FAQ: Why does my device appear "offline" on InControl 2 even though the device has an internet connection?


When devices fail to show ‘online’ in InControl 2 please check the following:

  • Check if the InControl Management option is enabled on the device’s web admin.
  • Check if the device’s warranty or subscription has expired; the unit needs to have a valid warranty or InControl2 subscription to show “online” in InControl2.
  • Check if the outgoing UDP port 5246 to *.peplink.com is allowed on the WAN(s). Check this article for more details.
  • Remove and re-add the devices to InControl.
  • Check if you can ping ac1.peplink.com and ac2.peplink.com from the LAN of the device.
    • If ping is successful:

      • Check the Device System Management page of the device’s group in InControl and see if the External InControl Appliance option is enabled.
    • If ping failed, it means there is a connectivity issue with InControl servers.

      • If it is an error in resolving the hostname, it means that the DNS resolvers are unable to resolve the peplink.com server hostnames.
      • Check outbound policy and firewall rules if UDP port 5246 traffic gets blocked or routed incorrectly.
      • Check if the “Send all traffic to” option is enabled on the SpeedFusion page. If yes, check if the remote SpeedFusion peer refused to route/perform DNS resolutions.
      • Check if a static route for 0.0.0.0 is defined on the LAN Settings screen. Note that static routes have the highest precedence and cannot be overridden by outbound policy rules.
  • Some ISPs in the United Arab Emirates purposely drops consecutive incoming UDP packets sending into devices. It causes the handshake with InControl fails to complete. The only solution is to switch to another ISP which does not apply such kind of traffic control.

If you have checked the above and the device still does not connect to InControl there might be some issues with the device’s DNS server or routing.

E.g. is all traffic routed to a MPLS WAN or a SpeedFusion network without Internet access?
If so, adding outbound rules for peplink.com on UDP port 5246 and TCP port 443 to route to local WAN interfaces usually solves the problem.

If the above does not help to identify the problem, please raise a ticket.

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