Hello everyone,
I've posted this on the community forums for my router manufacturer, (TP-Link Archer A7) but I wanted to also post it here to see if I could get any answers. I've been having this problem for about 48 hours now, and I really need my internet for work, so it has been an issue, although at least there is a way to temporarily fix it, as I will outline below. Thank you for any help anyone might provide.
For about 48 hours, my Archer A7 semi-randomly loses its connection to my ISP. I say "semi-randomly" because it consistently does it between every 4-5 hours. I can't get an exact fix because I'm usually not using the internet right at the time it fails (or noticing that it has failed) but it is definitely between 4-5 hours after the last router reboot or manual release and renewal of the Dynamic IP.
After dealing with this several times during the workday Friday, I called my ISP to get some help the next day. Just in case maybe it was a modem problem. However, it wasn't, and they confirmed that the last time my router had asked for a new lease had been earlier that morning, and that it definitely should have asked for one a couple more times since then, but it did not. My ISP could see some data and determined that it looked like the router was not picking up a new IP lease when it should, thus determining that I had no internet access. Again, a manual reboot of the router or my manual releasing of the IP fixes this issue, until the next interval 4-5 hours later.
The modem is from my ISP, and I am unsure of its make and model. Unfortunately, they put it in when they installed fiber about a year ago, and it is in a difficult place for me to reach (I've a mobility impairment and it requires some crawling to get to where the modem is). The Archer A7 router is not from my ISP, it was a gift at the beginning of the year and has worked very well till now.
There are typically 4 devices that use my router: A console, a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone. I mention all of this stuff because I read the stickied thread on how to ask for help and thought it might be relevant.
Based on talking with my ISP and some of the fixes I found on the community forums for the manufacturer, we decided I should change the lease time from the default to something else. I shortened it to an hour, but this didn't help. I wondered if perhaps the router was having trouble renewing the IP after a certain number of successful renewals, so I then set the timer to the ludicrously low number of 6 minutes, wondering if perhaps it would fail to renew after a few tries/minutes instead of the usual 4-5 hours. This didn't help either. Which, given my limited understanding leads me to believe that the router has no problem releasing and renewing the IP as many times at it wants for the given lease time. It always stops doing it at the 4-5 hour mark regardless of how often it needs to perform the renewal. It is as though the router is fine doing its job for 5 hour intervals and then just refuses, requiring me to manually release and renew the IP as some kind of "break" for it so that it resets that timer.
I suppose it could be faulty, but it is only a few months old, and it is odd that it is perfectly capable of doing its job for several hours after a reboot or manual release.
A few other things:
I didn't change any settings recently prior to this problem starting. In fact, haven't needed to do anything to it since getting it until now.
It did need a firmware update, which I did, though this did not help. I also reset the network again completely and set it up again. This also didn't help. I read some threads where some people felt that rolling back the firmware solved their issue, but mine was occurring before I updated the firmware. This is the first time I updated the firmware since I got the router. It is now running the latest firmware.
Got a new cable for the connection between the router and modem just in case a physical connection was faulty, also no help.
I have not changed the lease time to a much longer time than the default, yet, but based on the fact that it doesn't seem to care when the lease is up, only when the 5-hour mark has passed, I am not sure this would do anything.
I've also found out that, although manually releasing and renewing the DHCP fixes the problem for about 5 hours, doing this in the middle of the previous reset does not extend the "timer". For example, if the router fails to release and renew at 6p.m., and I decide to release and renew at 8p.m., it will still fail to release the IP at around 11p.m., 5ish hours from the last time it failed to do so, even if I did a manual release and renew in between then. It is as though the router feels it must wait that allotted time before it decides to not release and renew.
With no problems for the modem, either, I'm at a loss as to what to do. It could be I need to replace the router, but since I use the internet for work, I wanted to try every possible thing first.
I do plan to report back to my ISP next week, but I also wanted to check here to see if anyone else had any ideas.
Thank you for reading.
That's about it, although I am happy to provide any additional information. I can post logs once I get back to the computer later tomorrow, although I am not sure how to read most of the information in the logs or if it is safe to share, perhaps someone can tell me. For what it might be worth, there's no log activity except for several entries dated from before I got the router (weird) and then several entries from when this started happening, and that's about it. I know this a rambling post, and I am sure I've forgotten something important that you need to know in order to help. I'll try to get back to this thread tomorrow to check any replies and do what I can. Thank you.
I've posted this on the community forums for my router manufacturer, (TP-Link Archer A7) but I wanted to also post it here to see if I could get any answers. I've been having this problem for about 48 hours now, and I really need my internet for work, so it has been an issue, although at least there is a way to temporarily fix it, as I will outline below. Thank you for any help anyone might provide.
For about 48 hours, my Archer A7 semi-randomly loses its connection to my ISP. I say "semi-randomly" because it consistently does it between every 4-5 hours. I can't get an exact fix because I'm usually not using the internet right at the time it fails (or noticing that it has failed) but it is definitely between 4-5 hours after the last router reboot or manual release and renewal of the Dynamic IP.
After dealing with this several times during the workday Friday, I called my ISP to get some help the next day. Just in case maybe it was a modem problem. However, it wasn't, and they confirmed that the last time my router had asked for a new lease had been earlier that morning, and that it definitely should have asked for one a couple more times since then, but it did not. My ISP could see some data and determined that it looked like the router was not picking up a new IP lease when it should, thus determining that I had no internet access. Again, a manual reboot of the router or my manual releasing of the IP fixes this issue, until the next interval 4-5 hours later.
The modem is from my ISP, and I am unsure of its make and model. Unfortunately, they put it in when they installed fiber about a year ago, and it is in a difficult place for me to reach (I've a mobility impairment and it requires some crawling to get to where the modem is). The Archer A7 router is not from my ISP, it was a gift at the beginning of the year and has worked very well till now.
There are typically 4 devices that use my router: A console, a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone. I mention all of this stuff because I read the stickied thread on how to ask for help and thought it might be relevant.
Based on talking with my ISP and some of the fixes I found on the community forums for the manufacturer, we decided I should change the lease time from the default to something else. I shortened it to an hour, but this didn't help. I wondered if perhaps the router was having trouble renewing the IP after a certain number of successful renewals, so I then set the timer to the ludicrously low number of 6 minutes, wondering if perhaps it would fail to renew after a few tries/minutes instead of the usual 4-5 hours. This didn't help either. Which, given my limited understanding leads me to believe that the router has no problem releasing and renewing the IP as many times at it wants for the given lease time. It always stops doing it at the 4-5 hour mark regardless of how often it needs to perform the renewal. It is as though the router is fine doing its job for 5 hour intervals and then just refuses, requiring me to manually release and renew the IP as some kind of "break" for it so that it resets that timer.
I suppose it could be faulty, but it is only a few months old, and it is odd that it is perfectly capable of doing its job for several hours after a reboot or manual release.
A few other things:
I didn't change any settings recently prior to this problem starting. In fact, haven't needed to do anything to it since getting it until now.
It did need a firmware update, which I did, though this did not help. I also reset the network again completely and set it up again. This also didn't help. I read some threads where some people felt that rolling back the firmware solved their issue, but mine was occurring before I updated the firmware. This is the first time I updated the firmware since I got the router. It is now running the latest firmware.
Got a new cable for the connection between the router and modem just in case a physical connection was faulty, also no help.
I have not changed the lease time to a much longer time than the default, yet, but based on the fact that it doesn't seem to care when the lease is up, only when the 5-hour mark has passed, I am not sure this would do anything.
I've also found out that, although manually releasing and renewing the DHCP fixes the problem for about 5 hours, doing this in the middle of the previous reset does not extend the "timer". For example, if the router fails to release and renew at 6p.m., and I decide to release and renew at 8p.m., it will still fail to release the IP at around 11p.m., 5ish hours from the last time it failed to do so, even if I did a manual release and renew in between then. It is as though the router feels it must wait that allotted time before it decides to not release and renew.
With no problems for the modem, either, I'm at a loss as to what to do. It could be I need to replace the router, but since I use the internet for work, I wanted to try every possible thing first.
I do plan to report back to my ISP next week, but I also wanted to check here to see if anyone else had any ideas.
Thank you for reading.
That's about it, although I am happy to provide any additional information. I can post logs once I get back to the computer later tomorrow, although I am not sure how to read most of the information in the logs or if it is safe to share, perhaps someone can tell me. For what it might be worth, there's no log activity except for several entries dated from before I got the router (weird) and then several entries from when this started happening, and that's about it. I know this a rambling post, and I am sure I've forgotten something important that you need to know in order to help. I'll try to get back to this thread tomorrow to check any replies and do what I can. Thank you.