Short Version:
-Surf Locks up, wifi disappears, cycling power fixes, happening once to multiple times/day
-Out of the box had Firmware 6.3.3, updated to 7.0.2, problem persists
-While in the “locked” state, cannot access the unit nor factory reset via physical button
-Cycled power, did factory reset, problem occurred again
I have a Surf SOHO MK3 with a bit of an issue. I have this device connected to my cellular hotspot using WiFi as WAN (2.4Ghz). I came home a month ago to having no home wifi network from the Surf, though the hotspot was still active. I rebooted the Surf, everything came up fine, drove on for a couple of weeks before it happened again. Now its happening with increased frequency, sometimes multiple times a day my Surf’s wifi will disappear. When this happens, I cannot even get an IP address (via DHCP) via Ethernet when connecting a laptop to the Surf. Unplugging the unit, then powering it back on fixes the problem. My next step was to update the Firmware. The unit shipped with 6.3.3 (I believe), so I updated it through the Web Admin software to 7.0.2 build 1253. The problem then happened again. At that point I decided to do a full reset and start my config over. While the unit was in the “locked up” state, I couldn’t even reset the router from the button on the back. I held the button in for 60 seconds and the two lights stayed solid green, no reboot. I had to cycle the power in order to reset the system. I did a factory reset, still on 7.0.2 build 1253, and the problem happened once again. My Surf functions as my home wifi router, and having all my devices suddenly disconnected is no good! Has anyone else had something similar?
To be clear: do the lockups only happen when the Surf SOHO is online via Wifi-as-WAN or does it also lockup when fed by an Ethernet based ISP?
If it locks up again, try getting in via Ethernet from a computer with a hard coded IP address in a valid subnet, no DHCP needed. If this fails, it helps diagnose the problem. If it succeeds, even moreso. While connected, note the state of both the computer and the router ethernet ports LED lights.
And, is there anything of interest in the Event log from just before and just after the lockup?
Clarification: The Surf ONLY has Wifi-as-WAN for an internet connection. There is no hardline in or out of it on a regular basis (the only time I connect to the Surf via Ethernet is for setup).
I had not thought to do a static IP, but will do that at the next event.
The Event Log page under Status->Event Log is a blank page. At the moment, the router is completely at factory defaults with the exception of creating the Wifi-as-WAN link and renaming the internal Wifi network to my own.
4 Clients under “Top Clients”. Each has 1 Total Session save for the home desktop (connected via wifi) which has 16 Total Sessions.
At present, Uptime is 1 day, 13 hours, 33 minutes, which is a new uptime record since these problems started. I post on the help forums and it stops dying…such is life.
I’ve been seeing a very similar sounding behavior on my MK3 for months now, with the 2nd & 3rd SSID (WPA2 personal) basically shutting down 1-2 times per day. By shutting down, I mean often the problem SSIDs stop being broadcast & all devices on them can’t connect because there’s “no WiFi”. (i.e. They don’t become hidden - they really stop existing.) The 1st SSID seems to keep working fine (WPA2 Enterprise) even though the 2nd & 3rd have disappeared & disconnected the devices originally connected to them. I originally thought it had to do with some range extenders for the 2nd & 3rd SSIDs, but the range extenders were removed from the network months ago. I mentioned this in the forums a while back, but have been traveling too much to open a support ticket. My “work around” has been to put the radio (AP → Settings) on a schedule that shuts it off entirely twice a day. When the radios resume, everything reconnects and works for a while. The downside is the schedule (System → Schedule) is poorly implemented with a 30 minute granularity, so the WiFi is offline for 1 hour out of every 24. (The schedule feature is almost useless having on a 30 minute granularity - why not make it 1 minute?) In normal use, the 1st SSID has a few devices, 2nd SSID has 10 devices connected to it, and the 3rd SSID has 6. The 1st & 3rd SSID’s are on the untagged VLAN, the 2nd SSID is on a tagged VLAN. The system has a 3rd tagged VLAN that is Ethernet only. The main WAN connection is Ethernet (to Comcast), the 1st fallback is USB to an AT&T hotspot (Standby), the 2nd fallback is WiFi to a Comcast Xfinity hot spot broadcast from nearby (Cold Standby).
I wonder if using WiFi as WAN in any capacity screws up the long term WiFi as LAN behavior(?)
@mjburns: WiFi, like the Internet, was not originally designed with security in mind. Anyone in range of a wireless network can knock any client off the network. I think what they need to send is a de-auth packet and anyone can send one at any time. Most WiFi clients will automatically reconnect, not sure how the Surf SOHO deals with this when its the WiFi client.
@KMaxwell: problem with a totally blank event log is not just you. I have been seeing that too.
It finally happened again, and thankfully I had done a Diagnostic Report the night before. Created a Support Ticked with the pre- and post-lockup diagnostics. While in the locked up state, I can’t get in with a static IP (192.168.50.10/255.255.255.0) either. Browser just says site (default IP address: 192.168.50.1) can’t be reached. Both indicator lights on the front of the unit (Status and Wifi) stay solid. Wifi usually blinks with activity, but stays solid with no blinking while locked.
I finally got to the bottom of my issue as described above. All of the problems were due to using the WiFi as Cold Standby WAN. Once I disabled that, no problems whatsoever. None. Don’t know if it’s a Comcast Xfinity WiFi issue, a Pepwave WiFi WAN issue, or combination of both. I can live with the main WAN connection as Ethernet (to Comcast) and only 1 fallback to USB (connected to a AT&T cellular hotspot).
Any chance of this getting addressed? I was about to return the SOHO MK3 until I came across this post. Just made the change, so no idea if this will fix things for me too, but the symptoms of my problem seem to be identical.
I had to end up returning my unit for a replacement (which was a multi-month ordeal to get it replaced). The new unit works just fine, so it may very well have been a hardware defect (since we reset and reflashed the maligned device multiple times)
Sorry, I missed this thread. Blank event log pages are usually due to an adblocker extension in the browser killing part of the scripts responsible for building the event log table. If you’re still having issues with this, try disabling it or loading the page in incognito mode.
In my case, the event logs were not empty, just contained no valuable information at any time near the lockup. Said another way, it does not appear that the router had any advance warning it was going to happen; ie., not low on memory, etc. Just found out the throughput is much lower than I require, so I am going to have to return, however, I do really like the control interface.