Newbie struggling with internet dropping

Fenster · October 5, 2020, 2:53pm

When this newer firmware (I think 8.1.1) is released some of these peplink devices should then have a OpenVPN client. If I am understanding it correctly any VPN provider that is not blocked by the streaming services should eliminate that problem and I think most the other issues would be taken care of.

Anyone else know the latest info on this newer firmware ?

Vitaly · October 6, 2020, 8:22am

I am having a very similar issue here with an AT&T SIM card. MAX Transit with latest 8.1.0 build 4943 firmware. Only thing that seems to fix it is a reboot. Started about 1-2 weeks ago.

Edit: Purchased and going to try tunnelling traffic via Speedfusion Cloud shortly.

Travis · October 20, 2020, 9:58am

I’m curious to hear if using SpeedFusion cloud is reliably preventing this issue from happening?

I am also curious to hear if someone has a health check “recipe” that can reliably detect the issue?

Vitaly · October 20, 2020, 11:16am

@Travis, using SpeedFusion Cloud did resolve the issue with the AT&T proxy for me.

I do not think it can be reliably dealt with using the health check feature. At least I have yet to see a recipe that does it.

Fenster · October 20, 2020, 12:20pm

That works but mainstream site will block you. (Netflix, Prime, etc .) when this firmware comes out we should be able to use OpenVPN like I stated above

Travis · October 20, 2020, 1:31pm

Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad to hear we at least have one workaround here.

@deansher
@Matthew_Rice

Is SpeedFusion Cloud reliably working around this issue for you as well - any reliable health check mechanisms you have seen to detect this issue?

mbrook · October 20, 2020, 3:33pm

I’ve gone to HTTP health checks on any modem with an AT&T SIM. I’m seeing one to eight disconnects a day per device, with no obvious pattern. Depending on the device configuration, it either switches SIMs or reconnects to AT&T after the module resets. This is not ideal on our single-WAN devices, but that 3 minute interruption is better than “my internet isn’t working” phone calls for WANs that otherwise appear healthy.

spiceweasel · October 20, 2020, 4:35pm

I was hoping someone would mention that they weren’t having any issues anymore, but we are traveling, and we haven’t had a problem or needed to reset the modem once we hit Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Interestingly, in June, it was at the Pennsylvania/New York state line that we started having issues, and it continued all summer throughout the Northeast.

I know it doesn’t seem to be geographically related, but all summer I was having to reconnect to a tower about once every 2 hours, and now we haven’t had an issue in the last 5 days, not even once.

Also worth noting that we got a new SIM card in Massachusetts as the last one went to crap. But the new SIM card was still an issue until about 5 days ago.

Anyone else seeing an improvement in the problem?

mbrook · October 20, 2020, 7:20pm

Well, there was this post on the AT&T forum on Oct 14 which seems to confirm the geographic aspect:

Just got second call from office of the president in response to FCC complaint. First call was general “we’ll look into it”, but this time he said that he spoke to engineering and they acknowledged they have an issue, are working on it. Indicated they said it was affecting about 18 states (apparently Texas is one).

spiceweasel · October 20, 2020, 8:29pm

Ah, I wasn’t aware of that. Thank you.

mystery · October 21, 2020, 5:59am

its sad how it takes them 4 months to look into it ha

Eric_Lizotte · October 26, 2020, 10:06am

Hello do you mind sharing you HTTP health checks settings. I have a single WAN At&T SIM and this sounds like the only option to keep my connection live most of the time.
Thank you !

mbrook · October 26, 2020, 10:53am

Sure, here’s what I’ve been using. I’m not sure if this is the best way to do it, but it seems to have worked so far.

mystery · October 26, 2020, 2:49pm

interesting, i thought those sites were https not http.

Travis · November 9, 2020, 10:37am

I want to summarize the findings and workarounds known at this point, including a new piece of information many may find helpful:

Using SpeedFusion Cloud can help avoid this issue from happening
As many of our community members have found and reported (thank you!) HTTP health check can identify this problem when it occurs, while the default smartcheck may not accurately identify this outage.
If you are using http health check, the modem will automatically reset after 5 minutes of measured outage. In our testing, resetting the modem is sufficient to temporarily resolve the AT&T proxy issue.

These tools are the best way to reduce the pain caused by this issue at the moment, I hope this improves the situation for all of you.

Matthew_Rice · November 15, 2020, 7:13pm

From my provider, name withheld for privacy

mystery · November 15, 2020, 8:54pm

COVID relief mechanism? LOL. No.

Rick-DC · November 16, 2020, 3:24am

Welcome to AT&T.

Matthew_Rice · November 16, 2020, 3:43am

They are trying to spin it without putting AT&T in a negative light. Good riddance. I finally got a Verizon sim from my provider (8 month waitlist) and Im going to try that today…

joelbean · November 16, 2020, 8:21am

Central California, east of Sacramento.
AT&T unlimited plan from OTR. Verizon 8800L Jetpack plan.
Smartcheck on.
Fusionhub on Vultr for general devices, bypassed to AT&T or Verizon for streaming clients. Max Transit Duo usually chooses AT&T due to both Lowest Latency and/or Fastest Response. AT&T down bandwidth from 40Mbps to 130Mbps depending on time of day.
MIMO directional antennas for both carriers, AT&T 3 miles LOS - 2xBand 2s aggregated, Verizon 10 miles with hill in between me and tower - 2xBand 66s aggregated.

I have not had one disconnect or change in expected bandwidth, ever.

Has anyone confirmed that this is only a regional issue?

Thanks.