Ever since I moved to SoCal, I’ve been having problems with my Plex Media Server. I changed ISPs from Spectrum to Frontier mostly to take advantage of the bandwidth, but I’ve run into the problem that when any device not on my home network decides to access my PMS, after a certain period of time the router disconnects from the modem. It also happens when I torrent. The modem does not show any indication that it has lost connection to the ISP. This has caused problems with my main gaming rig, which is running PMS, to disconnect entirely from the internet. I’ve been having this problem for months now and I’m looking for guidance.
If you power cycle the modem and wait a few minutes does it start working again?
I have very similar problems once. If too many external connections tried to come in (e.g. via torrents or Plex) the ISP modem/router would just crap out - fixed by reboot for a random amount time. It took a lot of arguing to get them to replace it, once they did it was perfect. (it wasn’t Frontier though)
I’ve power cycled the modem and router multiple times and it only requires one user to use PMS in order to take out my router completely and this is with a tp link archer ax11000. But once the user disconnects, my router will come on after maybe 10 minutes on its own. I also have a Gigabit Fiber service. Must I use a ISP provided modem, or do I have options? I mean I guess I use an ONT rather than a modem but still
Is your AX1100 v1 or the newer hardware I think they call it v1.6?
I have the v1 and it’s has a buggy chipset, but I’m not saying that’s the problem. The chipset problem I’ve only heard affects WiFi drops.
Your issue sounds like something we can pretty easily log because it’s reproducible. As soon as you get a remote connection it chokes.
There are options to use a Netgear modem and others depending on your exact Fiber setup. Your ISP can advise you on that. I don’t have access to it yet. On Amazon I see them advertised as working with specific fiber services, like XFinity.
I would also ask your ISP if they see anything in their logs at such and such a time and date.
Are you running CAT8 from modem to AX1100? It’s cheap, and the shielding is needed these days to achieve maximum throughput in noisy houses.
Depending on your comfort level, you can put DD WRT on it.
Or you can try to get logs from the AX1100 in real time.
I am trying to reproduce and confirm where the problem is coming from. I downloaded wireshark in hoping to find a tutorial to help me or maybe the little knowledge that I had may light the way, but I’m still not sure. I couldn’t even get a second router started up with my ISP on the phone. The theory was if the the router that I have my PMS connected to went down and the other stayed up, then it’s at the router. If both went down, it’s with the ISP likely at the modem. I’m not too sure if that will help me much, but I am hoping it’s at the router because that I can at least control. I had already tried to contact my ISP about any logs about my network and they can’t even see my network which is odd because I’m using it to write this post.
I can get comfortable with DD-WRT if need be, but shouldn’t i just use something like OpenWRT and PfSense if comes to it?
Yes you could use whatever WRT is the go to choice. I just mentioned DD-WRT off handed after seeing a TP-Link help document mention 3rd party OS can work. I haven’t deployed it in years.
When you ISP said they couldn’t see your network, that just means they can see into their modem, but not past it. You’d just be asking if there’s been any abnormal behavior noted in their logs of your modem performance.
If you are using UPnP, you might disable it and setup static rules, being sure all your servers and routers have static IP addresses.
As far as logging goes, log into the AX1100 web admin, there’s a log section you might be able to leverage, but mine always seems to say very little.
Random thought: Is there a firewall on the router (or on the server, or inbetween) with advanced detection abilities?
I’m asking because the Plex traffic may be mis-categorized by such a firewall as malicious.
But yes, any similar issues reported in the past usually vanished, after switching to one of the alternative Open Source router firmwares.
Good question, I think the OP indicated disabled firewalls on router and device,
but there might be another.
Also we could ask for clarity on this sentence
Sifallout would you explain that in excruciating detail, what you mean by disconnects, and maybe post screenshots of any evidence like error messages?
For example do you mean the link on the port, like the lights go off and you have link down? Or are we talking software routing goes awry? Anything you can think of would be great. What’s your DNS set up like? How about network IPs and subnet? Any VPNs being run?
I doubt the Plex Server debug log would tell us anything except that a request from WAN gets made and then the internet is unreachable after an hour or so.
No, I have disabled every firewall I could and even then Plex creates a firewall rule to be an exception. But I do think that it has something to do with what’s being detected, or perhaps my router freaks out(disconnects from the internet and LED changes to Red) when my IP is dynamically changed by the ISP or maybe an IP is being dynamically changed.
