It sounds like there is another solution:
Disable Wifi, unplug any and all LAN Ethernet cables and reboot the router (perhaps after rebooting the modem?)
Then enable Wifi and plug in the Ethernet devices. Very impressive debugging, by the way.
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OK, so I got confirmation that the fix will not be included in 7.1.1 but will be included in the following official releases. In the meantime, they have a special 7.1.1 build available for those with the issue. So if you have this problem, open a support ticket so that you can get access to that build.
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Peparn, thanks for the great troubleshooting. I, too, have been having the same issue with a SURF SOHO MK3 connected to a Spectrum (now Spectrum/TimeWarner) D3G1604W WIFI modem in a home office. I’ve monkeyed with it for quite a few months because I was busy with work during the day and the family wanted to use it at night. So I provided the quick fix of disconnecting from the modem, cycling power and bringing all devices back online. I will be opening a support ticket so I can get the fix. Many thanks for dogging it so systematically!
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Happy if the work done on this issue ends up benefiting you too @roughrider 
. That is the beauty of these forums. Also their support is very proactive (at least it was my experience) so you will be in good hands. Cheers!
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Did the special 7.1.1 build work? I’m considering buying the SOHO, but it looks like it won’t work with my SB6121 modem. The SOHO purchase would max out the budget, so am not looking forward to having to buy different modems until I find one that works.
The special build worked well for me. Also if you are not using wired VLANs (i.e.: assigning the SOHO LAN ports to specific VLANs), leaving all the ports set to Trunk/Any, then the problem mentioned in this thread will not happen. So based on your configuration you might not even need the special build at all.
The SOHO is a great router in my opinion, well worth the money, relative to what it can do.
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Below is the firmware fix the ARP traffics leak issue that may caused the service provider modem refuse the WAN connection.
SOHO MK3:
https://download.peplink.com/firmware/br1ac/fw-max_br1mk2_hotspot_sohomk3-7.1.1s022-build1344.bin
For those that having issue that explained here, please upgrade your device using the firmware above.
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I can confirm the fix was not included in firmware 7.1.1. Learned this the hard way while connecting to a Netgear CM600 cable modem.
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The patched firmware is branded for a Surf SOHO MK3. Is it also valid for a second generation HW2 Surf SOHO?
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I have the same issue Surf SOHO MK3 + Arris SB6190. Thank you everyone for the time spent tracking down the root cause.
The word “issue” could be taken two ways.
Did you mean the issued firmware is only valid for third generation MK3 Surf SOHOs? Or, did you mean the issue/problem was only observed on MK3 Surf SOHOs?
If the latter, I can attest that the problem happens on second generation HW2 models too.
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Yes, only observed for SOHO MK3 device.
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This has also been observed on a second generation HW2 Surf SOHO. I got around it the problem by having the router powered on and booted before powering on the cable modem (Netgear in my case).
At first I did the reverse, powering on the cable modem first, but that failed. I tried setting the WAN port to GB full duplex both with and without advertising but that did not help.
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@Michael234 from what you describe, I would think that what you are experiencing is a different problem with similar symptoms. The problem diagnosed in this thread on the MK3, stemming from the leak of certain LAN traffic to the WAN port under certain configurations (when you have LAN physical ports set to other than Trunk/Any on the SOHO), is usually exacerbated by booting the cable modem while the SOHO is live. In fact, this is when the cable modem rebooted/re-acquired the cable signal unattended while the SOHO was live that caused the issue to be detected in the first place. In that case, unplugging the up-link to the modem, rebooting the modem and then reconnecting the up-link was a valid recovery mechanism, that succeeded most of the times (technically there was still a small time window for it to fail now that we understand the root cause, but in practice I only had it fail a handful of times compared to 10s of successes).
One quick way to be sure if it could even be the same problem is to check the configuration of your LAN ports. If they are set to Trunk/Any then it is definitely not the same problem. If you are using wired VLAN tagging settings then it could still be the same problem, but as described above it seems unlikely nonetheless. Hope this helps.
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@peparn
Thank you for your help to explain on this 
.
@Michael,
Please open a support ticket for us to check. We need to further check from the device. Just worry the issue can be related to port link state issue. You are saying Netgear CM600, did the modem able to set the port speeds ?
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Does this problem affect all Balance routers? I have a Surf Soho MK3 and a Balance 20 using the latest firmware. When I use the Balance 20, I occasionally have my Comcast WAN connection enter a “Connecting” state forever. When I use the Surf Soho MK3, I haven’t experienced this problem using the patched firmware, but then I don’t use the Surf Soho a great deal. I do have wired vlans in both Trunk mode with a custom VLAN configuration and in Access mode (only one port in Trunk/Any).
The Balance 20 is what I normally use since the Surf Soho MK3 doesn’t support 2 WAN’s at the same time, just failover. I only have the Surf Soho MK3 because I support about 20 other people to whom I have supplied Surf Soho MK3’s.
If the problem does exist on Balance routers, when will there be a patched version available?
So far we only see the problem happen for Surf SOHO MK3.
For Balance 20, would you please open a support ticket for us to further check ?
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Good Morning,
Yesterday I ran into this (or a similar) problem myself.
The SOHO MK3 is connected to a DSL modem which is in bridge mode.
I missed internet during the day (got notification for it) and when I got home I restarted the DSL router (normally the cause) but no solution. After restarting the SOHO MK3 problem still not resolved. Then I did multiple checks (Manually set MTU, statically set DNS, Changed network cables) but in the GUI it always just showed “Connecting” and sometimes briefly showed “Acquiring IP Address” but it never really connected. When I connected the DSL router to the AmpliFi router it immediately connected and I had at least internet on my Home network. Even upgrading to the latest firmware (7.1.2) did not resolve this issue
I’ve read through this tread a bit last night, and even though i see possible solutions mentioned about switching the LAN ports to trunk instead of access, and what else, I do not believe this should be an issue for a router in this segment. I will try and see this weekend what I can find out by using a switch / port mirroring between the SOHO and DSL but since this does change a bit in the set-up I don’t know it this would change the workings and might already resolve the issue.
Does the support team already have a real idea what causes this problem? And when will the diagnostic report be available in english ? Might help others with doing some fault-finding since the event log shows nothing on the DHCP / WAN process.
Confirmed 7.1.2 fixed the issue reported in this forum.
Base on your issue description:
The behavior is totally different from what have been discussed here 
“Surf SOHO MK3 never finishes connecting to cable modem if modem reboots”
For your case, can you please open a support ticket here to allow support team to check on this.
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