Hi, I use a Pepwave MAX BR1 as our hotspot and internet connection for an off grid cabin. It is set up to run 24/7 and provides internet for us while we’re at the cabin and allows us to monitor IP security cameras and our solar PV system remotely, since we live 200 miles away.
I’ve loved the MAX BR1, it’s been very reliable and stayed connected to our Verizon tower essentially forever, UNTIL we firmware updated to 6.2.2.
The system will run fine for several days, and then we’ll get push notifications of connectivity loss. Incontrol2 shows router as down, and it never comes back up. When we visit the cabin to see what happened to the router, the WIFI is still functioning, but when checking the management web interface it shows the cellular status as blank with a spinning wait indicator, as if it’s waiting for information from the cellular radio, but it never comes. Occasionally it will say something like “Failed to update IP Address” but when you go into the settings for the cellular it locks up, again indicating something happened to the cellular radio.
We updated to 6.3.0 to see if the issue would clear up, but the same thing happens.
I followed directions to enable the watchdog option in the hidden support page, but it never triggers, even though the diagnostics show red bars and that the radio failed diagnostics. Isn’t it supposed to reboot the unit if it loses connectivity? That doesn’t happen.
Here’s an example of the diagnostics page after checking on the unit after it froze. I’m wondering if the watchdog would notice the failures, but failed to get the cellular radio to reboot, because it completely stopped responding?
We’ve invested in a DC timer circuit to hardware reboot the unit every couple of days, because it’s getting a little frustrating (and expensive) to travel 400 miles round trip to reboot a router, and it honestly shouldn’t be doing this, I’m sure you understand. I’d also love support for better module recovery and an easy way to schedule a hardware reboot at regular intervals. I want to pretend this thing’s on Mars, and be very careful that stays solid and dependable. Once it goes down it might as well be on Mars.
Do you already have an open ticket for this case? We may be able to remotely upgrade the firmware on the module itself, otherwise it could be failing in which case we would need to do an RMA and get the BR1 replaced.
I noticed now my unit has lost connectivity several times while I’ve been here monitoring it, and in the admin web interface it says “No device detected” where the cellular modem should be. After about 5 minutes it comes back and reconnects. It’s been doing this several times today.
As you might have been informed by 3Gstore.com, the cell module firmware upgrade was successful. Please keep monitoring the device and let us know if you see any abnormal behavior.
Thanks for trying, and unfortunately it has done the same thing and gone offline a few hours ago. We are no longer on site to reboot it. I’ve also let 3GStore know.
I have experienced the same problem with several Max BR1 Firmware 6.3.3 geographically distributed throughout the US. Have you been able to resolve the problem with your Max-BR1?
We gave up. The problem still occurs for us years later. Peplink kept Stringing us along with firmware updates and didn’t think we needed to replace our unit. Our warranty expired before we came to resolution so now we don’t have any support.
We bought a timer circuit that interrupts power to the router every 24 hours because it likes to lock up. For the cost of the unit I was never satisfied with the support we received.
@mattpenn, you will get the warranty (if you are facing the same problem) if your device is under the warranty when you open the ticket. The problem you are facing previously is not related to hardware and this case almost 2 years back. Our latest firmware is v7.1.0 now.
You are welcome to continue to follow up with us in the ticket.
