Question Need help with weird home ethernet networking problem. Ethernet stops working daily between 6 pm to 6 am

[get sir]

Hello Everyone,


I need your help in solving an extremely annoying and weird networking issue I have been having since setting up home ethernet networking at my new house.


A brief summary of my current network set up:


I receive my internet via Fiber to home ISP (Airtel India), the fiberoptic cable is connected to ISP provided Modem-Router combo device (Zyxel PMG5617-R20B). From this router I have a Netgear GS308 8 port Switch connected via Cat 6 Cable. To this switch all the ethernet ports in my house are connected via Cat 6 cables. I have total 7 ethernet ports in the house ( 4 in the living room, and one each in the 3 bedrooms)


Following are the devices that are actively connected 24X7 via ethernet:


I have 2 Tp-Link Deco X20 units (one in the living room and one in master bedroom)


Sonos Beam Gen 2 in the living room


Xbox gaming console in the living room


My Mac Studio in the Study/Office room


Most of my other devices are on Wifi connected via the Tp Link Deco.


I have switched off the Wireless router on my ISP provided router and use only the LAN connection to the Netgear Switch.


Issue:


The ethernet connection in my Study/Office room is the problem. During the day time it works perfectly fine, I get full network speed and no drops in connection. But around 6 to 7 pm in the evening, every day, the ethernet stops working. It goes into self assigned IP or inactive mode and I am forced to use Wifi for my internet. Then on its own it starts working in the early morning next day around 5 to 6 am.


I initially thought it was an issue with my Mac Studio, I searching online about this issue and tried various fixes but none made any difference.


Then I checked with other devices connected to the same port, like Intel NUC PC, iPad Pro via USB C to LAN hub, and Tp Link Wifi Repeater, all of them have the same issue. they work fine during the day time and stop working in the evening.


I have tried switching cable to different ports on my netgear switch, didn't help


I have tried connecting the cable directly to the ISP router, still the same issue.


I even purchased the ethernet cable tester device to check if the issue is with the cable, but it showed that the cable is working absolutely fine!


Again I have having this issue with only this single ethernet port in my entire house, all other ports are working fine.


I am unable to figure out where the problem is.


If anyone can help solve this problem it will be really helpful for me.


Thanks in advance.

 

[USAFRet]

all of them have the same issue. they work fine during the day time and stop working in the evening.

If it is ALL of your devices, the problem is outside your home.

When you called your ISP, what did they say?

 

[get sir]

No, sorry for any confusion, the problem is only with this one ethernet port. Internet and networking work fine in the rest of the house and for every other ethernet port.

 

[evermorex76]

But you also said you moved the cable to different ports on the switch and also plugged directly into the ISP device, which means it's happening on multiple ports with multiple devices. So it sounds like you're saying that multiple devices using that cable have the problem, even when plugged into different ports. It seems like the only thing you haven't done is actually change the cable. Basic cable testers don't do anything more than test continuity, not signal quality, so even though it says it's good there is still a possibility that the cable is bad OR that there is interference. How is the cabling routed? Is it in the wall or running along the floor? Are the cables directly from the computers to the switch, or do you have wall jacks installed? Can you replace it with a different cable and route it differently? (There could be something in the area where the cable goes which is running during the night and causing severe electrical interference.)

Also check the event logs in the OS to see whether it's showing things like a disconnected NIC or anything like that at the time you lose service. It may or may not provide enough detail to be helpful. You may also find something in the logs on the ISP router.

 

[get sir]

So the routing is as follows:
ISP Router to Netgear Switch via cat 6 cable then from switch via another cat 6 cable running through the wall and terminating in the office room as a wall jack. from the the wall jack connected to Mac Studio via another cat 6 cable.

Changing the cable will require me to get an electrician, hence I want to rule out all other issues. I have already replaced the terminating ends of the cable to rule out any damage to the ends.

The fact that ethernet works completely fine during the day and stops working around 630 pm give or take 10 mins is very odd.

 

[bill001g]

Other than something very strange like the sun heats up a room/cable at that time I can't see how time of day issue would be hardware.

The switch is very stupid It has a extremely simple table of what mac addresses are on what ports. When is sees a data packet it simply looks at the destination mac address and looks it up in its table and sends it out the corresponding port. This is all done in hardware there is not even firmware you can update. You need a fairly fancy switch to even purposely filter traffic by time of day.

If we assume you did not do something silly like put in a rule in the router that blocks traffic for just your 1 end device I can't see how only 1 device would be affected. If the router has some issue it should affect all traffic.

So is the device you are having issues with plugged directly into the wall or is one of the remote tplink echo things plugged into the wall and then into your device having a issue. I really hate these mesh systems they have massive amount of software glitches in them.

Do you get lights on the ethernet port when you plug the cable in. Most pc have lights but if not you should be able to look at the switch and see the light go on and off when you plug unplug the cable. I strongly suspect it is functional at this low level and the lights will be on when expected.

What happens if you manually set a IP address on the ethernet port. This is mostly to rule out some strange DHCP issue. Note disable the IPv6 support and only use IPv4. IPv6 has many strange issues and you should not actually need IPv6 for anything.

 

[get sir]

Other than something very strange like the sun heats up a room/cable at that time I can't see how time of day issue would be hardware.

The switch is very stupid It has a extremely simple table of what mac addresses are on what ports. When is sees a data packet it simply looks at the destination mac address and looks it up in its table and sends it out the corresponding port. This is all done in hardware there is not even firmware you can update. You need a fairly fancy switch to even purposely filter traffic by time of day.

If we assume you did not do something silly like put in a rule in the router that blocks traffic for just your 1 end device I can't see how only 1 device would be affected. If the router has some issue it should affect all traffic.

So is the device you are having issues with plugged directly into the wall or is one of the remote tplink echo things plugged into the wall and then into your device having a issue. I really hate these mesh systems they have massive amount of software glitches in them.

Do you get lights on the ethernet port when you plug the cable in. Most pc have lights but if not you should be able to look at the switch and see the light go on and off when you plug unplug the cable. I strongly suspect it is functional at this low level and the lights will be on when expected.

What happens if you manually set a IP address on the ethernet port. This is mostly to rule out some strange DHCP issue. Note disable the IPv6 support and only use IPv4. IPv6 has many strange issues and you should not actually need IPv6 for anything.

Hello,
Thanks for the reply
The device (Usually Mac Studio but also Intel NUC mini PC sometimes) is connected directly to the ethernet wall socket, no router in between.
So Mac/PC >>Cat 6 Cable>>Wall Socket>>Cat 6 cable running though the wall>>Netgear Switch (unmanaged GS308)>>ISP Modem/Router (I have tired connecting directly to the ISP router and avoiding the switch, no difference)

When the ethernet stops working, there are no lights on the switch/router end and none on the PC end either. It's like nothing is connected.
On my Mac Studio, ethernet shows either "Self assigned IP" or "Not connected"

I haven't tried setting manual IP address. I will see if I can try it tomorrow morning when my ethernet is back working and will report back (current night in india so my ethernet isn't working)

 

[evermorex76]

If you have no lights, then a static IP isn't going to make a difference. If it happens on multiple endpoint devices connected to multiple ports on multiple network devices, and can rule out configurations of any kind, there is a cabling issue somewhere. You know it's not configuration since it affects different devices and ports, so nothing is being disabled on a schedule for a particular MAC address or port.

Replace the short cables between the devices and the wall jacks and the switch (even if you just swap them with the cables used on some other devices). If that doesn't make a difference, it's the wall jacks or the cable in the wall. You say you replaced the ends of the cables but it's not clear if you mean the short ones between the jacks and devices. You could try reterminating or replacing the wall jacks as well. In order to rule out the cable run in the wall, you could just buy a cable long enough to run along the floors from one room to the other temporarily, assuming it's not longer than the 100 meter limit and won't be unacceptably in the way or impossible to route.

It's entirely possible that the cable in the wall is passing by a point where there is a bad electrical wire that is causing interference during those hours, or is behind the wall next to a poorly-shielded device in your house. If you have some idea of exactly how it was routed (up the wall into the attic then over to another wall and down to the jack, or down to the basement, etc.) you could at least check all the areas in the rooms where you know it passes. At the least you know it's not likely to be something outside the house, since it only affects this one cable, unless it gets routed outside for some distance and the others don't. I assume you'd know if anything in your own house comes on only during those particular hours.

 

[Ralston18]

@get sir

Just following up on a post by@evermorex76

"Also check the event logs in the OS to see whether it's showing things like a disconnected NIC or anything like that at the time you lose service. It may or may not provide enough detail to be helpful. You may also find something in the logs on the ISP router."

Any entries in the OS event logs or the ISP router logs (if available and enabled).

Who has full admin rights to the ISP router logs? You will need help from that person.