You Can’t Suck Enough

We’ll see if this works since I just did this today but here’s the situation:

The Problem

Since getting FiOS I’ve been getting this intermittent issue where DNS will resolve fine but when browsers (or other apps) attempt to make the actual TCP/UDP connection, it fails (timing out). The exception, for whatever reason, is Amazon.com which seems to load most of the page’s contents (though some tracking stuff running later in the page doesn’t seem to succeed).

The first time, I called FiOS support, we went through the expected steps: check cables, power-cycle the router, factory reset the router. That worked so I used those steps the next time and the next time it happened. Then, it happened again but those steps didn’t work. Instead of being down for just a couple minutes (the time it took to do all those steps), it was down for many more (by the time the call with the tech was done, it’d been over an hour).

Their response? We’ll have a new router to you in 2-3 business days (this was on a Friday night). “What am I supposed to do for an internet connection until then?” I asked (as you would). The response: “Is there anything else I can help you with?” Retards.

Fortunately, part of that conversation involved the tech mentioning how someone else he talked to previously had an issue where the router kept grabbing the same IP address from DHCP and that address “seemed” to be bad.

So, I tried doing a series of DHCP release/renewals via the Web interface for the router to see if that might eventually cycle in a different IP address. Surprisingly, it actually worked after a couple of attempts. I didn’t get a new IP address but the connectivity seemed to have been restored.

Now, I was still going to get that new router sent to me (I figured, it couldn’t hurt to try a new one). But, that of course, took almost two weeks to happen because Verizon’s just about as organized as a herd of cats. I called in when I started having issues again and they were all “Wow, uh, yeah, that should’ve gone out more than a week ago…sorry” They sent a second one and, of course, when that arrives two days later so does the one I was supposed to get a couple weeks earlier.

Plug-o-plug-o and I’ve got the new router up and running. An interesting side note: the Verizon In-Home Agent software helped with the swap and included a step where it cloned the MAC address of the previous router (or at least, that’s what the message said).

So, I’m back up and running until a couple weeks later. The same problem starts happening again. It doesn’t seem to match any sort of pattern (i.e. I’m not running something where this problem crops up consistently and it doesn’t happen at a specific time of day). Finally, it becomes a serious problem yesterday when it goes down and nothing works to get it back up. After almost two hours on the phone with FiOS support and conversations between the agent and some network techs, they decide it’s likely the modem again. This time, they decide to task a tech with coming out to trouble shoot.

Of course, even that doesn’t work right. They were supposed to show up Monday morning, instead I get a call this morning that they’re on the way. Herd of delusional cats?

And, as you’d expect, the tech comes out and I describe the issues. He looks at the modem and of course it’s working now. He feels he can’t troubleshoot anything at this point. Nice. He gives me his card to call him when the issue occurs again but that’s all I’ve got in hand.

The Solution

Meanwhile, I’d been getting annoyed with the fact that I lose all connectivity with other computers on my network because, well, the Verizon router IS the network. What I wanted to do is figure out a way to make the Verizon router into a modem or bridge and use my original router (which worked just fine) for my home network. That way, at least, I don’t have to worry about screwing up a backup or cut off anything being copied or streamed over the network just because the Inet part goes down.

What do I find? This article which is a repost off of a DSLReports forum post. The main idea is to bridge the Verizon router with your router and let your router do the heavy lifting. Exactly what I needed. The bonus? A possible explanation for my issues with the Verizon router:

The MI424-WR is a pretty decent router (is powerful, has lots of features, and is quite flexible), however the major issue with it at the moment is the puny NAT table (only 1kb in size). The NAT table is easily overflowed just by running a single bittorrent or in some cases, playing games.

Sweet fancy Moses…that could make sense. I don’t bittorrent but I play a lot of games and have been doing a lot of that on Steam. MW2 relies heavily on peer-to-peer so I figure that’s adding to the potential problems.

Still, I have nothing definitive (no logs or anything mentioning the NAT session table’s full or anything) so I don’t know. But, the main thing is I get to use my router again!

I ran through the steps but found one thing you need to be aware of when following those steps: make sure you clone the MAC used by the broadband connection (not necessarily the primary MAC for the router). It seems Verizon’s limiting access to their DHCP server based on MAC addresses.

After all, that, I’m now running on my D-Link router funneling data through FiOS and still getting my full bandwidth.

Just thought I’d spread the word here for peeps who need the help and in case you’re more than just a casual Web and e-mail user who needs FiOS to work for you (after all, who needs 25Mbps/15Mbps for the Web?).

At this point, since I’ve only just set it up, I can’t vouch for this solving this particular problem yet (conn up, DNS resolving, no throughput, intermittent).  But, here’s hoping…

out