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[markbarabus]

Hi Mick,

Thanks for posting, very helpful and your time is much appreciated.

At one point i had the HG612 setup as you describe in a fully bridged mode over LLC with everything off and it was sucessfully working with the router but disconnecting every 1-2 mins. At the time i was actually running a constant ping test with the -t command and watching the stats in ddwrt so it wasnt a case of keep alive being too long/short or anything but i did try experimenting with different values.

The 'force reconnect' option in ddwrt is probably not what your thinking as its for setting a set time that you want the router to reconnect. So it wont actually reconnect if the connection is lost but will force it to connect at a certain time, for instance if i wanted it to connect at 7am every morning.

I actually posted a thread on the dd-wrt forums about the connection dropping over ppoe but this didnt receive any attention unfortunately- probably because i dont know how to explain the issue very well. I did however post the log output on there where it basically tells me WAN is up over and over. If anyone wants to take a look the thread is here http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=276121&highlight=

Also in that thread i mention setting up a PC with a direct ppoe connection where i had zero issue ie no disconnects so to me the problem is either the modem or the router. I was quick to blame the router but after flashing various ddwrt firmwares and flashing it back to stock where the issue remained i'm not so sure. Is it possible that BT have indeed messed something up with ppoe?

I just dont know what more to try at this point, i seem to have tried just about everything to get this setup working. I like to think i have a decent understanding of modems, routers and networking/computers in general but this modem has gone way way over my head. In fact i dont think i have ever experienced anything so complicated so its a tad frustrating for me.

[Mick]

Thanks for the link to the DD-WRT forum.  What I see from your logs posted there is that the PPP daemon keeps shutting down, which points to the DD-WRT firmware.  The reason is not obvious.  

Just to cover all the basics, can you please confirm that the bridged modem was set with:

Encapsualtion: LLC or Bridged LLC if it offers this setting
VPI/VCI: 0/38

And the router PPPoE authentication was set up as:
username: BT's_username@btbroadband.com (adjust this as necessary for your username)
password: BT or bt

Also you should set it to use the CHAP protocol.


However, if running a PC with PPPoE works without problems, then I would suspect that something is amiss with the router settings.  If the modem was to blame, then why does it work with a PC performing the PPPoE part?

Can you set the router logs to be more verbose?  Does the router have a packet capture feature (like tcpdump, or wireshark)?  You need more detailed logs to see what is being exchanged between your router and the ISP's RADIUS, which may involve connecting a PC with its interface in promiscuous mode and sniffing the router's WAN connection to see what is happening.

[kitzuser87430]

Mike

Thanks for popping in and giving us your experience, My settings are indeed as you mention (apart from using my isps login details), and like Mark my pppoe connection keeps dropping when connected to my router.

I have only tried the one router (huawei hg635), the talk talk super router, i will try another router (tomato based) and a  PC connection in the next few days/weeks;

like you my modem was connecting perfectly (VC-MUX encap.) until 2am on 3rd October on a 20C exchange.

Ian

[markbarabus]

Thanks again Mike

I can confirm my settings are as you mention above.

I have been through everything again this morning to double check and try a few more settings but still the disconnects continue.

At that point i decided to dust off some old router/modem combos and give those a try and just like the pc test they were flawless over pppoe with no disconnects.

I dont have a spare router capable of testing the pppoe bridge with the hg612 modem so i only have the wnr2200 running ddwrt for this purpose. I did flash back to stock firmware again though where the disconnects remain and i'm 100% certain that a pppoe bridge was working last year on stock firmware as i had it connected to a vigor 120 modem in bridge mode.

I will see if i can get some better logging from the ddwrt firmware and post back later today.

[markbarabus]

Apologies for not posting back sooner.

I have been trying to get better logging on the dd-wrt router but so far no luck. I'm a bit of a novice at this and mostly following guides which are outdated so although i can ssh into the router fine the commands i'm entering are just not running- presumably because the packages that run these have since been updated and commands have changed.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Debugging_PPPOE_Problems

I'm not giving up just yet though; i have tidied up my thread in dd-wrt forums in hope that someone will come a long and give some expert advice. Will also be giving the logging another try this evening when i finish work so fingers crossed  .

[markbarabus]

Just looking into alternative configurations. There is something called a static ip wan configuration in dd-wrt where i presume the modem is linked manually to the modem through ip alocation. Is this something that i could get to work with hg612 or am i wasting my time with it? I tried setting the router on a different subnet 192.168.2.1 and assigning the gateway etc to 192.168.1.1 (the modem) but this didnt appear to work.

[Mick]

As far as I know this is to set up on the router the static IP address that your ISP has allocated to you, rather than running a DHCP client on the router, to pick up an IP address from the ISP's DHCP servers.

On the router run 'ps -axf' (but the syntax will depend on the ps command variant that the router firmware provides) to  check if syslog is running.  If it is, then check /var/log/syslog to see what it reports, while you disconnect and reconnect the router from the modem.

A simpler test would be to borrow an old Netgear router or some such and set up your user credentials provided by your ISP on that, to see if when you connect it to the modem you obtain a PPPoE session which remains up without interruptions.  If this works, then the problem seems to be with the dd-wrt firmware and then you're into debugging and bug reporting, assuming the developers are interested in fixing it.

[markbarabus]

Hi Mick,

Once again thanks for taking the time to help me on this and i apologise for my late reply but its been pretty hectic here.

I gave up on the static IP route as i think you are right, i was just thinking i could maybe trick it by pointing the ip to the modem . There are a few other options on DDWRT such as PPPTP and DHCP but its looking like PPPOE is the only realistic option here.

In regards to the commands i couldnt get 'ps -axf' to run and i'm afraid my knowledge on this subject is very limited so i dont have a clue what the alternative variants would be. However, i know syslog is running on the router because i have the option enabled in the GUI  . There was no /var/log/syslog folder but i believe i read DDWRT sends all its logs to /tmp/var/log/messages as thats where i got my information from last time. So once again i have gone in that folder and opened up the log file where i have a nice long output. There seems to be more info this time possibly because i updated to the latest DDWRT build the other week. Again i'm afraid i cant make much sense of it but maybe this will help identify my problem?

http://pastebin.com/ASjkdvGM

[Mick]

Up to line 23 the date is 1 Jan, then it switches over to 22 Nov.  I expect this is normal and happens when the clock synchronizes with some NTP server.  What I find confusing in this log is that certain services, e.g. upnp, pppd, and some processes, keep stopping and starting in quick succession.  Within 2 minutes you have obtained two different IP addresses from the ISP, the VPN modules were unloaded twice and so on.  Unless you are doing this your self, e.g. by resetting the PPPoE connection, then there is something clearly amiss with the router.  It may be the hardware or it may be the firmware.  In any case, this is not the expected behaviour of a router.  To follow a process of elimination borrow another router from a friend, configure it with PPPoE authentication for your ISP's settings and see if the problem persists.  The fact that your PC's PPPoE client does not experience disconnections or similar problems, points to a suspect router.

As I don't have in my possession a modem or router like yours, I'm not sure I can help further with this problem.  I hope you find out what's wrong with it, but I suspect that you may have to replace the device altogether.

[kitzuser87430]

my pppoe connection keeps dropping when connected to my router.

Mick don't forget I have exactly the same problem with my Huawei hg635 (using the fibre wan connection) dropping connection every 1-2 mins.

Further to my previous post my hg612 is now retired....... the hg635 is as stable as the hg612 so I have no need to experiment further. (I may do if I experience problems in the future).

Ian

[markbarabus]

I have no idea if any of this is normal for ddwrt. All i can say is its not me resetting the connection, it just does it of its own accord every 2 mins.

Also, considering i get exactly the same problem on stock netgear firmware (no ddwrt) i dont think this is ddwrt related at all. I would also say its not the router as i know for a fact i have had pppoe working previously running stock netgear firmware.

I have a draytek vigor 120 modem i could have tried but the power supply appears to have died and its one of those you cant replace. I suppose i could chance getting a new power supply to see if i can revive it and if i get the same results that would rule out the hg612. I would then have to get another router just to rule out a router problem but if i get the same results again where do i go from there? I already opened a thread on the BT forums and i got a straight up reply stating i shouldnt be using pppoe over adsl which is obviously wrong but clearly they dont want to know.

It seems a whole lot of effort just to get a bridge working but i suppose we have to go to these lengths to get a good stable connection. Knowing i'll have a great connection after is probably the sole reason i havent given up.

Ian i'm just curious how do you have that hg635 set up, is it over pppoe?

[burakkucat]

I have a draytek vigor 120 modem i could have tried but the power supply appears to have died and its one of those you cant replace.

That seems a bit odd.    Almost anything is replaceable . . . Perhaps the output voltage or the connector is different from the typical PSUs but with enough effort a replacement could be found. As I understand it, the Vigor 120 needs a PSU that is capable of supplying between 9 - 12V DC at up to 1A.

The official part number is DRAYPSU9B for the V2 Vigor 120 or DRAYPSU9A for the earlier (pre V2) Vigor 120.

[markbarabus]

What i meant to say is its not one of those that you can replace the fuse but yes i can find a complete replacement. I guess i'll see what i can find on ebay and maybe try and pick up a spare router while i'm at it- any recommendations on that front?
Thanks

[markbarabus]

Come to think of it if i got the vigor 120 working again that would solve all my problems as i recall it having a very special feature which allows pppoe to be bridged over pppoa and vise versa. Its been a long time but maybe this is how i had it setup all those years ago and why pppoe worked so well! I think its time i searched ebay for a replacement psu .

The only question then would be stability, how would it compare to the likes of the hg612?

[kitzuser87430]

Ian i'm just curious how do you have that hg635 set up, is it over pppoe?

When connected to the hg612....yes thats what i presume, there's no configuration in the gui at all; it kept dropping every 1-2 mins.

FYI The hg635 is the talk talk super router and i currently use it in router mode (pppoa)

Ian