ER706W-4G - Problems pinging devices on local network
ER706W-4G - Problems pinging devices on local network
Hello, we bought the new router ER706W-4G. After installing I have problems pinging my devices after several minutes of inactivity (payment terminal, thermal printer, other printers). It looks like these devices go in sort of sleeping mode and then some pings don't work.
When using the ISP modem directly, I don't have this issues. It's only with the router. All devices are connected directly to the router with cable.
I already configured a different subnet, did IP mac binding, and for the rest I am just using the default router settings in a simple network setup.
An example of ping:
PING 192.168.25.5 (192.168.25.5): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
64 bytes from 192.168.25.5: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=100.129 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.25.5: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=81.342 ms
It's mostly the first 3 pings that don't work (after several minutes of inactivity).
Our POS system gives errors because it cannot find the terminal or printer. After several tries it works, but it is not ideal.
So for now we changed back to our ISP modem, but we hope on using the router soon because we want to have control over the network.
Someone any idea what the problem is? Is it a problem because it is a new router? I also tried the latest firmware, but it didn't fix the issue.
Many thanks!
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Hi @nui_p
Thanks for posting in our business forum.
This is not a problem with the router.
If your device enters sleep mode after a while, you should turn off the battery saving or any green mode.
It is a router that just sends and forwards the network frames to the destination and it is not involved in your power-related or sleep/hibernate-related things.
As long as the ping to the gateway is okay, LAN 192.168.0.1, default, it indicates it is working fine.
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Hey, thanks for the fast replay.
I think I didn't express myself clearly enough.
I don't mean they are going into sleep mode. It 'feels like' they go in a sort of sleep mode.
These are business devices that need to be accessable all the time (payment terminal, thermal printer).
I'm 100% sure it is a problem with the router, because with another router (or the default ISP modem) I don't have this problem. So it's not the device that is going into sleep.
The ping just feels like it is in sort of sleep after some inactivity.
We really tried everything (with terminal expert, netwerk experts, and POS system expert), just to conclude I went back to the simple ISP modem to fix the problem... So pretty sure there is some sort of bug in the new router, or another default setting I don't know of that is causing the problem.
I really would like to use the router because of the 4G option, so would be nice to see an option to debug this.
Is there any possibility that the router ignores the first 3 pings after some inactivity?
Thanks for checking again. If you need some more information, please ask!
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Hi @nui_p
Thanks for posting in our business forum.
nui_p wrote
Hey, thanks for the fast replay.
I think I didn't express myself clearly enough.
I don't mean they are going into sleep mode. It 'feels like' they go in a sort of sleep mode.
These are business devices that need to be accessable all the time (payment terminal, thermal printer).
I'm 100% sure it is a problem with the router, because with another router (or the default ISP modem) I don't have this problem. So it's not the device that is going into sleep.
The ping just feels like it is in sort of sleep after some inactivity.
We really tried everything (with terminal expert, netwerk experts, and POS system expert), just to conclude I went back to the simple ISP modem to fix the problem... So pretty sure there is some sort of bug in the new router, or another default setting I don't know of that is causing the problem.
I really would like to use the modem because of the 4G option, so would be nice to see an option to debug this.
Is there any possibility that the router ignores the first 3 pings after some inactivity?
Thanks for checking again. If you need some more information, please ask!
So, your ICMP seems to be done on macOS? Maybe it is your system? Have you done it on a Windows?
TBH, I haven't encountered any problems during the years of testing with the ping. Never experienced any ping problems like this. I am confident that it is rare to be the router problem. I indeed faced ping problems before and I was pretty sure that was either my mistake or misconfig. If they are through, they work well.
I was also in the alpha test with ER706W-4G with my Windows 10, 11, and Linux VM. And with the very early firmware which was never public and during the test I did with it, I did not experience the same issue over the VPN tunnels and LAN.
If you are looking for further troubleshooting, run two computers on the router, not switch, ping each other, and monitor if there is any loss. If there is no loss, then you cannot say it is the problem with the router. Pick one of your payment devices, repeat the test. Stop pinging and start again after a while to repeat and see if you can steadily reproduce the problem.
I also recommended you ping the gateway to monitor if there is any loss, that was not answered but with a statement that you asserted it is not a problem with the devices yet the router.
You probably should show your diagram, too.
Please mosaic your sensitive information. Here is a list of information considered sensitive:
1. Public IP address on your WAN if your WAN is.
2. Real MAC address of your device.
3. Your personal information including address, domain name, and credentials.
For troubleshooting purposes, when a WAN IP is needed, please leave some values visible for identification.
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@Clive_A
Thanks again for the fast reply.
We did a lot of testing already. I'm indeed pinging from my macbook, because that was the most easy way to test.
But we have the same ping problem when pinging from Windows (our POS system. After 5 / 10 mins the devices don't react anymore and printing a ticket, or doing a payment give an error the first time. When I cancel the transaction and do it again, then it works. I see the same results when doing simple pings in Windows Terminal - first 3 pings fails, then succeed) to the payment terminal, thermal printer, label printer after some inactivity. I have a feeling it only happens with these kind of devices. But it only happens with this router, not with another router, and not when directly connected to ISP modem which is indeed very strange! We are already in business for 4 years. We changed to this router because we wanted 4G backup, and control over the network within the Omada system.
The most basic setup we already tested with, and also encounter the problem:
Router:
LAN: Payment terminal
LAN: Thermal printer
LAN: Windows PC (POS)
No other devices connected.
Default settings of the router (no omada controller).
I think pinging the router itself works fine (I'll test it later today when in the business). That's the weird part, I THINK it only happens with devices like the payment terminal, thermal printer, label printer.
I'll keep you posted later today.
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Sounds like it could be an ARP cache issue. Printers don't tend to 'speak' unless they are spoken to so there's no traffic from them to keep the ARP cache entry updated.
Could be that the ARP cache timout is longer on your ISP router and so you dont see the problem unless the printer isnt used for a very long time.
@Clive_A what is the ARP cache timeout on the 7206 ? can it be changed ? can a static ARP entry be set using /etc/ethers ?
If the 7206 is based on an early version of Openwrt (like other models) then the ARP cache may well be defaulted to around 30 seconds.
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Thank you for thinking with me! That sounds indeed like a possible problem.
I tried SSH into the router and was able to find the config menu. These are my options:
(config)#help
Commands available:
help Show available commands
exit Exit from current mode
show system-info Display system information.
show history Display command history.
show monitor session Display session information.
show interface status Display interface status information.
show interface switchport Display interface switch port information.
show interface vlan Display interface VLAN information.
show arp Display ARP entry information.
show vlan Display VLAN information.
show vlan summary Display summary of VLAN information.
show ikev1 policy Display ikev1 module entry information.
show ikev2 policy Display ikev2 module entry information.
show transform-set Display transform-set module entry information.
show crypto map Display map module entry information.
show crypto ipsec sa Display the SA information of the established IPSec.
show all ikev1 policy Display all ikev1 module entry information.
show all ikev2 policy Display all ikev2 module entry information.
show all transform-set Display all transform-set module entry information.
show all crypto map Display all map module entry information.
show access-list Display entry information of ACL rules.
show system-time Display system time.
show system-time ntp Display system NTP server address.
show time-range Display time-range module entry information.
show ip rip Display RIP interface information.
show ip ospf Display ospf information.
show ip ospf database Display the database information of OSPF.
show ip ospf neighbor Display OSPF neighbor table information.
show ip ospf interface Display the interface information of OSPF.
show ip route static Display entry information of static IP route.
show ip dhcp server pool View DHCP server address pool.
show ip dhcp server status Check DHCP server status.
show ip http configuration Display http configuration.
show network Display OSPF network information.
show nat virtual-server Display the entry information of NAT virtual-server.
show nat one-to-one Display the entry information of one-to-one NAT.
show nat alg Display the entry information of NAT ALG.
show dhcp server Display DHCP server information.
show dhcp server client-list View DHCP server client information
show dhcp relay Display DHCP relay information.
show snmp-server Display SNMP server configuration.
show ssh configuration Display SSH configuration information.
clear history Clear previously run commands.
monitor session port Set the observation port number.
monitor session source port Set the mirrored port number.
monitor session enable Turn on port mirroring.
monitor session ingress Observe the received data stream.
monitor session egress Observe the sent data stream.
monitor session both Observe the number of received and sent data streams.
no monitor session Disable port mirroring or delete monitor session/monitor session source port.
no monitor session source port Delete monitor session source port.
no monitor session enable Disable port mirroring.
no vlan Delete VLAN.
no crypto ikev1 policy Delete the ikev1 module entry.
no crypto ikev2 policy Delete the ikev2 module entry.
no crypto transform-set Remove the transform-set module entry.
no crypto map Delete the map module entry.
no access-list ip Delete the name of the ACL rule.
no time-range Remove the time-range entry.
no router rip Disable RIP.
no router ospf Disable OSPF.
no ip route Remove IP route entry.
no ip dhcp server pool Delete the DHCP server address pool.
no ip http server redirect-to-https Cancel http-to-https auto redirection.
no ip http secure-server Disable https service.
no nat alg Delete NAT ALG entry.
no nat virtual-server Delete NAT virtual-server entry.
no nat one-to-one Delete one-to-one NAT entry.
no service dhcp server Turn off DHCP.
no snmp-server v3 enable Reset SNMP v3 configuration.
no snmp-server v1-v2c enable Disable SNMP version 1 and version 2.
no snmp-server v1-v2c contact Reset the contact information of the SNMP server.
no snmp-server v1-v2c host Reset the host information of the SNMP server.
no snmp-server v1-v2c device-name Reset the device name information of the SNMP server.
no snmp-server v1-v2c location Reset the location information of the SNMP server.
no snmp-server v1-v2c community Reset the community information of the SNMP server.
no ssh server Disable SSH service.
interface vlan Enter interface mode by vlan id
interface switchport Enter interface mode by port
vlan Create new VLAN.
router vlan Enter VLAN view.
router rip Enable RIP and enter RIP view.
router ospf Enable OSPF and enter OSPF view.
crypto ikev1 policy Create a new ikev1 module entry.
crypto ikev2 policy Create a new ikev2 module entry.
crypto ipsec transform-set New transform-set module entry.
crypto map Create a map module entry.
access-list ip rule deny Deny access, configure ACL related information.
access-list ip rule permit Allow access and configure ACL related information.
system-time manual Manually set the system time.
system-time ntp timezone ntp-server1 Set preferred NTP server address
system-time ntp timezone ntp-server1 ntp-server2 Set the secondary NTP server address
local-user username password Set local user password.
time-range week-date time-slice Configure time-range time.
ip route Add IP route.
ip dhcp server pool Create a DHCP server address pool and enter the DHCP configuration view.
ip http port Set http port number.
ip http server redirect-to-https Set http-to-https auto redirection.
ip http secure-port Set https port number.
ip http secure-server Enable https server.
ip http session timeout Set http session timeout.
nat alg Turn on a NAT ALG function.
nat virtual-server Create NAT virtual-server.
nat one-to-one Create one-to-one NAT.
service dhcp server Enable DHCP.
snmp-server v3 username password enable Enable SNMP server v3.
snmp-server v1-v2c enable Enable SNMP version 1 and version 2.
snmp-server v1-v2c contact Set SNMP server contact.
snmp-server v1-v2c host Set SNMP server host.
snmp-server v1-v2c device-name Set SNMP server device name.
snmp-server v1-v2c location Set SNMP server location.
snmp-server v1-v2c community Set SNMP server community.
ssh server Enable SSH service.
I don't really find an option to check the ARP timeout cache.
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but there IS a 'show arp' command which I'm guessing will show the arp cache entries.
It would be interesting to see if there are entries for the printers before and after trying the ping command
If there's a change in the entries for the printers, then you could try repeating the show arp command and see if/when the entries disappear!
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Thanks for the reply.
When doing a simple ping from local computer to the printer (or terminal), the ARP list is not updated (even if the ping is successful).
When doing a ping from router to printer (or terminal), the ARP list is updated and the printer is visible in the ARP list:
It dissapears again after about 3-5 minutes.
IP-MAC binding was already tested as mentioned in my first post. Then the IP+MAC is visible all the time in the ARP list with the type "Local" instead of "Dynamic". But that didn't help.
A possible solution that seems to be working: cron job that pings the printer / terminal every 2 minutes, but this can't be a long term fix for me.
Is there a way to change the ARP cache timeout of the router to see if that's the problem?
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When doing a simple ping from local computer to the printer (or terminal), the ARP list is not updated (even if the ping is successful).
When doing a ping from router to printer (or terminal), the ARP list is updated and the printer is visible in the ARP list:
Thinking about it a bit more, that's sort of to be expected, pinging the printer from the local pc will cause the pc to update ITS arp cache and not neccessarily the routers although any reply from the printer will be seen by the router.
Does the fact that the router doesnt have an arp entry for the printer definitely correspond with not being able to print ?
What protocol is being used to print ?
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