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[kingstonweary]

My (usually) very stable VDSL internet connection dropped out a few days ago and took a lot to get re-established again afterwards!

I've been looking into the problem since, trying to work out what happened.

I found this in the Asus router logs ...

Code: [Select]

Feb 24 11:59:54 pppd[580]: No response to 10 echo-requests
Feb 24 11:59:54 pppd[580]: Serial link appears to be disconnected.
Feb 24 11:59:54 pppd[580]: Connect time 129589.5 minutes.
Feb 24 11:59:54 pppd[580]: Sent 575555972 bytes, received 2943682033 bytes.
Feb 24 12:00:00 pppd[580]: Connection terminated.
Feb 24 12:00:00 pppd[580]: Sent PADT
Feb 24 12:00:00 pppd[580]: Modem hangup
Feb 24 12:00:45 pppd[580]: Timeout waiting for PADO packets
Feb 24 12:02:00 pppd[580]: Timeout waiting for PADO packets
Feb 24 12:02:11 pppd[580]: Unable to complete PPPoE Discovery
Feb 24 12:02:11 pppd[580]: Hangup (SIGHUP)
Feb 24 12:02:11 pppd[580]: Terminating on signal 15
Feb 24 12:02:11 pppd[580]: Exit.

A number of things strike me as a bit odd...

i) this happened at 12:00:00 on a sunday
ii) connect time of "129589.5 minutes" is 89 days, 23 hours, 49.5 minutes - suspiciously close to 90 days!
iii) Timeout waiting for PADO packets - it wouldn't let me just reconnect like a normal disconnect-reconnect
iv) those byte totals look very small for 90 days of traffic - they must have wrapped? (many times?)

Despite rebooting the rooter (from the web interface), power cycling the VDSL (ECI) modem (the DSL sync light was rapidly back on), it didn't want to reconnect again.

I resorted to calling the ISP's support and was told to try their router, which I dug out and after much messing about configuring it again, successfully got it connected.

Going back to the Asus router initially didn't work, until I power cycled that too and then it did.

So I'm left wondering what finally got it reconnected? Was it something the ISP did their end? Did connecting the other router somehow clear up the connection? Was it just the passage of time (it was a good hour or more before it reconnected)? Was it power cycling the Asus router, rather than "soft" rebooting it from the gui?

I wont really know, tbh... But, can anyone shed any light on any of this? in particular...

From what I can tell PADO timeout indicates a problem at the ISP end?

Is it likely that something, somewhere, terminates the session after 90 days? or at exactly 12:00:00 on a sunday?

Is the Asus (Merlin) firmware known for having trouble with PPPoE Discovery?

[vultura]

Welcome to the forum kingstonweary.

I am unable to answer your query, I hope that a member or members with more knowledge than me will be along shortly.

It might be useful to know which model Asus router you have.

[kingstonweary]

The Asus router is an RT-AC56U, with Merlin firmware, but as all of the Asus range are all based on the same firmware (at least as far as the "core", like the ppp daemon), I didn't think that was actually too important here?

[bilbokitz]

What modem ?

[vultura]

What modem ?

ECI FUBr I assume from the 1st post.

[kingstonweary]

yes, ECI Telecom B-FOCuS V-2FUb/r Rev.B - but again, I wouldn't have thought the specifics were important?

if it makes any sort of difference, the ISP is Plusnet 

[banger]

I have had this on an Asus DSL-N55U on a Talk Talk Biz line. My ISP informed me that a Openreach upgrade window is typically midnight to 6am. The fact you couldn't connect for an hour and PADO packets were timing out suggests a network router upgrade (usually takes around an hour) as the edge router makes the RAS unavailable PADO packets are unable to authenticate.

[kingstonweary]

Thanks, that's a possibility, although I think unlikely in this case as it was 12:00 rather than 00:00 and the line test that the ISP did all checked out fine. If there was an maintenance scheduled, you hope that they'd have known/spotted that.

[vultura]

If there was an maintenance scheduled, you hope that they'd have known/spotted that.

Well you did say you were on PlusNet......

 

[22over7]

My ASUS router (RT-N66U, merlin) quite often seems to drop its PPP connection.  About 15 times this February so far. The modem never seems to lose sync.
(Usually there's just a little kerfuffle in the logs, and then a new PPP session.)

Every now and then (every couple of months?) there are successive PADO time-outs: the last was on the 15th Jan just after 1am.   

I keep an eye on the link https://status.zen.co.uk/broadband/outages.aspx?number=01314 (My phone number starts with 01314.)
Zen seem to be unique among ISPs in posting this kind of information. Sure enough, some (though by no means all) of my PPP drops fall into a window
when "our suppliers" are doing something that might affect my connection.

My line seems to have a fair bit of packet loss (at least, to Thinkbroadband's BQM pings), though is otherwise pretty good.
There's an inconclusive thread about it a few weeks ago here: https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,23026.msg390824.html#msg390824.
I've no real theory about it, and am never really inconvenienced by it, but have a tentative suspicion that the reason my PPP sessions sporadically disappear is somehow connected with this packet loss.
(Another suspicion is that my elderly router, with it's ancient version of merlin's firmware, is beginning to pine for the fjords...)

[vultura]

My ASUS router (RT-N66U, merlin) quite often seems to drop its PPP connection.  About 15 times this February so far. The modem never seems to lose sync.
(Usually there's just a little kerfuffle in the logs, and then a new PPP session.)

Every now and then (every couple of months?) there are successive PADO time-outs: the last was on the 15th Jan just after 1am.   

I've no real theory about it, and am never really inconvenienced by it, but have a tentative suspicion that the reason my PPP sessions sporadically disappear is somehow connected with this packet loss.
(Another suspicion is that my elderly router, with it's ancient version of merlin's firmware, is beginning to pine for the fjords...)

I have never checked the logs on my N66U, not had a need to I guess.

Sure enough there are timeouts this week, tuesday and today, both at times which match with a rise (tues) and drop (today) of modem sync speed.

There is a fork of the Merlin firmware which is still maintained - https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-asuswrt-merlin-374-43-lts-releases-v37ea.18914/ - note I have not tried this firmware myself.

[22over7]

There is a fork of the Merlin firmware which is still maintained - https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-asuswrt-merlin-374-43-lts-releases-v37ea.18914/ - note I have not tried this firmware myself.

Thanks. I'm currently running 374.43_2-11E1j9527, which seems to be from  early 2015. "It works", for some value of "works".
Nowadays, it seems quite intimidating even to figure out what to upgrade to.

[vultura]

Thanks. I'm currently running 374.43_2-11E1j9527, which seems to be from  early 2015. "It works", for some value of "works".
Nowadays, it seems quite intimidating even to figure out what to upgrade to.

Released yesterday -

Update-38E3/38L3
Merlin fork 374.43_38E3j9527

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-asuswrt-merlin-374-43-lts-releases-v38e3.18914/page-453#post-469232


I have Merlin 380.68 installed on mine.