Good Afternoon,
I have just recently started having this issue with a lot of my Pepwave BR1 Mini’s.
Both ATT, FirstNet and Verizon.
I have made a lot of changes to SmartCheck per what I saw here on this thread, but I am still having this issue where I am losing connections at random for the most part, but one router every 4 hours; sometimes the connection “comes back” often the router has to be restarted.
All running latest Firmware.
I have had the carrier re-provision the existing SIM, same router, and it fixed the issue. Seems like physical SIM card not an issue.
I have obtained new SIM’s, same router, and this fixed the issue.
Scheduled reboots every 24 hours. Sometimes comes back up…sometimes not.
Re-seated SIM’s over and over. Sometimes connection stays up for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and hour, then drops.
Some routers have been in the same location for years.
Wish it could be setup to “reboot” or reload SIM when this happens.
Have you tried monitoring the 12V input for Voltage drooping or spikes. Cellular modules can get super touchy if something gets out of Spec for more than a couple seconds. Peplink does a great job at preventing this. I would try changing the power source and see if it continues. The other fix I’ve used is backdating the FW then updating to the newest GA. That seems to clear up a lot of issues.
I don’t know if I am smarter than you but to start I’d change your health check method. Try a ping to a “known good” address e.g., 8.8.4.4, 1.1.1.1 and/or 208.67.222.222. Accept the defaults re tried and time-outs. (You can always change them later.)
Does that help? At this point I really do not think hardware or firmware issues are the issue. There are a zillion (OK, +/-) of these routers out there and I think we’d know if there was a fundamental problem with HW or FW which resulted in the wacky behavior you describe.
Hmm that is possible. But…two devices have constant AC and have been golden for over 2 years. The kicker is when we swapped the old SIM for a new SIM at one site the issue on went away completely: the other site is now fine. Today we did that again on a 12 VDC trailer that was at 13.1 VDC and problem went away too. We have used a DC to DC power supply that maintains a constant 13.8 VDC. We also use a low voltage shutoff at 11.7 VDC. Output via the DC to DC P/S isn’t affected by the 11.7 though. And in some cases the problem just goes away. I sent a diagnostic report in a ticket so we will see. I will make sure all new builds keep using the DC to DC P/S to avoid any power issues.
As an added bonus we seem to be getting some “phantom connections” where Team Viewer stills shows “good” but can’t connect and sporadic pings, so I think that is more signal related because of poorer RSRP and SINR readings. Got to love RF!
Kicker is some of this gear has been deployed for years in the exact same location. But providers do maintenance so who knows…
Thanks for the info! I will definitely consider looking harder at the power side of this.
Well, you are right – there seems to be more to this issue than just the health checks. Once the check is passed the WAN should recover on its own. If a real reset is needed that is concerning. And, it’s good that you have paid attention to power quality, as you and @Travis_Hatcher have discussed.
Please let us know what is found in the ticket you submitted and if any further developments.
Whenever Cellular and DC power are involved, that’s normally where I start. The other thing that I can think of. I don’t have the documents in front of me and I don’t know if this is true of other Carriers. Verizon has started changing their power saving and timeout requirements and that may lead into what’s causing this weirdness with Teamviewer. We’re a Verizon shop so that’s all we do. What I would do next is put them on Verizon Private Network which is a different configuration but that’s carrier specific. I know AT&T has options similar. I don’t know about T-mobile
OK…I truly believe this carrier related after dealing with the last two. Definitely a change in coverage resulting in signal degradation…still swapped the SIM’s. These had been in the field for over 4 years in the exact same spot.
Side note: I’ve done several large scale private APN/VPN rollouts before and most of my clients are too small to do that because last time I check there is a cost associated with that.
I just wish I’d get better transparency with the carrier when I work these issues, but that is probably never going to happen.
Oh well…mostly fixed now so I will move on. Thank You for all the help. Good to know I was in the right ball park with what was going on. You guys are rock stars!!!
Try a ping to a “known good” address e.g., 8.8.4.4, 1.1.1.1 and/or 208.67.222.222. Accept the defaults re tried and time-outs. (You can always change them later.)
