Balance 20X PPPoE troubleshooting

A few months ago we had a full fibre installation and connected our Balance 20X directly to the ONT with PPPoE (previously it was connected using DHCP to a bridge mode ISP router/modem on copper line).

Too regularly it drops the connection and takes a long time to re-establish. The ISP will only support their own router so I’m struggling. This morning the Balance WAN connection was down for over an hour before I gave up waiting and put the ISP router in front of the Balance, which connected in 20 seconds or so.

Can anyone suggest how I can troubleshoot this from my end? There’s nothing more interesting in the event log than this:

Jan 15 08:26:01 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Jan 13 18:08:25 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.69.146)
Jan 13 17:28:00 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Jan 13 17:26:27 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.121.51)
Jan 13 17:11:35 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Jan 13 10:51:42 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.79.2)
Jan 13 10:41:05 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Jan 11 11:56:58 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.113.242)
Jan 11 11:55:11 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Dec 15 17:45:14 WAN: WAN connected (84.66.125.232)
Dec 15 17:04:46 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Dec 10 02:26:15 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.84.79)
Dec 10 02:25:13 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Dec 10 02:23:09 WAN: WAN connected (84.64.248.235)
Dec 10 02:22:19 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Nov 27 19:40:23 WAN: WAN connected (84.66.114.138)
Nov 27 18:37:00 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Nov 27 18:33:18 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.76.183)
Nov 27 18:29:11 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Nov 27 18:28:58 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.93.7)
Nov 27 18:23:44 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Nov 27 18:22:07 WAN: WAN connected (84.69.116.106)
Nov 27 17:36:48 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Nov 27 17:34:02 WAN: WAN connected (84.65.254.102)
Nov 27 17:28:05 WAN: WAN disconnected (WAN failed DNS test)
Nov 23 19:27:24 WAN: WAN connected (84.66.96.52)

Thanks

Some other details:

Firmware 8.0.2
WAN health check: DNS lookup

  • including public DNS servers: yes
  • 5 second timeout
  • 5 second interval
  • 3 retries

Hi - Welcome to the forum!

Update to 8.1.1 the Balance 20x has seen a lot of love from the development team with regards stability in the latest firmware.

If it still happens when you’re running 8.1.1. Connect the B20x via PPPoE, when the troubles happen grab a diagnostic report from the balance and send to engineering as a ticket for review.

Personally I always leave the ISP router in place in bridge mode.

Good luck!