Issue connecting with Satellite Modem - "WAN failed DNS test"

Everything Else
1

I have a new Peplink Balance 20 running firmware 5.3.12 build 1303 and I cannot get it to properly connect to my Satellite Modem (SurfBeam2 Satellite Modem RM4000 Series) for connecting to XPLORNET’s 4G Satellite Internet service.

The Satellite connection works fine on its own when connected to my network without the Balance 20. The Balance 20 also works fine when only connected to my primary Internet connection (3G Rockethub). Therefore it appears that the Satellite Modem and Balance 20 are having some challenges communicating with each other, or I’ve missed an important setting somewhere.

As far as Balance 20 settings go, I’ve tried keeping everything default, and then changing one item at a time, such as MTU, connection speeds, extending the health check time out, and MAC address cloning, to no avail.

Any suggestions on trouble shooting this would be greatly appreciated.

Regards;
Mike

2

Hey Mike, have we tried changing Balance WAN DNS server IP to something else say 8.8.8.8?

3

Hello Kurt, yes I’ve tried both the supplied DNS, Google’s DNS and a combination of the two; neither work.

Something that I have noticed is that the Balance 20 never gets to the point on the Dashboard where the Status shows that it is checking the MTU for that Satellite Link. Instead it progresses directly from Checking Connectivity to WAN failed DNS test. On my other WAN connection I see the Status message progress from Checking Connectivity to Checking MTU and then shortly after I get the green Connected message. Again, this leads me to believe that the issue is in negotiating the connection with the satellite modem, and that the problem is occurring prior to the MTU check.

I have no trouble at all connecting directly to the modem with my computer, and likewise, no troubles when directly connecting the modem to wireless AP router. Each do it fine with just the default + basic IP settings.

Thanks;
Mike

4

Thanks Mike. What I will try from here is to disable Health Check altogether and see if we have Internet through the Sat link (with of course the 3G link unplugged). If we do then it rules out MTU settings and comes down to simply tuning the Health Check for a more accurate result.

This page at http://<Your Balance IP Address>/cgi-bin/MANGA/support.cgi will give us more support info. It might give us a hint. But either way I think it would be a good time to setup a ticket with our support team here. Please also submit a diagnostic report. We will need it to look closer.

5

I tried disabling the Health Check while also disconnecting the 3G link, and it still didn’t work. However, I have just learned from Xplornet (my Satellite ISP) that whenever I make a change to the settings on my router I must power cycle the modem, wait for 3 of the 4 blue lights to come on solid before powering the router back up. This time, after disabling the Health Check the connection came up and is working now.

While it was all up and running I re-enabled the Health Check and the connection once again dropped. I’ve since changed from doing a DNS lookup to pinging the DNS servers instead and now it is working with the Health Check enabled.

I’d still like to resolve the issue with the DNS lookup health and get to the bottom of that as I can see it causing some problems down the road. Therefore when I get back next week I’ll open a support ticket and will report back here once we have it figured out.

Thanks for your help!
Mike