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Westell 9100EM hanging regularly

I've been chasing this problem for several months to no avail. Even got Verizon to swap the router but it's made no difference.

My problem is that the Westell just hangs and passes no traffic, neither on the wired nor the wireless side. Sometimes it will go for a couple of days, but some days it will hang 4-6 times each day. I have to cycle the power to clear it, then it works fine for a while. I have a number of computers and network devices but don't think I'm doing anything unusual.

I've disabled uPNP and replaced the power adapter. I've looked in the log but don't see anything glaring at me. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of times when it hangs it's right after some sort of streaming has taken place, such as Orb video or audio out to the Internet, or starting a radio stream from the internet. I have FiOS TV and internet, and the Westell is in a normal configuration (i.e. not bridged or anything).

Looking for ideas and/or suggestions on how to narrow down the problem. Thanks!

Comments

Computersteve42

Join the club.

philhu

Call customer service, they will test it, call them when it is hung.

They send you a new one...Voila!

Well, not completely, mine used to hange 1-10 times a day

Now it hangs 1 time or so a week

prisaz

Are any of you running peer to peer applications? Like on line gaming or BitTorrent? With a number of connections it can lock up the router and need a power cycle. Some of the newer routers have solved this issue but it could still happen. No matter how large the NAT table is made. I was never able to fill up the NAT table myself, but now run a linux PC as my primary router, and it shows the number of connections can grow quite large even on some web sites. It would be nice if the router firmware would let you view the NAT table.

Computersteve42

The problem is the firmware on the router here is an example of the router just running with 1 computer connect and no p2p programs open...... here is the system log from a westell 9100em

May 23 09:47:18 2010 System Log Message daemon.warn DNS: unknown PTR name format
[repeated 117 times, last time on May 23 09:59:14 2010] May 23 09:47:18 2010 System Log Message daemon.err Error connecting to host
May 23 09:47:18 2010 System Log Message daemon.info estream_connect_done 38: connection failed
May 23 09:47:18 2010 System Log Message daemon.warn DNS: unknown PTR name format
[repeated 2 times, last time on May 23 09:47:18 2010]

I never saw a router with all these error messages. This problem isn't only specific to the westell but the programmers for the actiontecs firmware were a little bit more sneaky on were they put all these errors that eventually crash and stall the routers. In the actiontec you need to go to the tab system monitoring, then system log, then scroll all the way to the bottom to where it says either advanced system log or show advanced system log i forgot the exact term. There you will see all these error messages that exist on all the verizon supplied routers. Pointing to the point of a coding issue with the firmware they provide. By the way i had a Netgear WNDR3700 which almost has a cpu as powerful as verizon's nexgen routers the actiontec rev.e and soon rev.f and westell 9100em and the wndr3700 with all different p2p activity, streaming netflix and doing other internet task didn't freeze this router and create a drop in connection. Oh and another thing i was talking to a tier 2 tech support person yesterday who informed me that they know about the upnp issues with the westell and windows 7 since about they time windows 7 came out the to the general public. Problem is they still don't have a fix for the issue. Verizon please get your act together.

Zogg

I did call Support but not while the router was hung, and of course they tried to pin the blame on me. I did get a replacement router (another 9100EM) and it exhibits the same behavior.

My son does do a lot of online gaming, but sometimes the hangs occur during the day when he is at school and his computer is off. We do a bit of video streaming but not much, sometimes outbound via Orb but not regularly, and a lot of VPN here. Nothing out of the ordinary IMO.

As I posted in the other thread, I disabled the Westell's wireless network and went back to my old trusty Linksys WRT54G. Since doing that 5 days ago I've had no lockups or problems of any kind. I'm not ready to declare victory yet but so far so good.

The Westell wireless interface works very well and I wish I could just use it, but I can live with this solution. Shouldn't have to though. I suppose the problem could have something to do with VPN but I have no choice but to use it. And if the router isn't hung then VPN works fine, so at this point there's really no reason for me to investigate further.

Jh28wd40

I was able to finally resolve my issue. If your using wireless in your home, you will need to purchase another wireless router and connect it to the Westell. Change the router to another subnet (I.E. If your Westell uses 192.168.1.1, make sure the new router is 192.168.2.1). This change in the subnet will avoid any dhcp issue. For some strange reason the westell cannot handle the wireless data stream and just hangs randomly. You will need to turn WIFI off on the Westell. I did this about 6 months ago, have not had any issues since.

Zogg

I didn't change the subnet on my Linksys wireless router, and disabled DHCP so that all DHCP requests would be handled by the Westell. If I run into more problems I'll do as you did, but so far so good.

It's a shame too, because for the first 6-7 months the Westell worked great and it has a strong Wifi signal. But they must have screwed up the firmware, because it's unusable now.

Computersteve42

Very true. I hope verizon gets there act together and fixes these buggy firmwares. It's not like we pay them a little money.

Computersteve42

I have recently contacted on twitter "FiosTV" I told him about all the issues with the equipment that verizon provides. He responded by saying someone in the internet team would contact me. They did contact me and alerted me that and i quote from the email " I am ill equipped to help you out here. If you want to discuss the finer points of macroblocking, transport stream buffering tactics, search algorithms or jitter... then I am your guy. I have asked that the Internet team contact you directly. Thanks, JA." .

I am now just waiting for someone to contact me. I am really starting to loose faith in this issue being fixed. Coming from being a fios subscriber with the dlink and nim it gets me upset that problems that existed back then still exist. Hopefully this person will keep his word and let the internet team directly contact me. I don't know guys but i will keep you posted.

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