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Author Topic: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A  (Read 5994 times)

Weaver

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2018, 01:00:38 AM »

I do not understand. It has worked fine before using the exact same setup, using Safari and this emergency recovery mechanism. No wireless involved as far as the modem knows. :-)

Or have i misunderstood? :-)
« Last Edit: July 19, 2018, 01:03:27 AM by Weaver »
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burakkucat

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2018, 01:16:36 AM »

I appreciate that it worked previously but I am surprised that it did so. It is the transit through the switch (or Firebrick or other intermediate LAN gubbins) that is causing the problem.

If (and I know your situation does not allow it) the VMG1312-B10A could be connected from its LAN1 port to any simple computer's NIC port via an Ethernet patch cable and the computer's NIC port is assigned a static IPv4 address in the 192.168.1.X sub-net (anything from 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.254) there should be no problem.

Rather than banging your head against the wall (and disturbing the sleeping kittehs), why not accept the offer that (I understand) has been made by fellow Kitizen johnson?
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johnson

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #17 on: July 19, 2018, 01:21:41 AM »

I guess there is no reason it shouldn't work over a switch and access point, as you have proven before, as long as there are no interfering DHCP servers and the addresses do not conflict.

I had thought maybe the "192.168.1.99" was the problem (the bootloader suggests the host should be 192.168.1.100) but I have just tried with my 1312 and the recovery page is still accessible from a machine with 192.168.1.99 address just fine.

What does the rest of your address space look like Weaver? I guess switches are pretty agnostic to different subnets, but what about the wireless access point?

It certainly adds some unknowns and possible faults. A direct connection would be the first thing I'd try to rule them out, though I guess thats easier said than done with your setup.

Edit: and of course the offer still stands if posting isn't a problem  :). I would say though, lightning to ethernet adapters can be had for around £10 and might prove useful for other scenarios as well.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2018, 01:26:11 AM by johnson »
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Weaver

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #18 on: July 19, 2018, 02:08:37 AM »

> It is the transit through the switch (or Firebrick or other intermediate LAN gubbins) that is causing the problem.

I am missing something in what Burakkucat is saying. Everyone who uses an access point and an ethernet switch has the same setup. Switches just forward packets and so do access points and do not cause problems normally. The switch passes packets reliably all the time and so does the AP, it is used routinely for all LAN and internet traffic with no evidence of problems and the emergency recovery thing is no different to anything else in ethernet terms, and it worked before, but my software has changed on the iOS device and in the modem. The switch and WAP are not L3 devices: they have no knowledge of eg IP and just handle any ethernet frames agnostic wrt ethertype as far as I am aware.

The modem when set up as it was went through the main LAN switch, if you thought for some reason that my main HP switch were broken then I could bypass it by going straight into the WAP.

There is no reason why any piece of converter electronics should be more reliable than a WAP that I use every day all day. I could swap the AP and the switch out if there were evidence of general problems.

The value .99 was just something I made up, I used various values, anything that was unique so as not to collide and was in the correct /24 assuming that that was what the modem was expecting (not a /16 as specced for RFC1918).

My feeling is that I have already proven that this is all down to long-term bugs in Safari and possibly some other bugs besides. The fact that the web page appearance is different between the two web browsers iCab (partial, corrupted) Safari (no page) is the basis for this.

Burakkucat is right, there is little point in me killing myself over this, and getting into more trouble with Mrs Weaver hiring her to swap cables around.

I would love to take Johnson up on his more than kind offer. Burakkucat has helped me to set the forum's messaging system flags correctly so johnson should now be able to PM me.
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burakkucat

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #19 on: July 19, 2018, 04:11:49 PM »

I was trying to make it clear that the Broadcom boot-loader firmware-update page should be regarding as something "special". It is a situation where VMG1312-B10A is not in its normal mode of operation.

I have no problem with your LAN configuration when the VMG1312-B10A has been allowed to boot normally.
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Weaver

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #20 on: August 03, 2018, 05:40:25 PM »

Now fixed, after inspection by our very own Johnson.
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burakkucat

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #21 on: August 03, 2018, 07:22:51 PM »

It's good to know that the problem has now been resolved.  :)
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banger

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #22 on: August 03, 2018, 08:49:08 PM »

Perhaps Johnson could report on his findings?
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Tim
talktalkbusiness.net & freenetname
Asus RT-AC68U and ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A Bridge on 80 Meg TTB Fibre

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1502566996147131655

Weaver

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #23 on: August 04, 2018, 02:56:53 AM »

It was basically a no fault found. The thing had stopped sulking by the time our good friend got it. I was so utterly stupid, that despite Burakkucat’s telling me to give it a five minute no-power siesta, I was in such a muddle that I forgot to do this essential recheck later on, before my wife posted it to johnson. Duh. What a moron. There was also a lot of buggy stuff going on with iPad Safari and manually configured RFC1918 IPv4 addresses plus no dhcp server - a combination that seems to create all kinds of screwy behaviour with Safari. That all added yet more chaos into the mix too.
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Weaver

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #24 on: August 07, 2018, 01:50:49 AM »

Johnson spotted something in my config. There is something odd about it, to do with interface groups or the lack of them. It may be that the device as configured does not work properly if the ethernet cable to the router is plugged into LAN4 so if this theory is correct, it was just bad luck before, due to janet picking socket LAN4 without us realising the significance of it.
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johnson

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #25 on: August 07, 2018, 02:06:14 AM »

It does seems like this may be the culprit.

For some reason Weavers base config, a slightly modified one from AAISP, has the default interface group missing LAN4.

For reference heres mine:


Notice LAN1 is missing from the Default group as its assigned to the VDSL connection, in Weavers the Default list is missing LAN4, but with no second group owning it.

Maybe this is due to a previous other interface group that has since been removed? Not sure.

LAN4 is also non functional when attempting to access the recovery page after booting into recovery mode. With a serial console attached plugging in a cable to LAN4 results in messages saying the port has been disabled.

This would seem to explain both the loss of connectivity to the normal web interface and the problems accessing the recovery page. But as Weaver says, still just a theory, I guess a test with one of the currently functional modems changing the cable to LAN4 would be a good way to prove or disprove.


Edit: In case its useful as the labels are tiny and virtually impossible to see if you have the unit wall mounted, LAN4 is the furthest from power in and closest to the phone cable in.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2018, 02:24:47 AM by johnson »
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Weaver

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #26 on: August 07, 2018, 06:48:18 AM »

Guys, should we try and fix this?
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banger

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #27 on: August 07, 2018, 02:29:03 PM »

Mine appears to have the LAN group including all LAN sockets, maybe an AA foible?
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Tim
talktalkbusiness.net & freenetname
Asus RT-AC68U and ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A Bridge on 80 Meg TTB Fibre

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1502566996147131655

j0hn

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #28 on: August 07, 2018, 02:34:41 PM »

Guys, should we try and fix this?

Fix what?

Quote
For some reason Weavers base config, a slightly modified one from AAISP, has the default interface group missing LAN4.

Just don't use any AA settings. You have modified firmware and won't be relying on AA for updating your modem.

Most people make an effort to remove any ISP config from their Zyxel modem. As you bought these retail I have no idea how you have for AA settings in amongst your config.
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Weaver

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Re: Bricked (semi) ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A
« Reply #29 on: August 07, 2018, 04:13:32 PM »

I should have looked at the standard default config that the brand new ones come with, for inspiration.

Rationale: not entirely rational. [Remember I am completely full of drugs.  ??? ]

I bought one from AA ages ago when they still had some stock and that was really cheap. I specifically wanted to use the AA config, although with Burakkucat’s help I did disable the TR-069 remote updating, because as you said, I have custom firmware.

AA staff did the donkey work so that it just worked immediately out of the box in modem-only mode as I asked, as they set up the basic ADSL settings.

I also have a slightly tuned config in other respects: (1i) going on a tip from Burakkucat, I have locked it to G.992.3 only, disabling auto-mode because I do not want it to select G.992.5. This optimistic tweak is in hope of slightly higher performance by reducing the input frequency range window and so reducing the total noise ingested. That is the idea, but it does not seem to deliver any improvements from the evidence of experiments. Since it doesn't hurt, I have kept it in though. (2) I also have slightly reduced overhead by changing from RFC2684 LLC to the more efficient VC-MUX, which I can safely do because I am not on 20CN whereas AA would have to do two configurations.

I hoped I could get internet access to the modem going, behind my usual firewalling, but have not got that far. I wanted to get NTP to work and DNS and also ideally I wanted to make it really easy for AA staff to directly log in and have a peep at stats without me having to dig them out and send them to AA, cutting out the round trip. For that reason I wanted some other AA customisations such as correct IP addresses set for AA's NTP server, DNS servers etc.
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