XR500 freeze? Logs?

[Bat 'n' Ball]

Hello,

I came home from work today to find I couldn't log onto my PlayStation 4.

On checking my mobile phone, it had connected to the XR500 Wi-Fi (and periodically kept on doing so) but it seemed there was no internet, so it kept switching back to cellular data for an internet connection.

I thought I’d try the router GUI to see what was wrong in the logs, but entering the IP of the router came back with a blank Chrome page as though the router was not connected at all.

I restarted the router only - not the modem - and all was good again. This is fine when I’m at home and I can sort things out, but I have services which I remotely access when I’m away from home so this has flagged up a potential issue for me.

Once the router had rebooted, the GUI was accessible again. I checked the logs but they only seemed to go back to when I had just logged into the router to find out what the problem was!

To sum up:

•    The PS4 had no wired internet connectivity.
•    The router was transmitting a Wi-Fi signal but (I assume) no internet. 
•    The logs did not go back as far as when the issue might have occurred. 
•    The power LED on the router was a solid white, as though all was fine.

Are random freezes of this router a commonly reported issue? Is there an extended log somewhere that might shed light on why my router appeared to have froze up, which I could access?

Thank you.

[Netduma Fraser]

Sorry to hear you're having this issue. I think one thing to try and narrow down where the issue lies is to check the log of your ISP modem/router, it may have an entry about the router/device disconnecting or the modem itself disconnecting. If the modem disconnected briefly then there was an issue for the router re-establishing a connection and therefore shouldn't happen often. If the device itself disconnected then we'll need to think on what could have caused the router to do this.

[Bat 'n' Ball]

Hi Netduma Fraser,

Thanks for your reply.

I do not use an ISP-provided modem. It’s a NETGEAR DM200 modem. Its logs seem to hold no information which might be of help. It only has two lines of text:
[admin login] from source 192.168.5.5 
[Initialized, firmware version: V1.0.0.61]

The modem is in ‘Modem Only’ mode as opposed to the default ‘Modem + Router’ mode. Just to clarify, even though the DM200 is branded as a modem, it does have router features, too, but I have turned those off because as you know the XR500 provides router functionality.

Do you think it’s possible the DSL connection might have a bearing on the problem? If I remove the WAN ethernet cable from the XR500 router, I can still log into the router GUI – I couldn’t earlier when I thought the router had crashed.

For your information, my ISP is British Telecom and the line is VDSL. All the way back to ADSL and even 56K dial-up (eek) in the early 00’s, I can’t recall ever having any noteworthy problems with my internet – it’s always been pretty much rock solid.

I’ve had the router just over a month now and this is the first time it’s ever seemed to have crashed, so it might just be a random glitch.

I’ll post back to this thread if I have any crashing issues in the future but if you have any further suggestions in the meantime, please let me know.
 

Edited November 9, 2019 by Bat 'n' Ball
Typo. Changed 'LAN ethernet cable' to 'WAN ethernet cable'

[Netduma Fraser]

If the modem doesn't have any worthwhile logs then it suggests it's probably happily passing on traffic to the router without issue. It's unlikely if it's been fine all this time but is possible. What I would suggest is see if it happens again, if it does then change the DM200 into router mode and put the XR500 in it's DMZ. If it happens again connect to the DM200 WiFi and see if you get a connection, if you do then there is some issue with the XR500. Fingers crossed it's just a blip though.

[Bat 'n' Ball]

Hi Netduma Fraser,

Thanks for your reply.

If I have issues again, I'll follow your suggestions and post back to this thread.