Balance 20 is locking up

Product Discussion Peplink Balance
1

I have a Balance 20 installed at a remote office and it is continually locking up after making configuration changes. Here are the config details:

Firmware: 8.1.0 build 4939
Hardware Version: 6

After making changes to the configuration, the web interface often locks up and is unresponsive. Usually the router continues to pass traffic, but sometimes it totally locks up and all traffic stops. The only way to recover is to cycle the power on the device.

This Balance 20 is managing four AP-300M access points and I am trying to get it to work with Speed Fusion Cloud to create a fail-safe connection using two WANs. However, I am afraid to make any changes remotely because the router is likely to stop working and there are no technical personnel at the remote office. They are getting tired of me asking them to disconnect the Balance 20 power after I have made configuration changes and the router stops working.

I finally made a trip to the remote site to investigate (it is in another country that is 3,000 miles away from my location). I tried saving the configuration, then doing a factory reset. After restoring the config, it worked fine, but then it locked up again after I did some tweaks to the configuration.

I have been using Peplink routers for nearly 10 years and have never had this kind of experience. Most of the time I can make changes remotely and have never worried about having the router lock up. Is there something wrong with my hardware or are there bugs in this this release?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

2

I did some more testing and and installed the same configuration on a spare Balance 20 (hardware revision 3). I swapped it for the original router and it does the same thing. It locks up and requires a power cycle to fix the problem.

I also noticed that when making changes, the “Apply Changes” button does not light up after I hit the “Save” button.

Since I have the same issues on two different routers, I doubt this is a hardware issue. Are there any new firmware updates that will fix these issues on Balance 20 routers?

3

I just found another thread: Balance 20 - 8.1.0 - unstable - #30 by OmarVR

After updating to build 4956, my Balance 20 is now running much better. Will monitor to see if there are still issues.

4

@jeff

I’m experiencing the exact same thing as you are. All of the 8.1.x builds cause this behavior for Balance 20 appliances. Peplink engineers are working on it but build 4956 should keep working just fine until they are able to come up with a definitive fix.