCP scope and let them be assigned dynamically just to see if the problem comes back.

 

Maybe now some of what I have been saying makes sense.

 

Its always best to follow a strict set of rules with networking because it makes future troubleshooting and communication with others much easier. This also applies to basic home networking.

 

Think of a small network setup by Joe. Bob arrives to take over and Joe tells Bob that he has set DHCP range to xxx xxx and reserved a couple of ip addresses in  DHCP for some stuff.

Because they follow rules, Bob knows that he can safely use ip's outside of the DHCP range without worrying about the router grabbing one for some DHCP variant  built into its firmware.

 

As explained previously, only my mobile stuff uses DHCP on my network, the rest is Ethernet static.

I am using a Cisco enterprise router which has the usual router functions including reservation in the DHCP range which I dont use.

My DHCP has a reserved range and the rest is free for static use outside of the router.

From the interface I can view devices which have been given leases via DHCP and connected devices that have not been issued a lease.

If the router is turned off I can access the server, printer and all devices with static ip's.

 

Again, if an Android device cant run static with DHCP off then its in the trash or get it sorted by the vendor.
 

Edited November 24, 2018 by maxpower

[Pib]

@maxpower

  Will you post a snapshot from you router of the "lease time" of one of you devices set to a static IP.   Would like to see how it displays lease time.  

[maxpower]

1 hour ago, Pib said:

@maxpower

  Will you post a snapshot from you router of the "lease time" of one of you devices set to a static IP.   Would like to see how it displays lease time.  

I am at work now but can give snap from a local device displaying exact same info as my home router would. It has one mobile connected from DHCP and three static ip devices on LAN which we cant see because the static devices do not require a lease from DHCP. 

Snap from router DHCP lease table showing device that have been given leases from the DHCP server. Static devices with DHCP off are not shown. If we had a device with reserved ip in DHCP it would be shown also.

 

[maxpower]

Just a reminder how two different TVBoxes would operate and why TVBox2 with DHCP off will not show in a router lease table.

TVBox1 - DHCP On

TVBox1 owner plugs him into ethernet and he starts broadcasting DHCPDISCOVER on the network waiting for a server to make an offer. Router sends an offer and TVBox1 quickly sends back a request. Router then sends back a packet complete with network info and lease time. TVBox1 now has enough details to play on the network.

The ip address given to TVBox1 would normally come from routers pool but if router has a special reservation for TVBox1 it will send the reserved ip instead. Smart stuff, its kind of like a static ip but has a nasty lease agreement attached that we need to request and keep up to date.

TVBox2 DHCP - Off - network settings local set

TVBox2 owner plugs him into Ethernet and he starts using the network immediately because settings are stored locally no need to ask router.