Question WAN only can't connect after lightning

[binarylegit]

Yesterday there was a very close lightning strike (less than a second between the bright flash and incredibly loud boom). Immediately after, I looked at my modem and noticed that the LED indicator for the router connection was off. I have a 4-port Protectli pfsense box as my router and the LED's on the WAN port of the pfsense box were also off. I power cycled the pfsense box and the lights came back up on the WAN port of the pfsense box, but when I tried the internet it failed to connect. I plugged in a different wireless router to my modem and it was able to connect to the internet without a problem.

On my pfsense box I could still reach the pfsense web GUI on the LAN but nothing that I've tried has allowed me to get a WAN connection (the logs show dpinger sendto errors). I've tried:
* change the cable
* change the physical port assigned to the WAN interface
* reverting to an older backup configuration
* reinstalling pfsense (the installer booting from a usb stick could not establish an internet connection).

At this point I assume something with the hardware got fried in the lightning strike but I'm confused why I can still operate on the LAN, and yet the WAN connection fails. Is there some piece of hardware that is only required for WAN connections that could have been fried by the lightning strike?

 

[Grobe]

Does the house get wired connection or fiber ?

 

[USAFRet]

Lightning can follow strange pathways.

Something in your chain is now fried.

 

[binarylegit]

Does the house get wired connection or fiber ?

My Internet is coax

 

[Grobe]

My Internet is coax

Ok, so then maybe your modem is also damaged. Anyway, this is a potential pathway of lightening.

 

[binarylegit]

Ok, so then maybe your modem is also damaged. Anyway, this is a potential pathway of lightening.

That was my initial thought, but my other wireless router connects through my modem without issue.

Edit: I'm not sure if this is possible, but I was thinking that maybe, somehow, the coax had a surge which the modem handled fine, but it passed it down link and the router then got fried.

 

[USAFRet]

That was my initial thought, but my other wireless router connects through my modem without issue.

Edit: I'm not sure if this is possible, but I was thinking that maybe, somehow, the coax had a surge which the modem handled fine, but it passed it down link and the router then got fried.

The other router is irrelevant. As said above, electricity can follow strange pathways.
One device can be fine, another, toast.