Network dropouts using V Portal

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 17, 2008 Posts: 5

Have seen some similar posts but no definitive answer, rather than hijack someone elses thread I thought I would start my own.

Have been a Comcast Broadband customer for many years. Have a Motorola SB5100 modem and a Linksys BEFSR41 router. It worked flawlessly.

I recently signed up for Vonage and got the V Portal VDV21-VD unit.
Installed it between the Modem and router and was up and running in 15 minutes. Very Cool

However, sporadically my computers will lose internet access. Sometimes once per week or more often. Ipconfig /release and /renew doens't work. Only a complete power down of all three, modem, Vportal and router seems to work, and sometimes it takes a couple of cycles.

Anyone know whats going on?

Posts: 830 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 830

Some (including me) have tried to help troubleshoot this problem. In the thread http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic21834.html, it was STARTING to appear that after the intial lease by the ISP, V-Portal was not renewing the lease. However, the individual with the problem has not re-posted as to any improvement or resolution to his problem.

To further understand what the problem is, I would access the V-Portal and make a note of when the lease expires. Typically, a DHCP client will start to try to renew the lease at 50% of the time initially set in the lease, so if 12 hours, the client will start renewing at 6 hours.

After the 50% time has elapsed, check to see if the lease expiriation has changed/renewed.

If and when you lose internet, check the lease again,you most probably will see no gatewy entries, no IP adddress assigned, etc.

If this is the case, the V-Portal is having difficulty negotiating a new lease.

The question then is, this an ISP issue or a V-Portal issue.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 17, 2008 Posts: 5

Here is the info from the V portal.
Looks to me if I am reading this right the lease expires in 1.25 hours
from now, I rebooted about 2 hrs ago. So I should see this time change in the next hour or so.
If not, I won't be connected at 12:44???

Will keep an eye on it.

Hardware Version: 1111
Software Version: 2.7.5-0.1.1
Internet Status: Connected
Ethernet Status: Connected
Current Time: Sun Feb 17 11:17:38 2008
Phone 1: Enabled
Phone 2: Disabled
Configuration Server: Device negotiated with the configuration server successfully.
Parental Control: Disabled

Internet Connection Status

IP Address: 24.91.9.44
MAC Address: 00:06:25:5b:36:04 (cloned)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.254.0
Default Gateway: 24.91.8.1
Duration: D: 00 H: 02 M: 00 S: 00
Expires: Sun Feb 17 12:44:53 2008
DNS Servers 68.87.71.226
68.87.73.242

DHCP Clients
MAC Address IP Address Duration Expires
0006255b3604 192.168.15.2 D:07 H:00 M:00 S:00 Sun Feb 24 09:54:43 2008

Posts: 830 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 830

Some (including me) have tried to help troubleshoot this problem. In the thread http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic21834.html, it was STARTING to appear that after the intial lease by the ISP, V-Portal was not renewing the lease. However, the individual with the problem has not re-posted as to any improvement or resolution to his problem.

To further understand what the problem is, I would access the V-Portal and make a note of when the lease expires. Typically, a DHCP client will start to try to renew the lease at 50% of the time initially set in the lease, so if 12 hours, the client will start renewing at 6 hours.

After the 50% time has elapsed, check to see if the lease expiriation has changed/renewed.

If and when you lose internet, check the lease again,you most probably will see no gatewy entries, no IP adddress assigned, etc.

If this is the case, the V-Portal is having difficulty negotiating a new lease.

The question then is, this an ISP issue or a V-Portal issue.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 17, 2008 Posts: 5

Looks like it successfully renewed it lease this time.
Guess I have to wait for it to stop working to get more info.

Thanks for your help.

Status

This section will allow you to view the router's status and configuration.
About this Device
Your Vonage device is a single port router with 2 phone lines.
Status

Hardware Version: 1111
Software Version: 2.7.5-0.1.1
Internet Status: Connected
Ethernet Status: Connected
Current Time: Sun Feb 17 11:54:11 2008
Phone 1: Enabled
Phone 2: Disabled
Configuration Server: Device negotiated with the configuration server successfully.
Parental Control: Disabled

Internet Connection Status

IP Address: 24.91.9.44
MAC Address: 00:06:25:5b:36:04 (cloned)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.254.0
Default Gateway: 24.91.8.1
Duration: D: 00 H: 02 M: 00 S: 00
Expires: Sun Feb 17 13:44:55 2008
DNS Servers 68.87.71.226
68.87.73.242

DHCP Clients
MAC Address IP Address Duration Expires
0006255b3604 192.168.15.2 D:07 H:00 M:00 S:00 Sun Feb 24 09:54:43 2008

Posts: 15 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 11, 2008 Posts: 15

I am having the same problem (posted in another thread). My lease is only for an hour. Sometimes I lose internet near the expiration, other times it may last for 2-4 hours. And it will usually last all night at idle. Seems to lose internet the more pc use there is. I also get an Error Code 004 on the adapter occasionally. I will try Vonage tech support again today and report back any help to this problem.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 17, 2008 Posts: 5

Thanks, I did see your other thread.
I also have occasionally gotten error code 4.

Let me know if you discover anything.

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 26, 2008 Posts: 111

Just some random thoughts here. Not sure what may apply.
Is DHCP disabled in the Linksys? I assume the Vonage device is supplying same... Otherwise you got two chiefs and no indians here.

Is this Vonage device even capable of being the front man for this entire operation?

Now my situation is different in that I don't have a modem. Mine is FIOS and there is this ONT (Optical Network Terminal) on the outside of the house and out from there coming into the house they ran a cat5e that feeds directly into the WAN port of the Actiontec gateway. Now while my Vonage device (D-Link VTA voice and fax lines) can work when this WAN feed is plugged directly into it, even if it had an Ethernet out on it I wouldn't dream of letting it be the first device in the chain. It plugs into one of the Ethernet ports on the Actiontec and works like a charm. (Now if I could just get it to work like a Voip device. LOL -- Just kidding. Heh Heh. )

I had no other means of phoning and got to thinking that if my Vonage device ever quit I would have maybe an awful time getting a replacement from Vonage without being able to call in, so started thinking about a third line through a different adapter. I ended up going with [ahem] L**** because I liked their international plan and remembered how Vonage gave me a hard time when I asked them why they didn't have local calling to Australia back then. ("OOHHH NO!! The Latency will just KILL you DEAD!")

Now this unnamed other company had a similar situation where they tell you that to get proper calling priority you need to put their device ahead of all the others. I went around and around with tech support and said that no way was I going to put that little toy box in front of my gateway operating at 15/15megs. Either it was going to work as a mere device like my puter is -- fed by an Ethernet port and yet can still peg the meters where you go to do a speed test, or they were going to get their widdle box back pronto.

I finally got an emal back telling me that they didn't think I was going to have any problems. Now here is what I have, and why I wrote all the above. My situation is Actiontec gateway feeding two computers, my Vonage device, and my Linksys BEFSR41. The Linksys is configured as a switch instead of router and it feeds two more puters and that other guy's Voip device. (And no, I wasn't going to bump the Vonage device down stream and put the newer device in its place. My Vonage device had already proven itself to work way down stream and fed by the Linksys, and the new kid had better as well.) Then as soon as I got it installed I called down to the lowest part of Australia (Tasmania) and chatted with someone in the public library and asked for a brutally honest assessment of the quality of the call. He said it sounded like I was calling from next door. LOL

My guess is if your Linksys was acting as your router then let it be so, and put everything to its south, including the Vonage thingy after resetting it to be slave -- not da massa of everything you own. And tell Vonage and anybody else who says they can't configure their apparatus to function as good as your computer does when plugged in next door to it, that then they need to go back to the drawing board. Shame on you

Posts: 830 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 830

"Just some random thoughts here. Not sure what may apply.
Is DHCP disabled in the Linksys? I assume the Vonage device is supplying same... Otherwise you got two chiefs and no indians here. "
Only if they are on the same subnet.

My guess is if your Linksys was acting as your router then let it be so, and put everything to its south, including the Vonage thingy after resetting it to be slave

You can put the Vonage ATA before or after a router. However, if after, you lose the built in QOS for the phone. May not be a problem, may be.

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 26, 2008 Posts: 111

ed56 wrote:

"Just some random thoughts here. Not sure what may apply.
Is DHCP disabled in the Linksys? I assume the Vonage device is supplying same... Otherwise you got two chiefs and no indians here. "
Only if they are on the same subnet.

On mine everything is. I could have set the Linksys up as a separate DHCP device and gained an extra port, but things didn't seem to work as well.

You can put the Vonage ATA before or after a router. However, if after, you lose the built in QOS for the phone. May not be a problem, may be.

No way to put a D-Link VTA ahead of a router, unless they have two different models that is. Mine has no Internet out jack. It is designed to be fed from an Ethernet port on a router only. They HAD BETTER be able to adjust QOS from there, cuz that's the only place it CAN get fed from. And if they can adjust my D-Link's QOS behind a router why should it be so hard to do it with some other device?